Spondee

Syllables

In order to recognise the differences between spondees and other poetical feet, we need to learn how to distinguish the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables.

Stressed syllables often:

• are louder,

• longer,

• higher,

• have more elongated vowel sounds,

• and are said with more emphasis.

Unstressed syllables often:

• are quieter,

• shorter,

• lower,

• have more reduced vowel sounds,

• and are said with less emphasis.

Examples of spondee

Many poems also use spondees to alter the rhythm slightly. For instance, the first three lines of canto 50 in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’ (1850) use several spondees:

(Be-near, is-low, blood-creeps, nerves-prick, is-sick)

Robert Browning also uses spondees in his poem ‘My Last Duchess’ (1842):

(dred-years old-name, who’d-stoop, have-not)

Although much of Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ (1681) is in iambic tetrameter, one line stands out from the rest as it alternates between one foot and spondees.

(green-thought, green-shade)

Spondaic rhythms

Spondees are called ‘irregular’ in their rhythm because the English language cannot fully function without a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables, which a spondaic metre would depend on in a poem.

An example of a set metre with spondees is a classical hexameter, which traditionally ends with a spondee after five dactyls. That said, the first four dactyls could alternate between being a spondee (the only constant is the final dactyl and spondee).

An example of this in English is the mnemonic made for learning this type of metre:

(Down-in-a deep-dark dell-sat-an old-cow mun-ching-a bean-stalk)

The impact of spondees

As spondees are ‘irregular’, many poets combine other types of metrical feet with spondees.

Using spondees in this way allows a poet to change the rhythm of a line. This then may:

• Draw emphasis to a specific word or phrase with essential meaning.

• Create a sense of melancholy, sadness, or nostalgia as the voice slows down.

• Make the poem more musical in the rhythm.

• Create a turning point in the poem by altering the dominating rhythm.

• Stress a point of high emotion.

• Help the rhythm flow better.

Confusions with spondees

Although spondees are fairly easy to get your head around, there are ways that they can become confusing. The first concerns how spondees work in other languages, while the other is to do with the differences between spondees and other poetical feet. There is also some potential controversy over the existence of spondees that we will briefly touch upon.

Other definitions and dactyls

In English, the definition of a spondee describes a metre consisting of two stressed syllables. However, in other languages like Latin and ancient Greek, spondees are made from two long syllables instead.

Etymologically, the word spondee hails back to the ancient Greek for libation and refers to the music performed during that event.

In the first line of Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ (ca. 29–19 BC), the poet weaves dactyls and spondees together:

(ar-ma-vir um-que-ca no-Troi ae-qui pri-mus-ab or-bis)

Other two-syllable feet

Owing to the fact that there are other feet in poetry with two syllables, it is easy to get confused. Here is a list of other feet.

Spondee

Pyrrh

They can also be named dibrachs. Lord Byron uses several pyrrhs in the first line of the first canto of the poem ‘Don Juan’ (1819).

(is-to and at-the)

Iamb

Iambs are very common in metres, such as iambic pentameter, where each line has five feet of iambs. However, there are other types of iambic metre, such as the one Lord Byron uses in ‘She Walks in Beauty’ (1814):

(She-walks in-beau ty-like the-night of-cloud less-climes and-star ry-skies)

Trochee

They can also be called a choree or a choreus.

Shakespeare sometimes uses trochaic metre in his works. For example, the witches’ lines in Macbeth (1606):

(dou-ble, dou-ble, toil-and trou-ble fi-re burn-and caul-dron bub-ble)

Controversy of spondee

While there are words with two stressed syllables, some scholars argue that it is not possible to have two equally weighted syllables. With this in mind, it is argued that a true spondee is theoretically impossible as one syllable will always be more accented than the other.

The difference between syllables might also change because of variations in accents and implied emphasis on words, which may also change the foot of a word or phrase. This argument also stems from the questionable transference of spondees into English poetry (from its Greek and Latin roots of being a long syllable rather than a stressed syllable). The debate can also be applied to pyrrhs, as they are defined as two unstressed syllables.

According to critical belief, Robert Southey was the first to question the reality of a spondee. He argued that trochees and iambs should replace spondees in the metre, as English pronunciation precludes the possibility of spondees.¹

¹ Robert Southey, A Vision of Judgement (1821).