The Bronze Horseman

In translated poems, discussions of rhyme scheme and meter are complex—typically, readers of translations cannot read the poem in its original language, and translators must balance getting across the full meaning of the poem with formal demands. In this case, Dewey’s award-winning translations preserves Pushkin’s meter, and both versions of the poem are written in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. A tetrameter is a poetic line made up of four iambic feet. Line 113 from Part One illustrates:

–    |    stress    |    –    |    stress    |    –    |    stress    |    –      |    stress 

The       scene         of           woe,          as           waves         now       lapped

The next line, Line 114 of Part One, illustrates another common metrical practice: an additional unstressed syllable at the end of the line, known as a feminine ending:

–   |   stress   |   –   |   stress   |   –   |   stress   |   –     |   stress   |   –

The     skirts         of         broad       pi-       azz-          as          play-        ing

The basic iambic rhythm is subject to many variations, which typically are used to highlight specific words or concepts in a poetic line. A common one is the inversion of the first metrical foot, so that a stressed syllable is placed first, followed by an unstressed syllable. This is known as trochee, or trochaic foot. An example occurs in Line 6 of the Introduction: “Darker against the marshy green.” Another example is making the second foot a spondee—two stressed syllables. You can see this in the Introduction’s direct address to Saint Petersburg, “Glint of brass helmets, all-displaying” (Introduction, Line 73). The use of the trochee and the spondee instead of two iambs ensures that those shining helmets of the soldiers on parade in the city really stand out.

Pushkin varied his poem’s rhyme scheme, and Dewey follows suit. The first ten lines of Dewey’s translation rhyme in two groups of five lines where lines 1, 2, and 4 rhyme, and lines 3 and 5 rhyme, which we can represent thus: a a b a b. After this, the rhyme scheme changes to quatrains, which use several rhyme schemes, varying from a b a b, to a a b b, to a b b a. There are also six-line groupings, rhyming a a b c b c and a a b a a b.

A caesura, a pause within a line, indicated by a comma or other punctuation, provides rhythmic variety and slows the line down. Many examples can be found in this long poem, including the very first line: “wave-swept shore, remote, forlorn:” The pauses emphasize the desolation of the scene, its silent, empty spaces.

The poem also frequently employs enjambment, or a line that does not end in punctuation, but instead continues its grammatical construction into the next one. Enjambment creates variety in the rhythm. Part Two, Lines 15-16 offer an example: “Streets opened; the unprecedented / flood levels started to reduce.” The reader’s eyes quickly move to the next line to find out exactly what is “unprecedented.”