Literature
Trochaic
Trochaic is a metrical foot in poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. It is the opposite of iambic meter, which has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Trochaic meter is commonly used in poetry and is known for its strong, rhythmic quality.
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12 Key excerpts on "Trochaic"
eBook - PDF- George T. Wright(Author)
- 1988(Publication Date)
- University of California Press(Publisher)
To give them seals, never my soul consent (Hamlet, 3.2.399) 4. And play the mother's part, l^iss me, be kind (Sonnet 143:12) I8 5 Shakespeare's Metrical Art 5. But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone (Tmon of Athens, 4.3.528) 6. The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit (The Comedy of Errors, 1.2.44) 7. It is because no one should sway but he (/ Henry vi, 3.1.37) 8. Spea with me, pity me, open the door (Richard n, 5.3.77) Through much of English metrical history, poets and theorists alike have usually been content to read the italicized words as constituting Trochaic variations within a basically iambic line: the first syllable of a pair is stressed, the second unstressed, and then the line returns to the normal pattern. The jog in the meter is heard as a displacement, as a temporary disruption, galling to Augustans, but familiar enough to most earlier and later readers; and habitual listeners to iambic pentameter have long been accustomed to the Trochaic inversion as a normal deviation of the iambic current, especially when it occurs at the beginning of a line or after a midline break. A Trochaic foot, with its early stress and its subsequent unstressed syllable which often unites with the following one to form a little rhythmic fillip, confers variety, grace, or energy on a line, relieving us, as even the metrically regular Dr. Johnson admitted, from the con-tinual tyranny of the same sound. 1 The status of the Trochaic inversion has nevertheless seemed to many modern metrists highly questionable. Doubts proceed essentially from two sources. First, from the linguistic analysis of meter, which is little inter-ested in dramatically appropriate or graceful reversals of stress pattern (such aesthetic evaluations are sometimes said to lie outside its purview and competence) but much concerned with the extent to which stressed syllables occupy, or fail to occupy, the metrically prominent positions of a line.
However, if one bears in mind our point about the tendency to use catalectic final feet in Trochaic metre, then the picture begins to clarify. Generalising about particular metrical forms is not without its attendant 92 Poetry hazards. Against every attempt to make overarching statements about the qualities of a given metre, many examples of lines which contradict such assertions might be found. However, we would dare the assertion that the heroic line, especially in regular and unbroken form, generally possesses a stately and unhurried quality which is not usually evident in the Trochaic line, which has a sprightly and more urgent manner, most notably in its commonest form of the tetrameter line. To illustrate the differences in the measures, here are some lines from the poet Gray’s remarkable ode ‘The Progress of Poesy’, which is actually a fine, though veiled, piece of literary criticism. Here the ‘Loves’, or Cupids, dance and disport themselves before the arrival of Queen Cytherea, the goddess of love: With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, Frisking light in frolic measures; Now pursuing, now retreating, Now in circling troops they meet: To brisk notes in cadence beating, Glance their many-twinkling feet. Slow melting strains their Queen’s approach declare; Where’er she turns the Graces homage pay, With arms sublime, that float upon the air, In gliding state she wins her easy way; This is mythological description, but it is just as much an account of the qualities which Gray sees in the most common English metres: lines 1–6 describing the Trochaic and lines 7–10 the iambic. Here the poet makes the form of his poem mirror its content. The first six lines are in Trochaic tetrameter; Gray begins in complete lines and moves on to use resounding curtailed ones for the final rhyme (in lines 4 and 6). Trochaic metre, like the joys of the Cupids, is light, brisk and frolicsome.
