Compare and contrast the significance of meter in the following two poems: (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45318/break-break-break) (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52333/the-voice-56d230b56eb7c)

Tennyson effectively manipulates meter in the stanza's first two lines- the weight of the triple stressed plosives rushing into an anapaestic foot before suddenly crashing to a halt in the two slower iambs at the end of the line- exemplifying the speaker's desire to project his desolation onto an exterior correlative phenomenon; the grief is mapped onto the sea and the sea mapped onto the meter. In contrast, Hardy's choice of dactylic tetrameter and trimeter, and a more regular meter running through "The Voice", ensures his variations of rhythm are even more conspicuous than Tennyson's display owning to the more overtly rhythmic verse. As a result, the effect of Hardy's similar denial of metrical satisfaction at the end of his first stanza (allowing the reader empathetic identification with the speaker's grasping for an immaterial, impossible desire) is heightened beyond Tennyson's achievement discussed above, as Hardy takes longer to build his effect. The whole quatrain is constructed with the disappointment of the trimeter's falling rhythm in mind in contrast to Tennyson's denser concentration of different devices working within the same quatrain.Hence, meter is significant to both poems in different ways, with both poets using representative meter to match meaning with sound.

Answered by Sean O. English tutor

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