Syllables per word

Syllables per word (SPW) is an analytical metric used in sonnet studies to determine the linguistic density of a poem.

The SPW is determined by dividing the number of syllables in a poem by the number of words in that poem. A monosyllabic poem would therefore have an SPW of exactly 1, since each word would contain a single syllable and the number of words and number of syllables would be equal. The fewer words a sonnet contains, the higher its number of syllables per word will be.

William Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?," for example, consists of 114 words and a total of 140 syllables in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's poem thus has an SPW of 1.227. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet "How do I love thee?" consists of 126 words and a total of 141 syllables (line five contains eleven syllables), and thus has an SPW of 1.119.