Metrical feet in poetry

 

A foot is a measurable, patterned unit of poetic rhythm. The concept derives from classical patterns in Greek and Roman poetry, and has been adapted for use in English poetry, where it is traditionally assumed to consist of (usually) one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. The exception to this pattern is the spondee, which comprises two stressed syllables.

The foot bears a close resemblance to the musical bar, in that both are arbitrary and abstract units of measure which do not necessarily coincide with the phrasal units which they underlie. The major difference between them is that the bar always begins with a stress.

In a traditional poetic line, there might be up to 8 feet, traditionally all of the same kind, although variations are often found.

These are the most common feet - the examples given here are single words, but in a line of poetry can stretch across more than one word:

iamb - one unstressed, one stressed – example “destroy”

anapest - two unstressed, one stressed – example “intervene”

trochee - one stressed, one unstressed – example “mercy”

dactyl - one stressed, two unstressed – example “merrily”

spondee - two stressed – example “amen”

Iambic and anapestic feet are called ascending or rising feet; trochees and dactyls are descending or falling feet. Feet of two syllables are duple, those of three syllables are triple.

© John Welford

Mrs Dalloway, a novel by Virginia Woolf

 

Mrs Dalloway, a short novel written in 1925 by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is an excellent treatment of the problem of loneliness and love, a theme which preoccupied the author.

The story opens as the heroine, society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, is making preparations for giving a party. Parties are designed to bring people together, but this novel raises the question of whether one can be even lonelier in a crowd.

As she moves about London doing her shopping, every encounter she has produces a response that is coloured by her earlier experiences, so that as we follow her stream of consciousness we learn everything that matters of her previous history. The events of her day are organised in a way that raises many questions about the possibilities of communication.

We also learn about the events in the day of Mr and Mrs Septimus Warren Smith, who never actually meet Mrs Dalloway, but there is a symbolic relationship between them, which is emphasised when one of the guests at her party, a specialist who has been treating Mr Smith, tells her about his suicide and produces in her a feeling of identification with the unfortunate man.

Septimus Warren Smith goes mad because, as a result of his experiences in World War I, he has lost all sense of contact with other people, is driven into the isolated emptiness of himself, and is dragged back by representatives of crude conventionality who imagine that by imposing their artificial social norms on him they can restore his sense of communication.

The pattern of the novel is woven with considerable delicacy, and the various elements from Mrs Dalloway’s past are brought into the present through a variety of persuasive devices. The prose is carefully cadenced and is, at times, almost poetic although never rhetorical. The individual sense of significance which provides the basis for the plot pattern is conveyed through style and imagery, through the suggestiveness and cunning of the language.

© John Welford