sprung rhythm
noun [mass noun]
A poetic metre approximating to speech, each foot having one stressed syllable followed by a varying number of unstressed ones.In referring to the music he says in a letter of June 1880: ‘I wish I could pursue music; for I have invented a new style, something standing to ordinary music as sprung rhythm to common rhythm: it employs quarter tones.’...
- ‘The Valentine's Day’ uses sprung rhythm and alliteration much in the manner of Gerard Manley Hopkins, although he is not Kimmelman's primary model.
- Hopkins says this sonnet is in sprung rhythm with ‘a rest of one stress in the first line.’
Origin
Late 19th century: coined by G. M. Hopkins, who used the metre.