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Poetic Meter and Poetic Form
Excerpts from distinctive poems illustrate the author's appreciation of the metrical and formal aspects of poetry
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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About the author
Paul Fussell
56 books133 followersPaul Fussell was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings covered a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America’s class system. He was an U.S. Army Infantry officer in the European theater during World War II (103rd U.S. Infantry Division) and was awarded both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He is best known for his writings about World War I and II.
He began his teaching career at Connecticut College (1951–55) before moving to Rutgers University in 1955 and finally the University of Pennsylvania in 1983. He also taught at the University of Heidelberg (1957–58) and King’s College London (1990–92). As a teacher, he traveled widely with his family throughout Europe during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, taking Fulbright and sabbatical years in Germany, England and France.
He began his teaching career at Connecticut College (1951–55) before moving to Rutgers University in 1955 and finally the University of Pennsylvania in 1983. He also taught at the University of Heidelberg (1957–58) and King’s College London (1990–92). As a teacher, he traveled widely with his family throughout Europe during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, taking Fulbright and sabbatical years in Germany, England and France.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
May 12, 2014
As a novice to the study of meter and form, I found this book interesting, accessible and illuminating. I haven't enough knowledge on the subject yet to agree or disagree with him point by point, but his passion for the study reads clear and his articulation of the ideas becomes quickly lucid. I would equate him with a professor who introduces his students to a new discipline and rather than bore them with academese, he sparks their interest with his enthusiasm and intelligence.
Read
January 6, 2015Revisiting the classic! Worth the respect due our elders, who will always have worked harder than we and proceeded more responsibly in structuring knowledge.
That said, I did laugh at a number of lines--PF is quite witty, yes, but I laughed as much at some of the sheer pluck of schematic meaning assignation and then of concomitant evaluative gouging: "What he produces is very nice, but his stanza surely lacks the dense organism that attaches to a permanent poem."
What intrigues me here is the sense that a relationship to meter and form is a relationship both to PERMANENCE and meaningfulness in the world. He actually says that excellence of formal technique rescues "poems from oblivion" (154). As an amateur theologian, I find this difficult to believe.
And I'm not the only one bringing up theology here: on the departure from standard forms in 20th century literature, even Fussell gets almost theological: "Some kind of meaningful repetition would seem to be required to save a poem from oblivion. The challenge to contemporary poetry would seem to be a pair of unhappy alternatives; either to contrive new schemes of empirically meaningful repetition that reflects and--more importantly--transmit the color of contemporary experience; or to recover schemes that have reflected the experience of the past. To do the first would be to imply that contemporary experience has a pattern, a point that most post-Christian thinkers would deny. To do the second would be to suggest that the past can be recaptured, to suggest that the intolerable fractures and dislocations of modern history have not really occurred at all, or, what is worse, to suggest that they may have occurred but that poetry should act as if they have not. between these two demands of accuracy of registration on the one hand, and aesthetic organization, on the other, we seem to find no technique of RECONCILIATION: we yield now to the one demand, now to the other, producing at times a formless and artistically incoherent reflection--accurate in its way--of some civil or social or psychological reality, and at times a shapely and coherent work of art which is necessarily an inexact report on the state of affairs, not to mention the state of language and meaning and coherence in our time. . . .What is wanted is the sort of reconciliation between them that could be effected by another Yeats" (152-153).
I'm after reconciliation, too. Of another sort, I expect. The reader's, too.
That said, I did laugh at a number of lines--PF is quite witty, yes, but I laughed as much at some of the sheer pluck of schematic meaning assignation and then of concomitant evaluative gouging: "What he produces is very nice, but his stanza surely lacks the dense organism that attaches to a permanent poem."
What intrigues me here is the sense that a relationship to meter and form is a relationship both to PERMANENCE and meaningfulness in the world. He actually says that excellence of formal technique rescues "poems from oblivion" (154). As an amateur theologian, I find this difficult to believe.
