Trochaic octameter is a

poetic Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

with eight

trochaic In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light one (al ...

metrical feet per line. Each foot has one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic octameter is a rarely used meter.

Description and uses

The best known work in trochaic octameter is

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

's "

The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myst ...

", which uses five lines of trochaic octameter followed by a "short" half line (in reality, 7 beats). By the end of the poem, the latter half line takes on the qualities of a refrain. Another well-known work is

Banjo Paterson Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 18645 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the ...

's " Clancy of the Overflow", which uses four lines of trochaic octameter for each verse throughout. Other examples are Robert Browning's '' A Toccata of Galuppi's'',

Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

's '' Locksley Hall'', and

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's '' Mandalay''. (Compares Locksley Hall and Mandalay.) Lines in these poems are catalectic (' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' ). A line of trochaic octameter is eight of these in a row: We can scan this with a 'x' mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '/' mark representing a stressed syllable. In this notation a line of trochaic octameter would look like this: The following first verse from "The Raven" shows the use of trochaic octameter. Note the heavy use of dactyls in the second and fifth line, which help to emphasize the more regular lines, and the use of strong accents to end the second, fourth and fifth lines, reinforcing the rhyme: We can notate the

scansion Scansion ( , rhymes with ''mansion''; verb: ''to scan''), or a system of scansion, is the method or practice of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. In classical poetry, these patterns are ...

of this as follows:

In other literatures

Trochaic octameter is popular in Polish and Czech literatures. It is because the main stress in Polish falls regularly on the penultimate syllable and in Czech on the first syllable. So all Polish and Czech two-syllable words are trochaic.Josef Brukner, Jiří Filip, Poetický slovník, Mladá fronta, Praha 1997, pp. 339-342 (in Czech). :Niedostępna ludzkim oczom, że nikt po niej się nie błąka, :W swym bezpieczu szmaragdowym rozkwitała w bezmiar łąka ::( Bolesław Leśmian, Ballada bezludna) :Stojím v šeru na skalině, o niž v pěnu, déšť a kouř :duníc, ječíc rozbíjí se nesmírného vodstva bouř. ::( Svatopluk Čech, Písně otroka)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trochaic Octameter Types of verses

Description and uses

In other literatures

See also

References