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Sapphic Verse
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Sapphic Verse
Made famous by the greek poetess Sappho of Lesbos, c 600 BC - the Sapphic stanza is a metric poetic form spanning 4 lines.
The form has 3 hendecasyllabic lines - Each consisting of the following metric feet: trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee
The fourth, concluding line has a Dactyl followed by a Trochee - this last line is known as the Adonic or Adonean line.
A brief note on the metric feet used in Sapphic Verse -
A Trochee is a two syllable foot, which follows a 'DAH-dah' rhythm
e.g 'TRO-chee'
A Dactyl is a three syllable foot, which follows a 'DAH-dah-dah' rhythm
e.g 'DAC-tyll-ic'
An example:
'Sapphics' by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
Saw the reluctant. . .
to show the metric pattern -
SAW the / WHITE im- / PLACable / APHro- / DIte
SAW the / HAIR un- / BOUND and the / FEET un- / SANDalled
SHINE as / FIRE of / SUNset on / WESTern / WAters
SAW the re- / LUCtant...
Made famous by the greek poetess Sappho of Lesbos, c 600 BC - the Sapphic stanza is a metric poetic form spanning 4 lines.
The form has 3 hendecasyllabic lines - Each consisting of the following metric feet: trochee, trochee, dactyl, trochee, trochee
The fourth, concluding line has a Dactyl followed by a Trochee - this last line is known as the Adonic or Adonean line.
A brief note on the metric feet used in Sapphic Verse -
A Trochee is a two syllable foot, which follows a 'DAH-dah' rhythm
e.g 'TRO-chee'
A Dactyl is a three syllable foot, which follows a 'DAH-dah-dah' rhythm
e.g 'DAC-tyll-ic'
An example:
'Sapphics' by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
Saw the reluctant. . .
to show the metric pattern -
SAW the / WHITE im- / PLACable / APHro- / DIte
SAW the / HAIR un- / BOUND and the / FEET un- / SANDalled
SHINE as / FIRE of / SUNset on / WESTern / WAters
SAW the re- / LUCtant...
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A write-up explaining the poetic structure of sapphic verse, by 
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I'm a bit... er... slow on the topic of stressed and unstressed syllables. I'm just not very good at hearing/stressing the right things. (Makes Spanish a fun language to learn...) Anyway, what I'm getting at, it's easy to find the stressed points of longer words just by looking them up in the dictionary. What of one- syllable words? I previously thought that they were all stressed, since there isn't another syllable for the stress to be on. Is it simply that unimportant one-syllable words remain unstressed? Is it certain types of one-syllable words such as conjunctions, prepositions, and I don't know what else, that remain unstressed? I realize this is probably not the appropriate place for this question, but I've tried to find the answer on my own and come up with nothing. And I don't think it seems TOO out of place. I want to experiment in forms such as this, but I just don't understand.