What aspect of poetry focuses on the arrangement of sound and stress in a line of verse?

The focus on the arrangement of sound and stress in a line of verse is specifically known as meter. Meter is the structured rhythm of a poem, created through a set pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. It gives poetry its musical quality and can influence how the poem is read and interpreted. For instance, a common meter known as iambic pentameter consists of five feet with each foot having an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, resulting in a recognizable rhythmic pattern.

While the other options relate to sound and poetic devices, they address different aspects. Alliteration involves the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, rhyme focuses on the correspondence of sounds between words, often at the end of lines, and imagery pertains to the use of descriptive language to create mental pictures. Each serves a unique purpose in poetry, but none of them center on the systematic arrangement of sound and stress as meter does.