Analysis of a corpus of poetryA corpus of 1000 verses of poetry (ten samples of 100 verses from ten different authors) is analyzed by a computerized connectionist model of poetic meter. The analysis reveals that poets use measurable and distinct stress patterns and suggests that these patterns might "fingerprint" on individual writers. Furthermore, the analysis shows that variations in metrical patterns are in keeping with the dominant verse aesthetic of the period in which the poets are writing.IntroductionIn English poetry, the most compelling discriminator of this genre is that which defines a poem as a poem - has traditionally been its meter. Meter defines the length of the line, and therefore the distinctive appearance of a poem on the page, and it defines, for the listener of a poem, the revealing regularity of a rhythm. Whether this rhythm also carries the weight of part of a poem's meaning or whether it is used solely for conventional aesthetic effect inviting the reader to take pleasure in its regularity or variations, meter is one of the attributes central to the poetic genre. Even whether or not the poem's audience or critics pay much attention to a poem's meter, meter has always been a major concern for poets (see Addison [1994]). At every point in a line of poetry, a factor in the decision favoring one word or syntactic pattern over another has been the metrical impact of that choice. Moreover, the limits of choice are not simply defined by a correction rule such as the following: all stressed positions must have stressed syllables and no unstressed position can have a stressed syllable. Metric variations, resulting in what Halle and Keyser (1971) and others have called "metric complexity" or "tension", are permitted and, in fact, produce much of the interest in the rhythm of a poem. Traugott (1989), for example, speaking of Auden's poetry, notes that "one can identify a complex metrical design which complements and enriches the multiple verbal icons functioning at other levels of language" (294). In fact, poetic rhythm can only work if it destroys the very meaning of design it evokes; the extreme position is adopted by Shklovsky (1917), who says: "the problem is not a complexity of rhythm, but a disorder of rhythm" (p..