The cadence describes the end of a verse within a poem. The cadence can influence the rhythm and the effect of a work, as well as decisively our reading. We basically distinguish between three different cadences: the male, female, and rich cadence.
A cadence says how many syllables are present in a verse after the last accented syllable. This often makes the mistake of simply checking whether the last syllable in a verse is emphasized or unstressed, so as to distinguish between male and female cadences. However, this method is not entirely accurate and can cause a lot of confusion.
Overview of cadences
male cadence (dull cadence): This means that a verse ends on a stressed syllable.
female cadence: This form means that the verse ends in an unaccented syllable.
rich cadence: in this case, the verse ends with several unaccented syllables. There is a risk of confusion to the previous cadence.
Important: The distinction between the latter variants often involves numerous errors. Be sure to read the following section to determine the whole thing more precisely.
Note: The word cadence is, by the way, derived from the Latin “cadere”, which means “fall” or “fall”. It therefore describes how a verse “falls”, that is, ends.
Recognize the cadence
In order to understand this, let us look at an example from the lyric and look for the last accented syllable to determine the cadence. As an example, “The Gray Storm, on the Gray Sea” by Theodor Storm.
On the gray beach, on the gray sea
And the city has been lying there;
The first two lines are Jambian verses (→ Yambus), which we recognize by the fact that unaccented and stressed syllables alternate. The last stressed syllable is in the first verse the noun sea and in the second the word city. No more syllables follow, so the cadence is male.
male cadence: After the last accented syllable in a verse no further syllable follows. In other words, the verse ends with a stressed syllable.
To illustrate the feminine cadence, let us look at a verse from Schiller’s famous “Ode to Joy”. For right at the beginning it is said:
Joy, beautiful spark of the gods
The verses of these lines are clearly Trochaean. This can be seen in the fact that always emphasized and unaccented syllables alternate. Consequently, the whole is a kind of counterpart to the above structure in Storm’s poem.
If we now look at the last emphasized syllable in the line, it is noticeable that it is fun and then the syllable ken comes, which however remains unstressed. This means that after the last emphasized syllable a further one follows and the cadence behaves differently from the previous extract.
female cadence: After the last accented syllable in a verse follows an unaccented syllable. In other words, the verse ends in a (!) Unaccented syllable.
The problem now is that the cadences can be memorized very quickly on the basis of these observations, and then the last type can not be recognized: the rich cadence.
The rich cadence can go down very quickly if we only look for unstressed and stressed mailings. Therefore, it is important that it is not just the last syllable, but how many syllables follow the last emphasis.
To illustrate this, let’s look at a small fictitious two-line, which illustrates the special form of the cadence quite well.
I go with
Floor and bar
These two verses follow the pattern of the dactyl, the first syllable, which is emphasized, thus follow two unaccented. This means that the last stressed syllable in the first line of the word is the word I and in the second line the word floor. In both cases two unaccented syllables follow.
rich cadence: After the last accented syllable in a verse, several unaccented syllables follow. In other words, the verse also ends with an unaccented syllable, but in contrast to the female cadence, there are several (!) Which form the conclusion.
Function and effect of the cadence
Of course, such cadences at the end of a verse also have a function, not only that they affect the rhythm within a poem. Rather, the cadence can influence our reading since it determines our reading for the line break.
Let us look at the evening song of Matthias Claudius. The poem should be familiar to most people from childhood.
The moon has risen,
The golden stars were prancing
In the sky bright and clear;
The forest stands black and silent,
And from the meadows
The white mist wonderful.
This first stanza of the poem has an all-encompassing Jambian versification (3-strong yambus in each line) and has varying cadences. Thus we find in female lines 1, 2, 4, and 5 female cadenzas, and in lines 3 and 6 male cadences. Let us now look at the function of the whole.
The work is structured according to the Iambian standard. Whoever looks closely, however, sees that, for the sake of completeness, the last syllable is missing in verses 1,2,4 and 5.
If we express ourselves “unscientific”, we could claim that there are 3 1/2 jambs. (correctly, we should call the whole thing a catalectic verse, which means that the last verse is “incomplete” → verse).
The effect, however, is that we fall into a kind of singsang when reading, which is typical for many children’s songs or even counting-up rhymes (→ children’s rhymes). This ups and downs are strongly supported by the positioning of the male and female cadences.
Male cadences, for example, usually provoke a longer break when the line breaks. In the evening song, therefore, when you change from line 3 to 4. In contrast, the break is usually shortened when a female cadence ends the line. This pause becomes especially clear when we sing the poem loudly and distinctly (sing).
Claudius uses this effect of the cadences in that he has placed the male cadences at the end of sense sections within the stanza. Thus the elements of Verses 1, 2 and 3 form a unit and Verses 4,5 and 6 likewise. This makes sense also from the content.