eBook - PDF- Rhian Williams(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
This forward movement is suited to storytelling and iambic metre is common in simple tale-telling (as in the ballad ) and in more formal narratives such as dramatic blank verse or English epic . However, the iamb appears across all types of English poetry and is sometimes even considered the ‘natural’ pattern of English speech. Although many liken the iamb’s pattern to a heartbeat, the iamb should be thought of as ‘familiar’ rather than ‘natural’: after all, English verse did not begin with the iamb. If music be the food of love, play on, [If mu ] [sic be ] [the food ] [of love ,] [play on ,] William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, or What You Will (1623), I: 1, l. 1. Trochee A two-syllable foot, stressed followed by unstressed. Example word: app le (or even tro chee). By moving from a stressed to an unstressed syllable, trochees create patterns of falling metre : a true Trochaic line would end on an unstressed syllable. However, they usually cut off that final unstressed syllable, making a catalectic line. When they are run together the trochee’s stress-to-unstress pattern produces a rocking motion that might be light and sprightly, as in Taylor’s nursery rhyme, or they might impart a note of heavy, pounding emphasis, as in Blake’s famous use of trochees in ‘The Tyger’: Twinkle, twinkle, little star. [ Twin kle,] [ twin kle,] [ litt le] [ star .] Jane Taylor, ‘The Star’ (1806), l. 1. Prosody 151 Tyger! Tyger! burning bright [ Tyg er!] [ Tyg er!] [ burn ing] [ bright ] William Blake, ‘The Tyger’ (1794), l. 1. Note that both of these examples employ catalectic lines in order to retain a strong stress, so they have masculine endings. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ (1855) keeps the strict Trochaic line, creating feminine endings (‘[ From his] [ foot steps] [ flowed a] [ riv er]’, l. 8).
eBook - PDF- John Singleton, Mary Luckhurst, John Singleton, Mary Luckhurst(Authors)
- 2000(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
It works, after a fashion, but the staccato rhythm becomes monotonous, because the feet and the words coincide. My lines 3-4 are more interesting 'WE can USE while MISproNOUNcing / TO sub-STANtial VERbal PROfit'. It isn't very good, but the poly-syllables 'mispronouncing' and 'substantial' consolidate and enliven the rhythm, inflecting and modulating the thump-ting-thump-ting to which trochees tend. What begins to result is a potentially subtle and expressive rhythm not to be heard from iambs. The best-known Trochaic poem is Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha (1855), written in unrhymed Trochaic tetrameter (which is as well if one's hero is called Hiawatha, and his wife 'Minnehaha, Laughing Water '). The poem is fun (read any 100 lines aloud), but relies heavily on a chanting delivery, repeating phrases and lines; and Longfellow does not begin to do all that can be done with Trochaic rhythm. For a more varied display try Robert Browning (1812-89): two of his great Trochaic poems are included in the Norton Anthology -'Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister' (N913) and 'A Toccata of Galuppi's' (N926) -but a collected Browning is well worth sampling. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was also unusually skilled with trochees, and reads aloud excellently. To see/ hear something of great skill, try to scan 'Recessional' (N1077), deciding what is rising and what is falling. (Remem-ber that Trochaic words, such as 'MAzy' [xu] and 'ERRor' [xu] can be fitted in to iambic lines, as in Milton's 'With mazy error
Available until 18 Jan |Learn moreListening to Poetry
An Introduction for Readers and Writers
- Jeremy Trabue(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Chemeketa Press(Publisher)
You’ve also observed that every line starts with a stressed syllable. Nine out of twelve end with an unstressed syllable. Every line has an even number of syllables, either eight or four, which is not divisible by three. That suggests you are looking at lines of two-syllable feet rather than three-syllable feet. What is the two-syllable foot moving from stressed to unstressed? The trochee. If you try to divide this into trochees, how does it go? Remember, start at the back and work forward, at least at first. A single vertical line separates each foot:Sil• ver |bark• of |beech, • and |sall• owBark• of |yell• ow |birch• and |yell• owTwig• of |will• ow.Stripe• of |green• in |moose• wood |ma• ple,Col• our |seen• in |leaf• of |ap• ple,Bark• of |pop• ple.Wood• of |pop• ple |pale• as |moon•beam,Wood• of |oak• for |yoke• and |barn- •beam,Wood• of |horn•beam.Sil• ver |bark• of |beech, • and |holl• owStem• of |el• der, |tall• and |yell• owTwig• of |will• ow.Perfect! The lines divide consistently into trochees. The only exceptions are in lines 7–9, where the final foot of each line is a spondee. Even with this variation, the majority of feet in each line and in the poem overall are trochees. You can tentatively identify the dominant foot as the trochee.How long are the lines? Count the feet. Most are four feet, and some are two. Because the majority are four feet long, the meter should be called Trochaic tetrameter—“Trochaic” because the dominant foot is the trochee and “tetrameter” because the most common line length is four feet.A full description of the meter of the poem would require a little more information, though. It would go something like this: “This poem is mostly in perfectly regular Trochaic tetrameter, though every tercet ends with a dimeter line and every line in the third tercet ends with a spondee.”This poem has a very regular and straightforward meter, so it’s a good starting point for you. A lot of the fun to be had and insight to be gained, however, comes from scanning poems that use more complex patterns to create more varied, interesting, and sophisticated rhythms.
