Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.
Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.
Well, we could ask for a lot of things. Like a definition of rhythm. So here it is:
Rhythm is all about sound. Think of it as the beat of a piece of writing, often a poem. How does language create that beat? By creating (and then riffing off of) a pattern. That pattern can be made up of any number of things—repeated phrases, a mix of stressed and unstressed syllables, periodic pauses, even rhyme. Writers use all kinds of tools to create rhythm.
Sure, it's a bit hard to define. But we promise you'll know it when you hear it. In the meantime, it might be helpful to remember what it's not:
- It's not meter. Meter can often be used to create rhythm, but meter refers to a formal and specific pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
- It's not cadence. Cadence, too, is a part of rhythm, but cadence refers specifically to the moments the language speeds up or slows down.