Structure and versification in Pied Beauty

Form

The form is that of a curtal sonnet. Its rhyming does not seem to keep to a Petrarchan format, rhyming abcabc dbcdc, which bears no relationship to any traditional sonnet form.

Metre

The metre keeps much more to a strict iambic pentameter than the full sonnets, though:

• only l.8 is absolutely regular
• l.1,5,7 all start with trochaic feet which give rise to a possible reading of the whole line as trochaic (Many iambic pentameter lines have the first foot inverted to look like a trochee, but then revert on the second foot. But not here)
• l.5 is actually a hexameter (six stresses), with a caesura, but it is the only line like this
• ll.2,3 have small groups of extra unstressed vowels, to give the rhythm a certain lightness
• in l.6, Hopkins actually marks in the first two stresses to make sure we see them, and it therefore seems quite a heavy line
• the opposites of 1.9 create a much lighter rhythm. Hopkins in his notes suggests the second of each pair should have a secondary stress, rather than a full one - this gives quite a lilt to the line
• the last four words, all stressed monosyllables, with the two words set apart on the last line, form an emphatic coda.

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