STRESSED & UNSTRESSED SYLLABLES

Syllables are the molecules of verse writing.

Syllables which are accented in speech are categorised as "stressed". All other syllables are unstressed.

Many words include syllables which are invariably stressed or unstressed. However, many words also include syllables which may be stressed or unstressed according to context.

For the purpose of scansion, stressed and unstressed syllables are often represented using the following symbols:

FEET

A metric foot is a pattern of stressed and/or unstressed syllables. Types of foot are as follows:

For the purposes of this course, it is generally sufficient to think of a foot is a stressed syllable with 0. 1 or 2 unstressed syllables. If there are more than two unstressed syllables, one of them tends to acquire a stress, making another foot.

If one accepts the definition of a foot as fundamentally a stressed syllable, there is no such thing as a pyrrhic foot. This should come as no surprise, since it is difficult to think of an example of a meaningful pyrrhic foot: perhaps the indefinite article on its own? "a"

METRIC LINES

Lines are categorised according to the number of feet they contain. The accepted definitions are as follows.

Metric lines are often marked by end rhymes.

SCANSION

The following examples may help to illustrate the points discussed above,