Dactylic tetrameter

Dactylic tetrameter is a metre in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four dactylic feet. "Tetrameter" simply means four poetic feet. Each foot has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, the opposite of an anapest, sometimes called antidactylus to reflect this fact.

Metrical feet and accents
Disyllables
˘ ˘pyrrhic, dibrach
˘ ¯iamb
¯ ˘trochee, choree
¯ ¯spondee
Trisyllables
˘ ˘ ˘tribrach
¯ ˘ ˘dactyl
˘ ¯ ˘amphibrach
˘ ˘ ¯anapaest, antidactylus
˘ ¯ ¯bacchius
¯ ¯ ˘antibacchius
¯ ˘ ¯cretic, amphimacer
¯ ¯ ¯molossus
See main article for tetrasyllables.

Example

A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones:

DUM da da

A dactylic tetrameter would therefore be:

DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da

Scanning this using an "x" to represent an unstressed syllable and a "/" to represent a stressed syllable would make a dactylic tetrameter like the following:

/ x x / x x / x x / x x

The following lines from The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" demonstrate this, the scansion being:

/ x x / x x / x x / x x
Pic- ture your- self in a boat on a riv- er with
/ x x / x x / x x / x x
tan- ger- ine tree- ees and marm- a- lade skii- ii- es

Another example, from Browning:

/ x x / x x / x x / x
Just for a hand- ful of sil- ver he left us!

See also
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