2. Versification means: rhyme, rhythm.

Versification is the art of writing verses. It is the imaginative expression of emotion, thought, or narrative, mostly in metrical form and often using figurative language. Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose (ordinary written language) by rhyme or the rhythmical arrangement of words (metre). So the main concepts of versification are rhythm and rhyme.

Rhythm (Greek rhythmos) is a regular alternation of similar or equal units of speech. When applied to prose it means the measured flow of words and phrases. Rhythmical prose is based on deliberately arranged syntactical groups as well as on elements of repetition and syntactical parallelisms. The unit of measure in prose may be a word, a word combination, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, even a syntactical whole which will be repeated within the given passage of the text.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. (Ch. Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities).

Sometimes due to rhythm, the borderline between prose and poetry is becoming almost imperceptible.

When applied to poetry rhythm means the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables which is called metre (размер) (Greek metron - “measure”). The unit of measure of metre is poetic feet in which lines in verses are built.

A foot (стопа) is a combination of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables. There are five basic feet in English poetry: two disyllabic - iambus and trochee; three trisyllabic (трехсложный) - dactyl, amphibrach and anapest.

Iambus is a foot consisting of two syllables with the second one accented (stressed):

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye (O. Wilde)

Trochee is a foot of two syllables with the first one accented:

Humid seal of soft affections,

Tend’rest pledge of future bliss,

Dearest tie of young connections,

Love’s first snow - drop virgin kiss (R. Burns. To a Kiss).

Dactyl is a foot of three syllables with the first one accented:

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances,

Honoured and blessed be the ever-green pine! (Walter Scott)

Amphibrach is a foot of three syllables with the middles one accented:

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing;

the bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers dying (Shelley)

Anapest is a foot of three syllables with the third one accented:

When the web that we weave is complete,

And the shuttle exchanged for the sword… (Byron)

Rhyme is the accord of syllables in words: fact - attract, mood - intrude; news - refuse. Such an accord is met at the end of two parallel lines in verses. Rhyme is a sound organizer, uniting lines into stanzas.

Rhyme is created according to several patterns. Vertically, there are such rhymes: adjacent (aa, bb), cross (ab, ab) and reverse (ab, ba). According to the variants of stress in the words being rhymed, rhymes are classified into male (the last syllables of the rhymed words are stressed), female (the next syllables to the last are stressed) and dactylic (the third syllables from the end are stressed).

Poetry is actually the earliest form of literature, and was created precisely to be spoken – in the days before many could read. Here are some miscellaneous (смешанный; разнообразный) remarks about poetry made by writers and critics at various time. These remarks make an answer to the question "What is poetry?"

1. A poem has to be in lines.

2. A poem has to have rhymes.

3. A poem has to be in one of a number of set rhythms.

4. A poem has to have verses/stanzas (станс, строфа).

5. The rhythms of poetry are quite different from ordinary speech.

6. A poem has to have a capital letter at the start of each line.

7. A poem has to have vivid, descriptive words.

8. A poem has to have imagery – similes, metaphors and other stylistic devices.

9. The language used in poetry is a special kind of language.

10. Some words are not suitable in poetry.

11. Some subjects are not suitable for poetry.

12. Some subjects are more poetic than others.