Robert Bridges' Accentual Prosody
In developing a prosody for accentual verse, Robert Bridges classifies the following types of syllable:
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| ⋀ | Stressed | Syllable carries the stress |
| – | Heavy | Is genuinely long, slows down the reading. For example: broad, bright, down. |
| ⌣ | Light | All syllables with short vowels, even those that would be long 'by position' in Classical terms. That is, if the consonants around a short vowel do not genuinely retard the syllable then it will be counted 'light'. Light also includes all classically short syllables. For example the second syllables of 'brighter' and 'brightest' are both light, despite the consonants in the latter. |
| ⌵ | Very Short | Very short syllables, such as a syllable containing a short 'i'. Bridges' symbol is actually a shorter version of ⌣. |
| ˘ ⋀ ˘ ⋀ – ⋀ ˘ ⋀ ˘ ⋀ |
| But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS? |
Read more about this topic: Systems Of Scansion
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