Chapter I
as the rhythmic unit of all rhythms, namely that which recurs
in regular sequence. It comprises, therefore, a point of emphasis and all that occupies the time-distance between that point of emphasis and the following one. In other words, a foot is a section of speech-rhythm containing a stressed element and an unstressed element, usually one or two unaccented syllables. So much is clear and undisputed in theory. But there are few single topics on which writers on English prosody are so much at variance as on the further, more accurate definition of the foot. One of the main sources of difficulty, however, is easily removed. The metrical foot is not a natural division of language, like the word or the phrase, but an arbitrary division, like the bar in music, an abstraction having no existence independent of the larger rhythm of which it is a part. The analogy between the metrical foot and the musical bar is very close: they are both artificial sections of rhythm which either in whole or in part may be grouped into such phrases as the ideas or melodies may require.[23] They may be isolated and treated by themselves only for the purposes of analysis, for they are merely theoretical entities, like the chemical elements. There is no reason, therefore, that the foot should correspond with word divisions, no objection to the falling of different syllables of one word into different feet. Thus in Gray's line
The cur | few tolls | the knell | of part | ing day
both _curfew_ and _parting_ are divided.[24] Further, the division between clauses may fall in the middle of a foot, as in Wordsworth's lines
The world | is too | much with | us; late | and soon Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [23] The chief difference perhaps between the foot and the | | bar is that the latter always begins with a rhythmic stress, | | whereas the foot may begin with an unstressed element. | | | | [24] Some metrists, holding that every foot should begin | | with a stress, divide thus: | | | | The | curfew | tolls the | knell of | parting | day. | | | | Such a division can be justified on several grounds, but it | | remains awkward and obscures the plain fact of rising | | rhythm. It does not affect the division of word and foot; | | for compare Shelley's line: | | | | Ne | cessi | ty! thou | mother | of the | world. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
But another difficulty remains, which is apparent in the second line just quoted from Wordsworth. The general rhythm of the whole sonnet of which these two lines are the beginning is plainly duple rising, or iambic. The first line and the latter part of the second are easily divisible into iambs; but how shall _Getting and spend_- be divided? Clearly _and spend_- is an iamb, but _Getting_ is not. Can trochees and iambs occur together in the same line without either obscuring or actually destroying the rhythm? The simpler solution would be to keep the whole line in rising rhythm by regarding -_ing and spend_- as the second foot and ‸ _Gett_- as the first. (The sign ‸ indicates a missing syllable or musical rest. See below, page 63.)
The most common feet are the iamb, the trochee, the anapest, and the dactyl (see above, page 38), to which may be added the spondee. The names are borrowed, not quite felicitously, from classical prosody. Various symbols are in use:
FOOT SYMBOLS EXAMPLES
iamb ◡_̷ X ̷ _xa_ alone, despair, to walk. trochee _̷◡ ̷ X _ax_ study, backward, talk to. anapest ◡◡_̷ X X ̷ _xxa_ interdict, to permit, dactyl _̷◡◡ ̷ X X _axx_ tenderly, after the. spondee _̷_̷ ̷ ̷ _aa_ stone deaf, broad-browed.
Classical prosody distinguished several other feet, some of which are occasionally mentioned in treatises on English verse: amphibrach ◡_◡, tribrach ◡◡◡, pyrrhic ◡◡, paeon _◡◡◡, choriamb _◡◡_.
The objection to the use of these classical terms is not so serious as is frequently supposed. Since Greek and Latin prosody was primarily quantitative, that is, based upon syllabic length, and every long syllable was theoretically equal to two short syllables, an iamb or ◡-had the musical value of ♪♩, a trochee of ♩♪, a dactyl of ♩♪♪, etc. And since no such definite musical valuation can be given to English feet, a Greek iamb and an English iamb are obviously different. But after all there was inevitably an element of stress in the classical feet, and there is a very positive element of time in the English, so that the difference is not so great, and no confusion need result once the facts are recognized. Another set of terms, however, borrowed from the Greek and Latin is open to more grave objection, for no real equivalence exists between the classical and the modern phenomena. The _iambic trimeter_ in Greek consists of three dipodies or six iambs; as used by English prosodists it consists of three iambs. The Greek _trochaic tetrameter_, similarly, contains eight trochees, the English 'trochaic tetrameter' but four. The common term _iambic pentameter_ is not so objectionable, but is to be rejected because of its similarity to the others, which are actually confusing.
The next larger metrical unit after the foot is the _line_ or _verse_. It is distinguished (1) mechanically by the custom of printing, (2) phonetically by the pause usual at the end, and (3) structurally by its use as a unit in forming the stanza. Lines are of one, two, three, or more feet, according to the metrical form used by the poet (see