Weak Position (poetry)

Weak Position (poetry)

In the analysis of poetic meter, weak position is either of two things:

  • In classical Greek and Latin scholarship, a short vowel is in "weak position" if the surrounding consonants would have permitted the syllable containing it to be pronounced either long or short.
  • A syllable is in "weak position" if it is expected to be unstressed based on its metrical context.

Read more about Weak Position (poetry):  Vowels in Weak Position, Syllables in Weak Position

Famous quotes containing the words weak and/or position:

    Ay me, how weak a thing
    The heart of woman is!
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive. But strong natures, backwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams, Websters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, until their life ebbs, and their defects and gout, palsy and money, warp them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)