eBook - PDF- Donald Freeman(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
It can be termed lrric troclwic. The second is a relatively simple type, narmtive Trochaic, which is ex-emplified by 'Hiawatha, ' 'The Raven,' and ' Locksl cy Hall.' The principal difference between the two is in how often M R2 applies. In lyric Trochaic verse. it applies with about the same frequency as in most iambic verse. Even a short lyric poem wil l have 'spondaic ' feet generated by the application of M R2 to weak positions: ( 79) Hail to thee, blithe I spirit Whose in/tens e lump narrows In the / white dmrn clear In its own gre en I leaves In the / world's broad 1 field of battle Lives of great men all relmind us Let the dead past I bury its / dead ('To a Skylark') (ibid.) (ibid.) (ibid.) ('A Psalm of Life') (ibid.) (ibid.) But other Trochaic poems -typically, longer narrative poems -have a very low perc entage of spondaic feet. There are only a couple of them in The Raven' and in 'Locksley Hall': (80) But the Raven still be;guiling I all my sad soul I into smiling ('The Raven') Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken (ibid. ) 26 2 Essay s in Modern Strlistic s Catch the j wild g o a t / by the ! hair, and hurl their f iances ! in the / sun ( Locksley Hall) Let the I great 1rorld; spin for ever down the I ringing grooves of j change (ibid.) Then what about iambic feet in trochai c vers e? It is commonly said that they do not oc cur at all. This is repeated both in the traditional metrical litera ture (Bridges, p. 54; Jesp ersen) and in more rec ent works (Halle & Keyser 1 97 1 a, Hascall 1971 ) . A look at the poetry shows that this is an oversimplification. A more accurate sta tement of the facts is that inverted feet occur in all kinds of Trochaic verse; and that they are moderat ely frequent in lyric trochai c vers e.
eBook - PDFAlexander Blok
A study in rhythm and metre
- Robin Kemball(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
5 8.0 13.5 48.5 Total 124.5 7 This is, indeed, as we should expect. It must not be assumed that the iambic and Trochaic Forms 2-5 in any way 'correspond' with each other in terms of rhythmical (or even metrical) realities. The use of the same 6 definitions in both cases is purely a matter of convenience for purposes of analysis. On this point, vide infra, pp. 203 ff. 8 Nos 158, 296, 617, 640, 732. • In No. 732 there is parity (10 each light 1st and 3rd feet). 10 Cf. Iz istorii i ritmiki xoreja. The 5-foot trochee is discussed on pp. 55-60. The figures quoted are from the table on p. 66. 192 RHYTHMIC VARIATIONS IN Trochaic METRES The differences between these two sets of findings are considerable, and are not so easily explained. The material, certainly, is very limited in both cases - but this very fact tends to suggest that it must be more or less identical in each instance. 11 Moreover, the biggest discrepancies are not - as would be understandable - in the 2nd and 3rd feet (where examples are so few as almost to encourage chance results) but in the 1st and 4th feet, where examples are, as it were, at their maximum. 12 For the 5-foot trochee, there exist - in theory, at least - the same 9 possible forms as for the 5-foot iamb. 13 Converting my own figures into terms of these forms, we get: 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 7 8 9 Lines Total 16 21 4 10 36 5 18 0 10 120 % 13.6 17.5 3.3 8.2 30.0 4.2 15.0 — 8.2 (100) Compared with the 4-foot Trochaic line, the most striking feature is the big drop in the incidence of the full-stress (here, 5-stress) line (13.6% as against 27.3%, or almost exactly half). The light 1st foot alone and light penultimate foot alone (Forms 2 and 5 respectively) drop slightly 11 The 5 poems examined here are in fact the only 'pure' 5-foot trochees in the whole of the standard edition of Blok. The only poem specifically mentioned by Astaxova (p. 55) is Na pole Kulikovom, which presumably refers to the second canto (No. 732, also included in my study).
