Definition of Foot: Meter Poem

Foot
Definition of Foot
The literary device “foot” is a measuring unit in poetry, which is made up of
stressed and unstressed syllables. The stressed syllable is generally
indicated by a vertical line ( | ), whereas the unstressed syllable is
represented by a cross ( X ). The combination of feet creates meter in
poetry. Later, these meters are joined for the composition of a
complete poem. Therefore, a foot is the formative unit of the meter.
In poetry, there are various types of foot, each of which sounds differently.
Some of the basic types of foot are given below:
 Iamb: Combination of unstressed and stressed syllable – (daDUM)

 Trochee: Combination of stressed and unstressed syllables –
(DUMda)
 Spondee: Combination of two stressed syllables – (DUMDUM)
 Anapest: Combination of two unstressed and a stressed syllable –
(dadaDUM)
 Dactyl: Combination of stressed and two unstressed syllables –
(DUMdada)
 Amphibrach: Combination of unstressed, stressed and unstressed
syllable – (daDUMda)
 Pyrrhic: Combination of two unstressed syllables – (dada)
There are two types of meter, which are known as rising meter
and falling meter. Each type of meter uses a different type of foot. As the
rising meters go from unstressed syllables to stressed ones, they mainly
use iamb and anapest feet. On the contrary, the falling meters go from
stressed syllables to unstressed ones, and mostly use trochee and dactyl
feet.
Examples of Foot in Literature

Example #1: Twelfth Night (By William Shakespeare)
“If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall;
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound.”
This stanza is taken from William Shakespeare’s well known play, Twelfth
Night. It has been composed in iambic pentameter. To make it easy to
understand the unstressed and stressed combination of syllables, the
stressed syllables are given in bold font.
Example #2: King Lear (By William Shakespeare)
“And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there …!”
This is yet another extract from Shakespeare’s another great play, King
Lear. It is an appropriate example of trochaic pentameter. This has the
combination of a stressed and unstressed syllable pattern – a pattern
opposite to iambic.
Example #3: The Destruction of Sennacherib (By Lord Byron)
“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, …
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast …
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!”
This is a selection from Lord Byron’s poem, The Destruction of

Sennacherib. It is one of the best examples of anapestic pattern of foot. In
particular, it follows a tetrameter pattern, which consists of four anapests in
a line. In this selection, anapests have been made bold. This entire poem
follows the similar pattern. In each foot, two syllables are unstressed, while
the third syllable is stressed.
Example #4: The Charge of the Light Brigade (By Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
“Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
These lines have been taken from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s well known
poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It is an excellent example of the of
use dactyl pentameter. The dactyl follows a pattern of stressed,
unstressed, and again unstressed syllables. As it is an elegiac poem, it
uses dactyl pentameter, which suits elegies. The meter in
this verse functions like a building block and provides a regular rhythm.
Function of Foot
The function of foot is to provide the basic structure for the meter in a
verse. As it is based on the combination of either two or three syllables, this
combination creates musical rhythm. Therefore, it is the use of feet that
brings rhythm to poetry – the reason that poetry is differentiated
from prose. Without the repetition of a particular foot in a verse, poetry
would be no different from prose, as the important elements of rhythm and
musical quality will be missing in the absence of feet.
Meter
Definition of Meter
Meter is a stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern in a verse, or within the
lines of a poem. Stressed syllables tend to be longer, and unstressed
shorter. In simple language, meter is a poetic device that serves as a
linguistic sound pattern for the verses, as it gives poetry a rhythmical and
melodious sound. For instance, if you read a poem aloud, and it produces
regular sound patterns, then this poem would be a metered or measured
poem. The study of different types of versification and meters is known as
“prosody.”
Meter and Foot

A meter contains a sequence of several feet, where each foot has a
number of syllables such as stressed/unstressed. Hence, a meter has an
overall rhythmic pattern in a line of verse, which a foot cannot describe.
Types of Meter
English poetry employs five basic meters, including:
1. Iambic meter (unstressed/stressed)

2. Trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed)
3. Spondaic meter, (stressed/stressed)
4. Anapestic meter (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed)
5. Dactylic meter (stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
Meter has two subdivisions: qualitative meter, and quantitative meter.
Qualitative Meter
Qualitative meter contains stressed syllables with regular intervals, such

as iambic pentametercontaining even numbered syllables.
Quantitative Meter
Quantitative meter, however, is based on syllabic weight, and not stressed

pattern,s such as dactylic hexameters of classical Greek and classical
Latin. However, classical Arabic and Sanskrit also have used this meter.
Poets like Virgil used quantitative meter in Aeneid, and Homer used it
in Iliad.
Short Examples of Meter

1. People become what they believe.
(Trochaic meter)
2. Those who can dream it, they really can achieve it.
(Dactylic/Spondaic)
3. Don’t search faults. Find remedies.
(Iambic meter)
4. When you give and accept gratefully, you feel blessed.
(Anapestic meter)
5. The safest place on planet earth.
(Iambic meter)
6. Be happy, be positive, be you.
(Spondaic meter)
7. Life is short to hold grudges.
(Trochaic meter)
8. If you know why to live, then you can tolerate anything.
(Dactylic meter)
9. All the news here is ready to print.
(Trochaic meter)
10. Because you’re worth it.
(Iambic meter)
11. Bell lion not in doleful manner.
(Trochaic meter)
12. And they found some mice alive still.
(Anapestic meter)
13. Tough minds do shake the conscience of the week.
(Iambic meter)
14. The kids have gone, for they have left the nest.
(Iambic tetrameter)
15. He knows she will and you can tell.
(Iambic tetrameter)
Meter Examples in Literature

