Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις," poiesis, a "making" or
"creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and
evocative qualities...Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to
expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual
responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are
sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of
ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often
leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile
create a resonance between otherwise disparate images–a layering of meanings,
forming connections previously not perceived...Meter is often scanned based on
the arrangement of "poetic feet" into lines... Languages which utilize vowel
length or intonation rather than or in addition to syllabic accents in
determining meter, such as Ottoman Turkish or Vedic, often have concepts similar
to the iamb and dactyl to describe common combinations of long and short
sounds.Each of these types of feet has a certain "feel," whether alone or in
combination with other feet. The iamb, for example, is the most natural form of
rhythm in the English language, and generally produces a subtle but stable
verse.The dactyl, on the other hand, almost gallops along. And, as readers of
The Night Before Christmas or Dr. Seuss realize, the anapest is perfect for a
light-hearted, comic feel. There is debate over how useful a multiplicity of
different "feet" is in describing meter. For example, Robert Pinsky has argued
that while dactyls are important in classical verse, English dactylic verse uses
dactyls very irregularly and can be better described based on patterns of iambs
and anapests, feet which he considers natural to the language.Actual rhythm is
significantly more complex than the basic scanned meter described above, and
many scholars have sought to develop systems that would scan such
complexity... Vladimir Nabokov noted that overlaid on top
of the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse
was a separate pattern of accents resulting from the natural pitch of the spoken
words, and suggested that the term "scud" be used to
distinguish an unaccented stress from an accented stress. Cf. Vladimir Nabokov. Notes on Prosody. (New York: The Bollingen
Foundation, 1964. ISBN 0691017603.