How do you determine stress in 1 syllable words?

Question

I am trying to write a sonnet, but I am having a hard time writing iambs. I can not figure out if one syllable words like 'I' and 'when' are stressed or unstressed. Can you help me out? or at least give me an internet resource for determining this?

Answer 1

Part of the stress is relative to the line. You can feel which words have more weight when you read a line aloud. As a general rule, a closed syllable (ending in a consonant sound) is more likely to be stressed than an open syllable (ending in a vowel sound), but it is relative to the phrase in which you find it. Read a line naturally, and then tweak it if it ebbs when it should flow...

Answer 2

List Of Stressed Words

Answer 3

Example:

My life is full of stress
All my thoughts are one big mess
I've been upset I must confess
Stress is making me a wreck
When I stress

Answer 4

First of all an "Iambic" meter is just the way it sounds..."I am"...do you hear the way that sounds? It's the same as "when I" as in "when I was just a little boy of nine", which is in iambic pentameter (Iambs in a 5 meter line). It's also sometimes shown as "ta-da ta-da ta-da ta-da ta-da".

Now, contrast that with "Charming chairs I like to sit on"...hear the difference? This is "dactyl", and it sounds just like you say it "dac till". If you had to picture it in your mind, you'd say that dactyl starts on a downbeat, like "downtown"... you wouldn't see the line "downtown I walked to see my girl" without it sounding a little silly...you'd see "downtown there are many street lights" because each pair of syllables are stressed on the "first" beat...this is "dactyl", not "iambic".

"Downtown there are many street lights
On which I like to play"...do you hear how the two lines are opposites? the second line is in Iambic. This is one of the reasons when some poets try to write rhymed lines the lines sound contrived...in other words, they are unnaturally stressed. You know it when you hear it, which is why you should let someone else read your poetry to you without you interupting them. When you find a spot where they'd stress it differently than you intended, you need to mark it and not argue with them for reading it "wrong"...they probably read it correctly and you were just trying to force it to be something it didn't want to be.

if you are writing sonnets true
then let the words call out to you
forget the stress and use your ear
until the words are pure and clear

"that" is iambic in four meter lines...hope this helps you figure out where and when to stess your short, one syllable words from this example...use your ear!

Answer 5

The stress depends on the rest of the sentence.

To all the girls I knew
when I was only two.

The first I is unstressed. The second I is stressed.

Answer 6

You don't stress in one syllable words

Answer 7

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Answer 8

a...on the top -(bar or^) it is stressed.../lol