The foot is the basic repeating

rhythmic unit Rhythm (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular repetition (music), recurring motion, symmetry#Symmetry in music, symmetry") generally means a "motion, movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of ...

that forms part of a line of verse in most Indo-European traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the

quantitative meter In poetry, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of ...

of classical

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

and

Latin poetry The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205–184 BC. History Scholars conv ...

. The unit is composed of

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s, and is usually two, three, or four syllables in length. The most common feet in English are the iamb,

trochee In poetic metre, a trochee ( ) is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, unstressed one, in qualitative meter, as found in English, and in modern linguistics; or in quantitative meter, as found in ...

, dactyl, and

anapaest An anapaest (; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consi ...

. The foot might be compared to a bar, or a beat divided into pulse groups, in

musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

. A metrical foot is, in classical poetry, a combination of two or more short or long syllables in a specific order; although this "does not provide an entirely reliable standard of measurement" in heavily accented

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

such as English. In these languages it is defined as a combination of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables in a specific order. In general, lines of verse can be classified according to the number of feet they contain, using the terms

monometer In poetry, a monometer is a line of verse with just one metrical foot. Example Monometer can be exemplified by this portion of Robert Herrick's poem "Upon His Departure Hence":Works of Robert Herrick Vol 1 ed. Alfred Pollard, Lawrence & Bullen 18 ...

dimeter In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. The particular foot The foot (: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In ...

trimeter In poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addi ...

tetrameter In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. However, the particular foot can vary, as follows: * '' Anapestic tetrameter:'' ** "And the ''sheen'' of their ''spears'' was like ''stars'' on the ''sea''" (Lord Byron, " The Destruction ...

pentameter Pentameter (, 'measuring five ( feet)') is a term describing the meter of a poem. A poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five metrical feet. A metrical foot is, in classical poetry, ...

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek as well as in Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of s ...

, heptameter, and octameter, although seven or more feet in a line is uncommon. Pentameter is the most common in English verse. However, some lines of verse are not considered to be made up of feet, for example

hendecasyllable In poetry, a hendecasyllable (as an adjective, hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poe ...

lines. In some kinds of metre, such as the Greek

iambic trimeter The Iambic trimeter, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic metra (each of two feet) per line. In English poetry, it refers to a meter with three iambic feet. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin po ...

, two feet are combined into a larger unit called a metron (pl. metra) or dipody.

Etymology

The English word "foot" is a translation of the Latin term ''pes'', plural ''pedes'', which in turn is a translation of the Ancient Greek πούς, pl. πόδες. The Ancient Greek prosodists, who invented this terminology, specified that a foot must have both an arsis and a thesis, that is, a place where the foot was raised ("arsis") and where it was put down ("thesis") in beating time or in marching or dancing. The Greeks recognised three basic types of feet, the iambic (where the ratio of arsis to thesis was 1:2), the dactylic (where it was 2:2) and the paeonic (where it was 3:2).

Classical meter

Below listed are the names given to the poetic feet by classical metrics. The feet are classified first by the number of syllables in the foot (''disyllables'' have two, ''trisyllables'' three, and ''tetrasyllables'' four) and secondarily by the pattern of vowel lengths (in classical languages) or syllable stresses (in English poetry) which they comprise. The following lists describe the feet in terms of vowel length (as in classical languages). Translated into syllable stresses (as in English poetry), "long" becomes "stressed" (" accented"), and "short" becomes "unstressed" ("unaccented"). For example, an iamb, which is short-long in classical meter, becomes unstressed-stressed, as in the English word "alone". A short syllable in this context is known as an arsis, while a long one is known as a thesis.

References

External links

Comprehensive list of feet and colas up to 12 syllables long

by H.T. Kirby-Smith {{Authority control

Etymology

Classical meter

See also

References

External links