And I'm not the only one bringing up theology here: on the departure from standard forms in 20th century literature, even Fussell gets almost theological: "Some kind of meaningful repetition would seem to be required to save a poem from oblivion. The challenge to contemporary poetry would seem to be a pair of unhappy alternatives; either to contrive new schemes of empirically meaningful repetition that reflects and--more importantly--transmit the color of contemporary experience; or to recover schemes that have reflected the experience of the past. To do the first would be to imply that contemporary experience has a pattern, a point that most post-Christian thinkers would deny. To do the second would be to suggest that the past can be recaptured, to suggest that the intolerable fractures and dislocations of modern history have not really occurred at all, or, what is worse, to suggest that they may have occurred but that poetry should act as if they have not. between these two demands of accuracy of registration on the one hand, and aesthetic organization, on the other, we seem to find no technique of RECONCILIATION: we yield now to the one demand, now to the other, producing at times a formless and artistically incoherent reflection--accurate in its way--of some civil or social or psychological reality, and at times a shapely and coherent work of art which is necessarily an inexact report on the state of affairs, not to mention the state of language and meaning and coherence in our time. . . .What is wanted is the sort of reconciliation between them that could be effected by another Yeats" (152-153).
I'm after reconciliation, too. Of another sort, I expect. The reader's, too.
September 7, 2023
By turns delightful, insightful, and a knee-slapper.
April 11, 2025
I mean my goodness.
If you are coming to this looking for the basic definitions of certain metrical and formal components this has some fine stuff (which you can also get through a google search…)
But you’ll have to get past the racist dog whistle language first.
If you are coming to this looking for the basic definitions of certain metrical and formal components this has some fine stuff (which you can also get through a google search…)
But you’ll have to get past the racist dog whistle language first.
February 21, 2008
Helpful but no imperative. A good explanation of prosody (without getting too lofty) and decent source for examples. I used the book to help my students scan poems better. *NOTE* The chapter on free verse is garbage.
October 5, 2007
Pretty good on the fixed forms (which I should know MUCH more about considering my profession). Utterly dismissive of anything innovative post-WW2. Sometimes this contempt is valid, sometimes not.
January 16, 2022
I have loved Paul Fussell’s writing for years. A wonderful writer. This is not the easiest of books, however, and I felt bogged down at times. I have picked up this book off and on for years and finally got through it. I would call this graduate level study and there are other handbooks on meter and form that would be better in which to start.
July 13, 2019
This is a well-written and engaging survey. I picked up the book to develop my understanding of poetic techniques, and Fussell's organized discussion of meter and form fit the bill. His writing is clear and not overly dense, and he uses plenty of interesting examples, although most of these illustrations come from the canon of white male poets. Fussell is not afraid to offer his opinions or exercise his wit, and I found his analyses intriguing, if not always convincing. Since this book was published in the 1960s, some of its content is a bit outdated in today's scholarly conversation, but I still think it has a lot to offer. The concepts of metrical variation and poetic density, for instance, will stick with me in my future encounters with poetry.
March 26, 2007
Fussell has a good grip on basic forms, especially within the world of formal (i.e. metrical and/or rhymed) verse, and if you don't know about the subject, he'll educate you. That said, there are two main problems, to my mind. The lesser one is a glut of examples, which tend to beat a dead horse -- we get it, Paul, enough already. The greater problem is Fussell's obvious distaste for free verse. Sure, he devotes a bit of time to it, but it reads as if it's out of obligation, and as if he really doesn't know what he's talking about.
August 1, 2008
I don't always agree with some of Fussell's pronouncements, but on the whole he gives a very nice introduction to the principles of prosody. The book's precision is one of it's great strengths, but it can also be a weakness on occasion when it leads to black and white depictions of things that are not so clear-cut. For anyone who is able to occasionally disagree with Fussell without feeling like those points of disagreement invalidate everything else, this book can a wonderful tool for any writer or reader of poetry to learn about the role of meter in English verse.
March 10, 2018
Years ago, it was just a required text for an English class, and I sold it or gave it away when the class was done. But I've never forgotten some of the advice, and finally replaced it. Glad I did. A classic for any reader or writer of poetry.
