English Literature / Unit 1 ENL 0011 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Trochee, Anapest, Dactyl, Spondee
Captions available
The idea
A trochee reverses the iamb: stressed, then unstressed. An anapest is two unstressed syllables and a stress: Byron's "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold." A dactyl is a stress and two unstressed: Tennyson's "Half a league, half a league." A spondee is two stresses, Hopkins's "shook foil."
In practice
Falling, galloping, falling, heavy.
Where people slip
Anapests rise; dactyls fall.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for English Literature