What Is Tetrameter?
"Tetrameter" means "four measures." Verse written in tetrameter has four measures, which are also called feet. In English, the most common foot or measure is the iamb, which is a pair of syllables that follow this pattern: ta TUM. Iambic tetrameter has four such feet, for a total of eight syllables. A line of poetry is in iambic tetrameter if it follows this pattern:
ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM.Some variation is allowed. An extra or missing syllable may be tolerated, and an occasional reversal of the ta TUM pattern (to TA tum) is common, even desirable as a way to avoid monotony. An example of four lines of tetrameter is the first stanza of the introduction to Milton,by William Blake:
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
The tetrameter pattern can be demonstrated by overdoing the rhythm and pronouncing the stanza like this:
And DID those FEET in ANcient TIME
WALK upon ENgland's MOUNtains GREEN?
And WAS the HOly LAMB of GOD
On ENgland's PLEASant PAStures SEEN?
By far, however, iambic pentameter (five feet) is the most widely used meter in English. Here is a sample of pentameter (the first sentence of "Tithonus" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson):
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,Tetrameter is the underdog to pentameter (and, for about the last 100 years, free verse) but its charms are worth exploring. Most notable among tetrameter's advantages is its usefulness in songs and poems that, like songs, make a direct appeal to emotion. Like any other meter, tetrameter can be rhymed or unrhymed. A very common verse form, ballad verse, features alternate lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter (three feet, six syllables), typically in rhymed, four-line stanzas. Hymns, songs, and of course ballads use this verse form. One famous poet who wrote ballad verse is Emily Dickinson. Here is a four-line stanza of her ballad verse:
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Because I could not stop for Death,from
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
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