What is metrical structure ?

While the term “metrical structure” sounds pretty tech-y, it’s less so than it may look. The term metrical structure is specifically associated with a sort of gate or defining arrangement in music and poetry. It is not generally used in most sciences. For example: “prose” is defined as writing that contains no metrical structure (vs. poetry), but we do not refer to the metrical structure of quickly repeating radio astronomical signals.

The following limerick demonstrates the troubled nature of that author’s state of mind:

Metric or Metrical Musings
by Geoff Burroughs

Metrical structure may be used poetically,
in technically-oriented blogs,
but if it’s not really technical
(technically it’s not technical)
Are pulsar pulses structured metrically?

metrical structure

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