Feet and Meter

Feet and Meter

Meter

Definition: a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse (or within lines of a poem). Stressed syllables tend to be longer and unstressed shorter, giving poetry a rhthmical and melodious sound.

The study of different types of versification and meters is known as "prosody"

Key: stressed = /

unstressed = x

Meters with two-syllable feet:

Iambic (x /): That time of year thou mayst in me behold

Trochaic (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbers

Spondaic (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

Meters with three-syllable feet:

Anapestic (x x /): And the sound of a voice that is still

Dactyic (/ x x): This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock (a trochee replaces the final dactyl)

Feet

A meter contains…