In English poetry, trochaic tetrameter is a meter featuring lines composed of four trochaic feet. The etymology of trochaic derives from the Greek trokhaios, from the verb trecho, meaning I run.[1][2][3] In modern English poetry, a trochee is a foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Thus a tetrameter contains four trochees or eight syllables.
In classical metre, the word tetrameter means a line with four metra, wherein each metron contains two trochees. Thus a classical trochaic tetrameter contains 16 syllables (15 syllables if catalectic).
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Scansion 101 by Shmoop
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ENG 255 4 trochaic substitutions
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Language Arts 3: Iambic Tetrameter
Transcription
Scansion 101, a la Shmoop. Human beings like rhythm. We look for it in chants on Game Day… …in the tapping of the rain against the window… …and in the clicking of the indicator as we wait to turn left at a light. And, of course, we look for rhythm in the poems we’re forced to read for our high school English class. This is where the technique known as “scansion” comes in. Scansion involves scanning a poem for meter… …or the number of feet in a line… …and rhythm, or the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line… …and then diagramming the whole thing out with the help of a couple of symbols. Oh, and when we talk about feet, we’re not talking about the yeasty-smelling kind… …but rather the number of times a pattern of two or more accented or unaccented syllables occurs in a line. Sounds easy, right? Ha! Problem is, there are different kinds of feet. Nope, not different kinds of foot stench… …but different patterns of accented or unaccented syllables in poetry. Let’s go over the common meters we’re likely to encounter in Ye Olde High School English Class. There’s iambic meter… …and anapestic meter… …which are collectively known as rising meters because the pattern moves from unstressed to stressed syllables. There’s trochaic <<troh-KAY-ick>> meter… …and dactylic <<dack-TILL-ick>> meter… …which are collectively known as falling meters because the pattern moves from stressed to unstressed syllables. Spondaic <<spahn-DAY-ick>> meter contains only stressed syllables… …and pyrrhic <<PEER-ick>> meter contains only unstressed syllables. These two meters are used to break up a poem’s rhythm… …rather than to create an entire poem… …because a poem containing only stressed or only unstressed syllables would be really, really boring. Now that we’ve gone over common poetic meters, let’s hit the names for line lengths. A line with one foot is called a monometer <<muh-NAH-meh-tuhr>>… …a line with two feet, a dimeter <<DIM-uh-tuhr>>… …a line with three feet, a trimeter <<TRIM-uh-tuhr>>… …and yada, yada, yada and on and on and on. To get the name of a poem’s metrical description, we just combine the name of the meter… …with the name of the line length. Okay, now that we’ve gone through all the vocabulary… …and there’s a lot, isn’t there?... …let’s scan a couple of things and see how we do. One quick note: it’s possible to use scansion on literature other than poetry. Take these lines from Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, for example: “Now is the winter of our discontent… …Made glorious summer by this sun of York… …And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house… …In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.” These four lines are written in iambic <<i-AM-bick>> meter, the pattern where one unstressed syllable is followed by one stressed syllable. There are five feet in each of these lines, making them pentameters. We combine the name of the meter with the name of the line length to get the metrical description… …iambic pentameter <<pen-TAM-uh-tuhr>>. The Bard was a master at incorporating this particular type of rhythm and meter into his works. Let’s look at some lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha”… …“Should you ask me, whence these stories? Whence these legends and traditions, With the odors of the forest, With the dew and damp of meadows…” These four lines are written in trochaic meter, the pattern where one stressed syllable is followed by one unstressed syllable. There are four feet in each of these lines, making them tetrameters. We combine the name of the meter with the name of the line length to get the metrical description… …trochaic tetrameter. Now that we’ve been through the common meters and the names of the line lengths and how this whole scansion thing works… …let’s answer a big question: Why, why, why should we care about scanning poetry? Why can’t we just kick back with a Shirley Temple, read the darned poem, and enjoy? Forget for the moment that we need to know how to scan a poem in order to ace high school English. Scansion is a tool we can use to better understand poetry, plays, or other rhythmic pieces of literature. Not only does diagramming the rhythm and meter of a poem show us how a piece should be read aloud… …but we also get a peek into the poet’s brain, at the syllables and words he or she wanted to emphasize. That peeking-into-the-brain thing is really cool… …or it could be really disturbing. And now that we know how to scan a poem, we can take what we’ve learned and apply it to real life. The next time we’re stuck in an airport, waiting for that plane to Des Moines… …we can listen to the guy on his cell phone next to us and, instead of getting annoyed at his inane conversation… …figure out the rhythm and meter of his speech. Yes, it’s dorky… …but at least we won’t be as bored as we will be once we get to Iowa.
