Trochaic tetrameter

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 trochees. A trochee is a long syllable, or stressed syllable, followed by a short, or unstressed, one. Stresses on a syllable are detected by simply noting which syllable one puts stress on when saying the word. In many cases, this is the syllable which is pronounced loudest in the word, for example, the word 'purity' will take a stress on the first syllable and an unstress on the others.

Example of trochaic tetrameter

Literary examples

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 each trochee have been bolded:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

The Kalevala also follows a loose trochaic tetrameter, though it also has some slight variations to the normal pattern, which cause some people to term it the "Kalevala Metre". Because English tradition is so strongly iambic, some feel that it has an awkward or unnatural feel to the ear.

Another clear example is Philip Larkin's "The Explosion."

On the day of the explosion

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.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;

Came back with a nest of lark's eggs;

Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins

Fathers brothers nicknames laughter

Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon there came a tremor; cows

Stopped chewing for a second; sun

Scarfed as in a heat-haze dimmed.

The dead go on before us they

Are sitting in God's house in comfort

We shall see them face to face—

Plain as lettering in the chapels

It was said and for a second

Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed—

Gold as on a coin or walking

Somehow from the sun towards them

One showing the eggs unbroken.

Trochaic tetrameter is also employed by Shakespeare in several instances to contrast with his usual blank verse (which is in iambic pentameter). For instance, in Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare frequently writes the lines of his fairies in catalectic trochaic tetrameter, as is evidenced by Puck's lines, here:

Through the forest have I gone.

But Athenian found I none,

On whose eyes I might approve

This flower's force in stirring love.

Night and silence.--Who is here?

Weeds of Athens he doth wear:

This is he, my master said,

Despised the Athenian maid;

And here the maiden, sleeping sound,

On the dank and dirty ground.

Pretty soul! she durst not lie

Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw

All the power this charm doth owe.

When thou wakest, let love forbid

Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:

So awake when I am gone;

For I must now to Oberon.

Later he and Oberon have a conversation entirely in catalectic trochaic tetrameter, which is unusual, since generally Shakespeare used pentameter for dialogue sequences.

OBERON

Flower of this purple dye,

Hit with Cupid's archery,

Sink in apple of his eye.

When his love he doth espy,

Let her shine as gloriously

As the Venus of the sky.

When thou wakest, if she be by,

Beg of her for remedy.

Re-enter PUCK

PUCK

Captain of our fairy band,

Helena is here at hand;

And the youth, mistook by me,

Pleading for a lover's fee.

Shall we their fond pageant see?

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

OBERON

Stand aside: the noise they make

Will cause Demetrius to awake.

PUCK

Then will two at once woo one;

That must needs be sport alone;

And those things do best please me

That befal preposterously.

See also Edgar disguised as Poor Tom in King Lear:

EDGAR

Tom will throw his head at them: avaunt, you curs!

Be thy mouth or black or white,

Tooth that poisons if it bite;

Mastiff greyhound, mongrel grim,

Hound or spaniel, brach or him,

Or bobtail tyke or trundle-tail,

Tom will make him weep and wail;

For with throwing thus my head,

Dogs leap the hatch and all are fled.

Good examples of the rhythmic scheme, albeit not in English, are found in two famous thirteenth century medieval Latin hymns:

• Dies Irae (used as the sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass), the first two verses of which are:

Dies iræ! dies illa

Solvet sæclum in favilla

Teste David cum Sibylla!

Quantus tremor est futurus,

quando judex est venturus,

cuncta stricte discussurus!

and

• Stabat Mater (a stand alone meditation on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ's mother, during his crucifixion), the first two verses of which are:

Stabat mater dolorosa

iuxta Crucem lacrimosa,

dum pendebat Filius.

Cuius animam gementem,

contristatam et dolentem

pertransivit gladius.

Kalevala meter

Baltic Finnic (e.g. Estonian, Finnish, Karelian) folk poetry uses a form of trochaic tetrameter that has been called the Kalevala meter. The Finnish and Estonian national epics, Kalevala and Kalevipoeg, are both written in this meter. The meter is thought to have originated during the Proto-Finnic period. Its main rules are as follows^[1] (examples are taken from the Kalevala):

Syllables fall into three types: strong, weak, and neutral. A long syllable (one that contains a long vowel or a diphthong, or ends in a consonant) with a main stress is metrically strong, and a short syllable with a main stress is metrically weak. All syllables without a main stress are metrically neutral. A strong syllable can only occur in the rising part of the second, third, and fourth foot of a line:

Veli / kulta, / veikko/seni (1:11)

("Brother dear, little brother"^[2])

A weak syllable can only occur in the falling part of these feet:

Miele/ni mi/nun te/kevi (1:1)

("I have a mind to ...")

Neutral syllables can occur at any position. The first foot has a freer structure, allowing strong syllables in a falling position and weak syllables in a rising position:

Niit' en/nen i/soni / lauloi (1:37)

("My father used to sing them")

vesois/ta ve/tele/miä (1:56)

("tugged from the saplings")

It is also possible for the first foot to contain three or even four syllables.

There are two main types of line: a normal trochaic tetrameter and a broken trochaic tetrameter. In a normal tetrameter, word-stresses and foot-stresses match, and there is a caesura between the second and third feet:

Veli / kulta, // veikko/seni

A broken tetrameter (Finnish murrelmasäe) has at least one stressed syllable in a falling position. There is usually no caesura:

Miele/ni mi/nun te/kevi

Traditional poetry in the Kalevala meter uses both types with approximately the same frequency. The alteration of normal and broken tetrameters is a characteristic difference between the Kalevala meter and other forms of trochaic tetrameter.

References