May 29, 2008
Split into two main sections, Meter and Form (per the title). The meter section was useful, but, as another reviewer here has stated, suffers from a glut of examples. It drags on a bit.
I found the form section the better of the two: discussions of line, rhyme, stanza, and a selection of standard forms, such as the sonnet (of course).
I found the form section the better of the two: discussions of line, rhyme, stanza, and a selection of standard forms, such as the sonnet (of course).
September 9, 2008
I found this book, which was first published in 1966 I think, pretty conservative, not to say stodgy. Not an easy read, but I did discover some valuable ways to look at formal poetry. I hope I will be able to internalize them.
June 13, 2007
Did dawn die in WWI?
July 10, 2008
I never would have learned how to scan poetry without this book. Intensely boring, but lots of good information on writing and scanning poetry.
December 3, 2010
As a poet, I did take some notes while reading this, but Fussell's arrogance and verbose approach to the subject was simply insulting.
September 5, 2012
Cry about it.
December 5, 2023
wait......why did this make me actually appreciate poetry? like i love reading it but now i really understand the intricacies of it
February 24, 2022
"It should neither surprise nor distress us that most poetry in English ranges from the mediocre to the very bad and that most poets are technically incompetent. So are most waiters, physicians, carpenters, lawyers, gardeners, and teachers. The genuinely successful poems to which we return again and again constitute a tiny selection the vast and almost measureless rubbish heap of the centuries . . . A mastery of technique is rare enough in any art. But in poetry, which demands not only a superb taste in the every-shifting symbolic system of the connotations of language and an instinct for the aesthetic significance of abstract forms and patterns, but also a deep and abiding understanding of the rhythmic psychology and even physiology of readers in general, technical mastery is not so common a gift that it appears inevitably in every generation."
Fussell's book is aimed primarily at the would-be-educated reader of poems. His view is that the trained eye can gather up more appreciation, more rapture, more enjoyment from a given poem if it is educated as to poetic history, meter, and form. This is a view which I certainly share, and have never agreed with Keat's assessment that to "unweave a rainbow" is somehow tantamount to destroying its majesty. Speaking very generally, knowledge in any aesthetic field can grow our sense of appreciation; poems are (or should be) intensely dense things: each element placed with economy, with significance. If the poet has done his or her job, then the reader can expect a great deal of pleasure from unweaving the poem. If the poem doesn't yield much, it either wasn't written well or is being read by a rube. Fussell's book breaks down the English tradition's major metrical and formal elements, given stunning (and plentiful) examples of how each choice the poet makes affects the necessary coherence of the final product.
Fussell's book is aimed primarily at the would-be-educated reader of poems. His view is that the trained eye can gather up more appreciation, more rapture, more enjoyment from a given poem if it is educated as to poetic history, meter, and form. This is a view which I certainly share, and have never agreed with Keat's assessment that to "unweave a rainbow" is somehow tantamount to destroying its majesty. Speaking very generally, knowledge in any aesthetic field can grow our sense of appreciation; poems are (or should be) intensely dense things: each element placed with economy, with significance. If the poet has done his or her job, then the reader can expect a great deal of pleasure from unweaving the poem. If the poem doesn't yield much, it either wasn't written well or is being read by a rube. Fussell's book breaks down the English tradition's major metrical and formal elements, given stunning (and plentiful) examples of how each choice the poet makes affects the necessary coherence of the final product.
April 1, 2018
p.3 – “Rhythm must have meaning,” Ezra Pound insisted in 1915.
p.4 – Meter is what results when the natural rhythmical movements of colloquial speech are heightened, organized, and regulated so that pattern – which means repetition – emerges.
p.16 – Purpose of meter:
1. Give pleasure
2. Give coherence
3. Demonstrate skill
4. Fir into a tradition
5. Qualify as poetry
6. Draw attention to the two words that rhyme
p.77 – free verse – despite its name – follows its own more-or-less strict imperatives. Two of these are instantly obvious to ear and eye. The free-verse poem establishes a texture without metrical regularity
p.90 – a poem stands a chance of attaining greater success and permanence the nearer it approaches absolute economy and coherence of the parts that comprise it.
p.122 – In the Petrarchan sonnet the problem is often solved by reasoned perception or by a relatively expansive and formal mediative process.
