Substitution (poetry)

In English poetry substitution is the use of an alien metric foot in a line of otherwise regular metrical pattern.^[1] For instance in an iambic line of "da DUM", a trochaic substitution would introduce a foot of "DUM da".

Trochaic substitution

In a line of verse that normally employs iambic meter, trochaic substitution describes the replacement of an iamb by a trochee.

The following line from John Keats' Ode to Autumn is straightforward iambic pentameter:^[2]

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

Using '°' for a weak syllable, '/' for a strong syllable, and '|' for divisions between feet it can be represented as:

swell

the

gourd,

and

plump

the

ha-

zel

shells

The opening of a sonnet by John Donne demonstrates troachaic substitution of the first foot ("Batter"):

Bat-

ter

heart

three-

per-

soned

God,

for

you

Donne uses an inversion (DUM da instead of da DUM) in the first foot of the first line to stress the key verb, "batter", and then sets up a clear iambic pattern with the rest of the line

References

^ Fry, Stephen (2005). The Ode Less Travelled. Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0-09-950934-9.
^ Steele, Timothy (1999). All the fun's in how you say a thing. Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-1260-4.