Example #1: Twelfth Night (By William Shakespeare)
“If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets …”
This is an example of iambic pentameter, which contains an unstressed

syllable first, and a stressed syllable second. Shakespeare has played
around with iambic pentameter a lot to create different effects. Here you
can see each line consists of accented and unaccented syllables
underlined.
Example #2: The Explosion (By Philip Larkin)
“Shadows pointed towards the pithead:

In the sun the slagheap slept.
Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke
Shouldering off the freshened silence.”
This extract contains trochaic meter in which stressed syllables are

pronounced loudly. Larkin has written frequently in trochaic
(accented/unaccented) tetrameter with four trochees.
Example #3: The Charge of the Light Brigade (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)
“Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.”
This excerpt presents an example of dactylic meter that contains one

accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables.
Example #4: The Hunting of the Snark (By Lewis Carroll)
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,

As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair …
There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
Here you can see Carroll has used different types of anapestic meter,
dimeter, trimeter, and tetrameter. This type of meter has two unaccented
syllables and a third accented syllable.
Example #5: Troilus and Cressida (By William Shakespeare)
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

Spondaic meter has two accented syllables. You can easily identify this
type of meter because it contains both stressed syllables: “Cry, cry! Troy
burns.”
Example #6: An Autumn Visit (By Josie Whitehead)
“Autumn is wearing her bright golden crown

For this morning she’s coming to visit our town
And wind, her best friend, will be joining her too.
Will they have a nice day and just what will they do?”
This stanza has used a combination of iambic and anapestic meter.

In anapest, two unstressed syllables are followed by one stressed syllable,
which rhymes the lines and add music to them.
Example #7: Evangeline (By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,
Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public;
Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung
Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows
Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal.”
This poem is written in dactylic hexameter, with six dactyls in each line. The
poet has combined dactylic hexameter with spondaic meter to give more
rhythmic and uplifting reading experience to readers.
Example #8: Trees (By Joyce Kilmer)
“I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest …
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair …”
Each line in this example is following iambic tetrameterical pattern. Notice

the very first line, in which the stress is placed on the second syllable
“think,” but not on “I.” In this poem, the poet emphasizes
the comparison between a tree and poem.
Example #9: Song (By William Blake)

“I love the jocund dance,
The softly breathing song,
Where innocent eyes do glance,
And where lisps the maiden’s tongue.
I love the oaken seat,
Beneath the oaken tree,
Where all the old villagers meet,
And laugh our sports to see.”
This is an example of iambic trimeter. There are three iambs and six
syllables, alternating three groups of unaccented and accented in each line.
Example #10: The Song of Hiawatha (By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows …
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations,
As of thunder in the mountains?”
This unique poem has used trochaic meter as its major metrical foot, which
is clearly adding music to the verses.
Function of Meter
Though meter is a poetic device, playwrights as well as prose writers often
use it to heighten the dramatic quality of the work, adding enchantment,
mystery and emotion to their language. If you look carefully, you will notice
metrical feet are not only suitable in poetry, but also in plays to achieve
dramatic purposes. However, its basic function is to provide rhythm and
uniformity, and to give a rounded and well-formed structure to the poetic
work. Meter makes the tone of a language more lyrical. When a situation
requires heightened language, the poets use meter for artistic effect.
Besides, a meter has importance and value to the readers, which could,
however, be lost if paraphrased or translated.

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Foot

 Iamb: Combination of unstressed and stressed syllable – (daDUM)

Examples of Foot in Literature

“If music be the food of love, play on;

Example #2: King Lear (By William Shakespeare)

“And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!

Example #3: The Destruction of Sennacherib (By Lord Byron)

“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

This is a selection from Lord Byron’s poem, The Destruction of

“Half a league, half a league,

Meter and Foot

1. Iambic meter (unstressed/stressed)

Meter has two subdivisions: qualitative meter, and quantitative meter.

Qualitative meter contains stressed syllables with regular intervals, such

Quantitative meter, however, is based on syllabic weight, and not stressed

Short Examples of Meter

Meter Examples in Literature

“If music be the food of love, play on;

This is an example of iambic pentameter, which contains an unstressed

Example #2: The Explosion (By Philip Larkin)

“Shadows pointed towards the pithead:

This extract contains trochaic meter in which stressed syllables are

“Half a league, half a league,

This excerpt presents an example of dactylic meter that contains one

Example #4: The Hunting of the Snark (By Lewis Carroll)

“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,

Example #5: Troilus and Cressida (By William Shakespeare)

Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

Example #6: An Autumn Visit (By Josie Whitehead)

“Autumn is wearing her bright golden crown

This stanza has used a combination of iambic and anapestic meter.

Example #7: Evangeline (By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Example #8: Trees (By Joyce Kilmer)

“I think that I shall never see

A tree that may in summer wear

Each line in this example is following iambic tetrameterical pattern. Notice

Example #9: Song (By William Blake)

Example #10: The Song of Hiawatha (By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

“Should you ask me, whence these stories?

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