But the Shakespearean sonnet, because resolution muse take place within the tiny compass of a twenty-syllable couplet, the “solution” is more likely to be the fruit of wit, or paradox, or even a quick shaft of sophistry, logical cleverness, or outright comedy.
p.4 – Meter is what results when the natural rhythmical movements of colloquial speech are heightened, organized, and regulated so that pattern – which means repetition – emerges.
p.16 – Purpose of meter:
1. Give pleasure
2. Give coherence
3. Demonstrate skill
4. Fir into a tradition
5. Qualify as poetry
6. Draw attention to the two words that rhyme
p.77 – free verse – despite its name – follows its own more-or-less strict imperatives. Two of these are instantly obvious to ear and eye. The free-verse poem establishes a texture without metrical regularity
p.90 – a poem stands a chance of attaining greater success and permanence the nearer it approaches absolute economy and coherence of the parts that comprise it.
p.122 – In the Petrarchan sonnet the problem is often solved by reasoned perception or by a relatively expansive and formal mediative process.
But the Shakespearean sonnet, because resolution muse take place within the tiny compass of a twenty-syllable couplet, the “solution” is more likely to be the fruit of wit, or paradox, or even a quick shaft of sophistry, logical cleverness, or outright comedy.
April 3, 2019
I've been reading poetry for decades, but this was my first detailed view into the technical aspects. But make no mistake. This is not dry material. Challenging, yes. Boring, no. Fussell ties the mechanics of poetry to meaning and even to the body.
When I first started this book, I became hyper aware of meter everywhere. I was counting stress / unstress in everything I read, spoke, and heard (including music). He has a mix of theory and examples, which helped me understand (somewhat!) the concepts.
I'm taking a poetry class, and I tried to write a few poems with strict form. Oh, it's so hard! I have an increased respect for poets to focus on meter. (Every poetry uses meter; just some put more of the poem's "energy" there than others.)
Check out Fussell's book. It's out of print, but there are still some copies floating out there for reasonable purchase.
When I first started this book, I became hyper aware of meter everywhere. I was counting stress / unstress in everything I read, spoke, and heard (including music). He has a mix of theory and examples, which helped me understand (somewhat!) the concepts.
I'm taking a poetry class, and I tried to write a few poems with strict form. Oh, it's so hard! I have an increased respect for poets to focus on meter. (Every poetry uses meter; just some put more of the poem's "energy" there than others.)
Check out Fussell's book. It's out of print, but there are still some copies floating out there for reasonable purchase.
June 3, 2020
Never expected a 1965 academic, textbook assessment of poetic meter to have such excellent writing, and an incisive sense of humor.
I picked up Paul Fussell’s Poetic Meter and Metric Form off the free table at, of all places, the technical college where I’ve been an English Comp adjunct for 15 years. Can’t imagine many “gearheads” read it.
This book is not for those interested in easy reading or beach books, but it does offer clear concise explanations of iamb, anapest, trochee, spondee, and more, along with near perfect examples of successful and not so successful attempts by famous poets.
One of my favorite passages: “…quantitative composition was a laborious academic-theoretical business, like all such nonempirical enterprises more gratifying to the self-congratulating practitioner than to the perplexed reader.”
I picked up Paul Fussell’s Poetic Meter and Metric Form off the free table at, of all places, the technical college where I’ve been an English Comp adjunct for 15 years. Can’t imagine many “gearheads” read it.
This book is not for those interested in easy reading or beach books, but it does offer clear concise explanations of iamb, anapest, trochee, spondee, and more, along with near perfect examples of successful and not so successful attempts by famous poets.
One of my favorite passages: “…quantitative composition was a laborious academic-theoretical business, like all such nonempirical enterprises more gratifying to the self-congratulating practitioner than to the perplexed reader.”
