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Dactylic tetrameter

Poetic verse form

Poetic verse form

Dactylic tetrameter is a metre in poetry. 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.

Example

A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones:

DUMdada

A dactylic tetrameter would therefore be:

DUMdadaDUMdadaDUMdadaDUMdada

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:

/xx/xx/xx/xx

The following lines from The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" demonstrate this, the scansion being:

Pic-tureyour-selfinaboatonariv-erwith
tan-ger-inetree-eesandmarm-a-ladeskii-ii-es

Another example, from Browning:

Justforahand-fulofsil-verheleftus!

Another example from Leonard Cohen of his song "Famous Blue Raincoat":

WhatcanItellyoumybro-thermykee-per
WhatcanIposs-ib-lysay

References

References

  1. Anthon, Charles. (1850). "A System of Latin Prosody and Metre: From the Best Authorities, Ancient and Modern". Harper & brothers.
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