Example
The rhythm of a line of an English trochaic tetrameter is:
| 1st foot | 2nd foot | 3rd foot | 4th foot | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DUM | da | DUM | da | DUM | da | DUM | da |
Using the symbols of classical poetry, the longum and the breve (brevis) a line of trochaic tetrameter is represented as:
| 1st foot | 2nd foot | 3rd foot | 4th foot | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – | ⏑ | – | ⏑ | – | ⏑ | – | ⏑ |
When the tetrameter is catalectic, the last syllable of the line is omitted.
Literature
The Song of Hiawatha
An example of epic poetry written in trochaic tetrameter is The Song of Hiawatha (1855), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The excerpt below is from the stanzas about “Hiawatha’s Childhood”. The bold text indicates the accented syllables of each trochee:
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare employed trochaic tetrameter in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1594), in the dialogues of the fairies, which are written in catalectic trochaic tetrameter; Puck speaks:
Through the forest have I gone.
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower's force in stirring love.
Night and silence.—Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.
The conversation between Puck and Oberon is written in catalectic trochaic tetrameter:
OBERON
Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
As the Venus of the sky.
When thou wakest, if she be by,
Beg of her for remedy.
Re-enter PUCK
PUCK
Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand;
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
OBERON
Stand aside: the noise they make
Will cause Demetrius to awake.
PUCK
Then will two at once woo one;
That must needs be sport alone;
And those things do best please me
That befal preposterously.
King Lear
The character of Edgar disguised as "Poor Tom", in King Lear (1605):
EDGAR
Tom will throw his head at them: avaunt, you curs!
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite;
Mastiff greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or him,
Or bobtail tyke or trundle-tail,
Tom will make him weep and wail;
For with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch and all are fled.
Macbeth
The Three Witches in Macbeth (1606):
FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
THIRD WITCH
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH
Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH
I come, graymalkin!
SECOND WITCH
Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH
Anon!
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Latin liturgy
In the 13th century hymns written in medieval Latin, the Dies Irae (0000) is the poetry sequence of the Roman Catholic requiem mass; the first two verses are:
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
In the Stabat Mater (0000) meditation on the suffering of Mary, during Jesus' crucifixion, the first two verses are:
Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
Kalevala meter
Balto-Finnic (e.g. Estonian, Finnish, Karelian) folk poetry uses a form of trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg, are both written in this meter, which like Germanic alliterative verse makes heavy use of alliteration within the poetic line.[4] The meter is thought to have originated during the Proto-Finnic period. Its main rules are as follows[5] (examples are taken from the Kalevala):
Syllables fall into three types: strong, weak, and neutral. A long syllable (one that contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends in a consonant) with a main stress is metrically strong, and a short syllable with a main stress is metrically weak. All syllables without a main stress are metrically neutral. A strong syllable can only occur in the rising part of the second, third, and fourth foot of a line:
Veli / kulta, / veikko/seni (1:11)
("Brother dear, little brother"[6])
A weak syllable can only occur in the falling part of these feet:
Miele/ni mi/nun te/kevi (1:1)
("I have a mind to ...")
Neutral syllables can occur at any position. The first foot has a freer structure, allowing strong syllables in a falling position and weak syllables in a rising position:
Niit' en/nen i/soni / lauloi (1:37)
("My father used to sing them")
vesois/ta ve/tele/miä (1:56)
("tugged from the saplings")
It is also possible for the first foot to contain three or even four syllables.
There are two main types of line: a normal trochaic tetrameter and a broken trochaic tetrameter. In a normal tetrameter, word-stresses and foot-stresses match, and there is a caesura between the second and third feet:
Veli / kulta, // veikko/seni
A broken tetrameter (Finnish murrelmasäe) has at least one stressed syllable in a falling position. There is usually no caesura:
Miele/ni mi/nun te/kevi
Traditional poetry in the Kalevala meter uses both types with approximately the same frequency. The alteration of normal and broken tetrameters is a characteristic difference between the Kalevala meter and other forms of trochaic tetrameter.
References
- ^ Howell, Anthony (30 June 2019). The Step Is the Foot: Dance and Its Relationship to Poetry. Grey Suit Editions. ISBN 978-1-903006-13-9.
- ^ "Trochaic - Examples and Definition of Trochaic". Literary Devices. 14 March 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
- ^ Ferber, Michael (5 September 2019). Poetry and Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-42912-2.
- ^ Harvilahti, Lauri (2013). "The SKVR Database of Ancient Poems of the Finnish People in Kalevala Meter and the Semantic Kalevala". Oral Tradition. 28 (2). doi:10.1353/ort.2013.0019. hdl:10355/65328. ISSN 1542-4308.
- ^ Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic: An Anthology in Finnish and English. translated and edited by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley, and Michael Branch. Finnish Literature Society. 1977. pp. 62–64. ISBN 951-717-087-4.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ The Kalevala. trans. Keith Bosley. Oxford University Press. 1999 [first published 1989]. ISBN 0-19-283570-X.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
This page was last edited on 4 January 2024, at 04:04