April 11, 2024
Every reader of English poetry needs this book, or one like it. The untutored reader can intuit the basics of the artform, but the finer aspects will elude them. That's where Fussell comes in. He will refine your attention whether you think you need it or not.
But don't take his word for everything. Though he's excellent on traditional poetry, he's less useful for modern poetry and "free verse" the more it departs from convention. Fussell is right at home in Yeats and even Eliot, but to make sense of Whitman he needs to break those long, uneven lines down into iambic pentameter, somewhat missing the point in the process. Between Olson and Ginsberg he can't tell the difference. Blues form and jazz prosody are passed over it without comment. Yet his insistence on the inherent rhythm of the English language and its importance for poetry is indispensable.
But don't take his word for everything. Though he's excellent on traditional poetry, he's less useful for modern poetry and "free verse" the more it departs from convention. Fussell is right at home in Yeats and even Eliot, but to make sense of Whitman he needs to break those long, uneven lines down into iambic pentameter, somewhat missing the point in the process. Between Olson and Ginsberg he can't tell the difference. Blues form and jazz prosody are passed over it without comment. Yet his insistence on the inherent rhythm of the English language and its importance for poetry is indispensable.
July 12, 2021
The author's introduction to this book states: "The title of this book may suggest that it is designed as a latter-day Gradus ad Parnassum to teach aspiring writers to produce passable verses. It is not. It is intended to help aspiring readers deepen their sensitivity to the rhythmical and formal properties of poetry and thus heighten their pleasure and illumination as an appropriately skilled audience of an exacting art."
Actually, in my view, it is well worth studying for both aspiring writers and readers of poetry. It is an enjoyable and insightful short book on some of the major aspects of poetry.
Actually, in my view, it is well worth studying for both aspiring writers and readers of poetry. It is an enjoyable and insightful short book on some of the major aspects of poetry.
January 16, 2022
This is a pretty good guide, covers all the technical details of meter I could've asked for, plus a solid discussion of form, and it overflows with good examples from a wide variety of sources. It's also adorned with a number of (I suppose then-trendy) quasi-scientific speculations about the appeal of meter, form, etc, mostly cited from IA Richards. The only complaint I might have is that its loyalty to formalism borders on the normative, and this guide might not be helpful for approaching any but the most canonically established free verse or experimental poets; but with those you always have to rely on the particular dogmas and theories of their practitioners, anyways. Recommended.
June 13, 2021
Very helpful in learning about poetic devices. Not exactly for the beginner, but if you have a familiarity with meter, this is a great exploration of metric variation and stanza forms, with plenty of examples. Fussell claims at the start that it is not designed to teach poets to write better poetry, but rather to help readers to better enjoy the works they read. I have found it to serve both purposes, and would highly recommend.
August 23, 2022
X-Post with SG
A bit more intensive than I expected - less of an introduction for the uninitiated in poetry but more of a refresher for the formerly familiar. The author's tastes are apparent and appreciated - rather than try to "find the good in" what he does not like, Fussell is quick to outright call a poem bad. If you can tell your iamb from your spondee and have found your way through Frost, this book is for you.
A bit more intensive than I expected - less of an introduction for the uninitiated in poetry but more of a refresher for the formerly familiar. The author's tastes are apparent and appreciated - rather than try to "find the good in" what he does not like, Fussell is quick to outright call a poem bad. If you can tell your iamb from your spondee and have found your way through Frost, this book is for you.
November 1, 2021
Great introduction to reading (and understanding/appreciating) poetry for a complete newcomer. It does a good job explaining the core elements required to begin appreciating poetry at a deeper or more technical level. By using many examples of "good" versus "bad" poetry and explaining what makes each the way it is, it further drives home the explanations provided.
March 25, 2022
Thick with info that goes well beyond a definition of "iambic pentameter." Fussell is very much writing out of the tradition of close readers and New Critics, so he includes plenty of analyses of poems throughout the book.
February 3, 2020
Really good introduction to poetic meter and form. Fussell is a little bit long-winded at times, but he has some really good points to make and he succeeds in making them.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews