Abstract
The word meter means variously “poetic metre, measure, rule, length, size.” And while some theorists of poetic rhythm and meter have preferred the term prosody because it emphasizes poetry’s connection with song and music, rather than with measurement, it is precisely the measuring imperative of meter that has proved to be among the most enduring and contested aspects of poetic practice and criticism. This chapter explores how English metrics is a study grounded in the tradition of Pythagoras, in mathematical laws, formulas, and computational exercises. In a manner of speaking, meter is mathematics.
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Hall, J.D. (2021). Mathematics and Poetic Meter. In: Tubbs, R., Jenkins, A., Engelhardt, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55478-1_11
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