The trochee and the dactyl are interchangeable; and the iambus and the anapest are interchangeable.
A Trochee is a two-syllable foot accented on the first syllable.
This verse differs from the preceding in that the last foot is always a trochee or spondee, never a dactyl.
In admitting the trochee and iambus in the first foot, Catullus follows Greek models, while Horace adheres to the stricter Roman usage, as laid down by the grammarians of his own day.
Alcaeus admitted a trochee in the second foot, and allowed the anacrusis to be either long or short; but Horace admitted only the spondee in the second foot, and usually (in Bk.
It consists, technically speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus for a trochee (the latter very rarely).
It is so called from being compounded of a spondee (which contains 4 times) with an iambus or a trochee (which contains 3 times).
The iambus and the trochee abound in ordinary speech, and must therefore be used in oratory with moderation: cp.
The trochee seems in general to indicate an outpouring of emotion or sudden burst of feeling too strong for control.
The iambic can express passion controlled for an end, the trochee seems rather to float with the passion or be thrust forward by waves or bursts of feeling, which the will is trying to hold back.
While the trochee suggests the bursting out of feeling against the will, the iambic may suggest the spontaneous cumulation of emotion under the dominion of will with a definite purpose or conscious realization of a situation.
Notice the use of the trochee to express the loving entreaty in "A Woman's Last Word" (p.
Also, instead of the spondee, a trochee is commonly used; and sometimes a trochee instead of the pyrrhic, in the third place.
A Trochee has the first syllable accented, and the last unaccented.
The third line is a trochee and equivalent cæsura.
Ephorus, on the other hand, declares for the paeon and the dactyl; and rejects the spondee and the trochee (long short).
If the first two syllables be regarded as anacrusis, the first line would be trochaic, with a dactyl substituted for a trochee in the second foot.
The trochee has two syllables, with the accent on the first.
The feet most often met with in English verse are those corresponding with the trochee and iambus,[9] that is approximately.
In order apparently to bring the metre still more within the sphere of prose and common speech, Hipponax ended his iambics with a spondee or a trochee instead of an iambus, doing thus the utmost violence to the rhythmical structure.
We are told that an assembly was stirred to wild applause by a double trochee [-u-u].
S (= selectae), in which a spondee is substituted for a trochee in the cadence, e.
Again we find, especially in dactyllic and anapestic lines, a trochee or spondee thrown in to vary the movement.
The typical ending of these various lines is the trochee (-- U, verso piano).
The Trochee is not admissible into the second place of the line; but in the third and fourth it may have beauty, when it creates a correspondence between the sound and sense.
It will be convenient to remember that two of these, the iambus and the anapest, have the accent on the last syllable, and that two, the trochee and the dactyl, have the accent on the first syllable.
But if the reader has once fallen into the swing of iambic verse, the substitution of a trochee will bring the accent at an unexpected place, interrupt the smooth flow of the rhythm, and produce a harsh and jarring effect.
Occasionally a poem in which the prevailing foot is iambic has a trochee for the first foot of a line in order that it may begin with an accented syllable.
The trochee and the dactyl are both accented on the first syllable and may, therefore, be interchanged.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "trochee" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
