sprung rhythm
Stressed-syllable poetic technique
Sprung rhythm is a poetic meter developed by Gerard Manley Hopkins in which the number of stressed syllables per line is fixed but unstressed syllables vary freely.
Unlike conventional meter, which counts both stressed and unstressed beats in regular patterns, sprung rhythm mimics natural speech rhythms while maintaining formal structure.
The term suggests verse that has been released or sprung from rigid metrical constraints.
- Victorian poetryNineteenth-century British verse
- stressed syllablesEmphasized parts of words
- counterpointSimultaneous independent melodies
- stress patternsSyllable emphasis distribution
- caesuraPause within a line
prosody · scansion · syllable count · free verse · enjambment · cadence · poetic tradition · chant · tension · meter · accent · sonnet · poetry · syncopation · muscular · alliteration · beat · Hopkins
- poeticsrhyme, versification, poetic form, stanza, meter
- rhythm termsbeat, tempo, meter, cadence, syncopation
- meteriamb, trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapest
- prosodyscansion, meter, foot, stress pattern, metrics
- stress meterbeat, foot, stressed syllable, unstressed syllable, offbeat
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verse, verses
sprung rhythmiambic pentameter
Unstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
quantitative meter · quantitative verse · classical prosody · common meter · blank verse