Spondee

Definition of Spondee
A metrical foot, spondee is a beat in a poetic line that includes two accented syllables (stressed/stressed) or DUM-DUM pressure pattern. Spondee is a poetic tool that isn't as commonplace as other metrical ft, like iamb and trochee. We rarely locate poems written in spondee alone; however, poets use spondee by means of combining other metrical ft. For instance, the phrase “faithful” includes spondee. If you assert this word loudly, you'll be aware that you are placing an identical amount of stress on each syllables “faith” and “ful.”

Features of Spondee
It is one of the most usually used five metrical ft, along with iambic meter, trochaic meter, dactylic meter, and anapestic meter. It rarely happens in poetic forms. Also, usually poets do now not use spondaic meter inside the whole poem, because it does no longer upload a basis to the metrical line. Therefore, they integrate it with different metrical patterns – a mixture which adjustments the pace of the poem. Since it's miles an abnormal foot, it does no longer add excessive structure or rhythm to a verse.

Opposite to Pyrrhic Foot
Spondee contains two long or accented syllables (stressed/stressed), whilst pyrrhic meter carries two brief or unaccented syllables (unstressed/unstressed) in a quantitative meter, which is contrary to spondee. For instance, see the pyrrhic syllables in bold on this line: “To a inexperienced thought in a green shade.” We commonly discover pyrrhic meter in classical Greek poetry, whereas we find spondee in the contemporary prosodic system.

Examples of Spondee in Literature
Example #1: The Song of Hiawatha (By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow)
“By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big–Sea–Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,…
All the air was complete of freshness,
All the earth changed into vivid and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward in the direction of the neighboring forest…
Burning, singing within the sunshine.”

Longfellow has written this poem in tetrameter, which means the lines of this poem contains four beats, in which three beats are of spondee and one of trochee. Here, the spondaic toes are underlined.

Example #2: Break, Break, Break (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)
“Break, break, break,
On thy bloodless gray stones, O Sea!
And I might that my tongue could utter
The mind that arise in me.”

This is the most famous instance of spondaic meter. Look at the first lines of this stanza. Three consecutive spondaic meters are underlined. Read out these strains aloud, and you will notice each syllables are using identical strain pattern.

Example #3: Othello (By William Shakespeare)
“If I do show her haggard,
Though that her jesses had been my pricey heart-strings …”

This is a superb instance of spondaic meter, where we are able to see double spondee within the first line “If I,” and “do prove,” and inside the second line “heart-strings.”

Example #4: Pied Beauty (By Gerard Manley Hopkins)
“Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their tools and tackle and trim …
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change …”

Hopkins uses heavy spondaic meter on this poem. The 2d line in this excerpt contains consecutive accented syllables, “all” and “trades.” Then, the 0.33 line also uses spondee “fathers-forth.”

Example #5: Troilus and Cressida (By William Shakespeare)
“Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else permit Helen go.”

Shakespeare begins these strains with double spondees. See there's a pressure on each syllables of the phrase “cry,” and then there may be stress again on the 2 syllables “Troy burns.”

Example #6: Lepanto (By G. K. Chesterton)
“White founts falling in the courts of the sun
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run … “

In this instance, the first line contains spondee inside the first syllables. However, we do no longer see using this meter inside the whole poem.

Function of Spondee
The cause of the use of spondaic meter is to emphasize particular words, and to create heightened feeling, or provide an emotional revel in to the readers by way of changing a ordinary expression into dramatic form. It also makes feel extra compact and compressed. Though spondee does no longer add tons rhythm, it adds feelings of expectancy in a verse. In addition, it governs both the person couplet and the entire verse, and makes a poetic line established in present day poetry. On the alternative hand, spondee has turn out to be extra experimental.

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