Prescanned Shakespeare.com
presented by Acoustic Learning
A writer of verse-- a poet-- arranges words so their syllables automatically form equal groups. (A "syllable" is any bunch of letters you pronounce as a single set.) You don’t have to do anything but read.
If syllables do not group equally, they are prose. This is the definitive difference between verse and prose: verse is made up of equal groups, and prose isn’t.
| "Mary, Mary, quite contrary." | "Mary usually disagrees with us." |
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A group of syllables is called a foot. Verse, therefore, can be defined as a series of equal feet.
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