What is the rhyme scheme of William Shakespeare's "Full Fathom Five" and "Where the Bee Sucks There Suck I" ? Most of Shakespeare's poems are in iambic pentameter but these two aren't.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.
Rhyme scheme and meter are entirely different. Rhyme is the pattern for end rhyme. You have lies, eyes (a); made, fade (b); change, strange (c); knell, bell (d) So you would express the rhyme scheme abab,ccdd
This is an excellent site on Meter.
http://www.uncg.edu/~htkirbys/meters.htm
If you have further questions please repost.
So is the meter iambic heptameter?
how many ta DAHs does the first line have?
That would be the "regular? meter.
NOW, information... Shakespeare got sneaking sometimes and used what is called "sprung" meter. This site will explain that.
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1429261&lastnode_id=81392
I counted eight syllables in the first line of "Full Fathom Five" then seven syllables in the other lines. So the meter isn't iambic heptameter? Then how do I answer the question about meter? Sorry this is just confusing for me. Thanks for the help!
tetrameter
* / | * / | * / | * / |
So if you have 4 tah DAHs, then that is iambic tetrameter. See this site I gave you. http://www.uncg.edu/~htkirbys/meters.htm
The rest of the verse is "sprung" iambic tetrameter. That means that Shakespeare was making the meter fit what he wanted to say instead of making what he wanted to say fit an exact meter.