- Ewen Bowie(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
34 The Performance Contexts of Trochaic Tetrameters Catalectic (2018) 1 Introduction In this paper I explore the meagre evidence for the archaic performance context or contexts of poems in the metre that modern scholars (following metricians of the Hellenistic and Roman periods) call the Trochaic tetram- eter catalectic. 1 Some features of these Trochaic tetrameters might support the view that their performance contexts were different from those of other early verse forms – from those of melic poetry (always sung), of elegiac poetry (either sung or perhaps chanted), 2 and of iambic trimeters (usually spoken, not sung) to which they are metrically close. 3 I begin with a brief discussion of this last feature, the place on the spectrum between spoken and sung performance occupied by tetrameters. It seems that when Trochaic tetrameters catalectic were composed and performed κατὰ στίχον, ‘by the line’ (i.e. in successive lines in the same metre), 4 they were chanted, rather than sung or simply spoken: the ancient term is παρακαταλογή, ‘recitative’ (LSJ s.v.). 5 It may be a consequence of the fact that they are ‘chanted’, rather than spoken, that they later have a strong presence in fifth-century Attic tragedy for stately speeches by serious characters, and in fifth-century Attic comedy for the sections of the parabasis that were not sung. These presences in turn deserve to be taken into account in assessing archaic performance context. 1 I am very grateful to Elizabeth Irwin for helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this paper. 2 For arguments in favour of the view that elegiac poetry was not sung but delivered in some mode intermediate between speech and song see Budelmann and Power 2013. 3 But not so close as suggested by West 1982, 40, as has been pointed out e.g. by Sicking 1986, 427. 4 The metre can also be found in melic metrical systems, e.g.
eBook - PDFIntroduction to metrics
The theory of verse
- Viktor Maksimovic Žirmunskij, E. Stankiewicz, W. N. Vickery, C. F. Brown(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
SYLLABO-TONIC VERSIFICATION 35 Sposob k slozeniju rossijskix stixov (Chap. I, § 18), wrote: The feet most often used in our present versification are the trochee and the iamb. For both of these feet one can always — except in certain positions in certain kinds of verse, about which see below — place the pyrrhic foot, consisting of two short components, without which it would be impossible to com-pose a single line of our poetry. Tred'jakovskij is the first to offer an explanation for this phenomenon: Such license is inescapable on ac-count of our polysyllabic words, without which it would be almost im-possible to write a line. .... (Chap. II, §5). The use of the pyrrhic for the iamb and trochee is also mentioned by Sumarokov in his O stopo-slozenii, Collected Works, vol. X, p. 55 : The length of our words justifies the writer in his use of the pyrrhic, for without this license one would not be able to compose verse. Though one may play the pedant for gaudy effects, such needless niceties are contemptible, and divert the author from good taste, causing him to seek for glory in a place where it never yet was, and spend his strength, to become a laughing-stock. The examples of the pyrrhic are very numerous... Among these early theore-ticians Lomonosov himself stands alone. It was to him that Sumarokov alluded in the above excerpt; for his concern that his iambic meter should be metrically exact led him to object in his Pis'mo to the use of the pyrrhic in poetry of the elevated style: Pure iambic verse, though it may not be easy to write, nevertheless tends gently upwards, and magnifies the height, splendor, and nobility of the matter. It can nowhere be better em-ployed than in triumphal odes, which I have done in my present work ... Lomonosov admits the license of using the pyrrhic only in light verse: I call those verses in which one may use the pyrrhic in place of an iamb or trochee irregular and loosely constructed.
