Poetic Meter

Dactylic hexameter (also known as "heroic hexameter") is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry. The premier examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid. The meter consists of lines made from six ("hexa") feet. In strict dactylic hexameter, each of these feet would be dactyl, but...

Iambic pentameter is a type of meter that is used in poetry and drama. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called 'feet'. The word 'iambic' describes the type of foot that is used. The word 'pentameter' indicates that a line has five of these 'feet'. Different languages express rhythm in different ways. In Ancient Greek and Latin, the rhythm is created through the...

Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iamb. The term originally applied to the quantitative meter of Classical Greek poetry, in which an iamb consisted of a short syllable followed by a long syllable. See syllable weight. The term was adopted to describe the equivalent meter in accentual-syllabic verse, as composed in...

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. A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones: A dactylic tetrameter would therefore be: Scanning this using an "x" to represent an unstressed syllable and a "/" to represent a...

Trochaic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line of four trochaic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that the poem has four trochee. A trochee is a long syllable, or stressed syllable, followed by a short, or unstressed, one. For English-speakers, two of the best-known examples are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha and the Finnish Kalevala. This can be demonstrated in the following famous excerpt from "Hiawatha's Childhood", where the accented syllables of...

Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid's Amores. As with heroic couplets, the couplets are usually self-contained and express a complete idea. Elegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable, a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long...