Dactylic tetrameter
Dactylic tetrameter is a metre in poetry.[1] It refers to a line consisting of four dactylic feet. "Tetrameter" simply means four poetic feet. Each foot has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, the opposite of an anapest, sometimes called antidactylus to reflect this fact.
| Disyllables | |
|---|---|
| ◡ ◡ | pyrrhic, dibrach |
| ◡ – | iamb |
| – ◡ | trochee, choree |
| – – | spondee |
| Trisyllables | |
| ◡ ◡ ◡ | tribrach |
| – ◡ ◡ | dactyl |
| ◡ – ◡ | amphibrach |
| ◡ ◡ – | anapaest, antidactylus |
| ◡ – – | bacchius |
| – – ◡ | antibacchius |
| – ◡ – | cretic, amphimacer |
| – – – | molossus |
| See main article for tetrasyllables. | |
Example
A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones:
| DUM | da | da |
A dactylic tetrameter would therefore be:
| DUM | da | da | DUM | da | da | DUM | da | da | DUM | da | da |
Scanning this using an "x" to represent an unstressed syllable and a "/" to represent a stressed syllable would make a dactylic tetrameter like the following:
| / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x |
The following lines from The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" demonstrate this, the scansion being:
| / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x |
| Pic- | ture | your- | self | in | a | boat | on | a | riv- | er | with |
| / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x |
| tan- | ger- | ine | tree- | ees | and | marm- | a- | lade | skii- | ii- | es |
Another example, from Browning:
| / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x | x | / | x |
| Just | for | a | hand- | ful | of | sil- | ver | he | left | us! |
See also
- Dactyl (poetry)
- Tetrameter
- Alcmanian verse, for the dactylic tetrameter in Greek and Latin poetry
References
- Anthon, Charles (1850). A System of Latin Prosody and Metre: From the Best Authorities, Ancient and Modern. Harper & brothers. pp. 145–155.
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