eBook - ePub- Mick Short(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
But because the line lengths are now very irregular we do not feel that the rhythmic properties of each line are parallel to one another. It is this extra regularity which makes metre what it is. Metred poems, then, are poems where the line lengths and rhythmical patterns within the lines are close enough for us to feel a basic pattern of equivalence from line to line. This is why explaining how the different poetic metres work is an important aspect of explaining rhythm in poetry. 5.4 Different kinds of metre Metre in English verse is a level of organisation which is based upon a two—term contrast between positions in a line which should contain strong and weak syllables. Let us use the traditional terms ictus (/) and remiss (X) to refer to these strong and weak positions respectively. If we restrict ourselves for the moment to a situation where these two positions are only allowed to contain one syllable each, we can see that there are two possible patterns of weak and strong events, X /('di dum') and / X ('dum di'). These two elementary patterns are essential to an understanding of English metrics. The first pattern, X / ('di dum') is traditionally called the iamb and the / X ('dum di') pattern is called the trochee. The basic metrical unit of one strong plus one weak (ictus plus remiss) position is traditionally referred to as the metrical foot. Thus we can find iambic feet, Trochaic feet, and also other combinations when the basic unit is expanded to include more than two syllables in the remiss of the foot (the metrical foot must have one and only one ictus syllable, but can normally have from zero to three remiss syllables). Below I list, with illustrative examples, the major foot structures that can be found with any regularity. Some are much more common than others, the iambic foot being by far the most widespread in English verse
eBook - PDFThe Shakespeare Workbook and Video
A Practical Course for Actors
- David Carey, Rebecca Clark Carey(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Methuen Drama(Publisher)
In iambic pentameter this cut usually happens after the second or third foot, but it can also occur at other points. For example, look at these opening lines from Romeo and Juliet : Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene They are both regular iambic lines with a focus-shifting caesura in the middle of the line, but notice how the caesura in each case occurs in the middle of a foot: Two house| -holds both| a-like| in dig| -ni-ty In fair| Ve-ron| -a where| we lay| our scene As you speak these lines, feel how the shifting of the caesura breaks up the regularity of the iambic pulse. In musical terms, we start to get a more syncopated rhythm that is also closer to how we normally speak. Two other standard variations also help to create this sense of syncopation and so give the playwright more rhythmic possibilities for expressing the thoughts and feelings of his dramatic characters. The first of these involves the possibility of reversing the stress pattern of a foot so that a stressed syllable is followed by an unstressed syllable. This can happen in any foot in the line apart from the last, but it happens most often in the first foot. For example, the first line of Shakespeare’s King Richard III reads: RHYTHM AND METER 115 Now is the winter of our discontent Now is | the win| -ter of| our dis| -con-tent And this line, spoken by the King in Act 3 Scene 1 of Henry VI, Part Two : Looking the way her harmless young one went Look -ing | the way| her harm| -less young| one went The reversal of the stress pattern at the beginning of the line gives a lot of potential expressive energy to the words ‘now’ and ‘looking’. This reversed foot is sometimes referred to as a trochee , which is the name for this type of rhythmic unit in classical Greek verse.
- Mick Short(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
5. 4 Different kinds of metre Metre in English verse is a level of organisation which is based upon a two-term contrast between positions in a line which should contain strong and weak syllables. Let us use the traditional terms ictus (I) and remiss (X) to refer to these strong and weak positions respectively. If we restrict ourselves for the moment to a situation where these two positions are only allowed to contain one syllable each, we can see that there are two possible patterns of weak and strong events, X I ('di dum') and I X ('dum di'). These two elementary patterns are essential to an understanding of English metrics. The first pattern, X I ('di dum') is traditionally called the iamb and the I X ('dum di') pattern is called the trochee. The basic metrical unit of one strong plus one weak (ictus plus remiss) position is traditionally referred to as the metrica] foot. Thus we can find iambic feet, Trochaic feet, and also other combinations when the basic unit is expanded to include more than two syllables in the remiss of the foot (the metrical foot must have one and only one ictus syllable, but can normally have from zero to three remiss syllables). Below I list, with illustrative examples, the major foot structures that can be found with any regularity. Some are much more common than others, the iambic foot being by far the most widespread in English verse. The trochee is reasonably common, and the others are more rare: iamb trochee anapaest dactyl X I ('di dum') I X ('dum di') X X I ('di di dum') I X X ('dum di di') It is also possible to get poetic feet which have three light syllables in the remiss position, or where the ictus has a light syllable on either side of it, but these foot patterns are too rare to detain us here. Now let us restrict our discussion for a moment to lines of poetry with iambic ·('di dum') feet. Normally, iambic lines will consist of more than one iamb, and poets can choose how
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