Talk:Trochee

It would perhaps be easier on those who do not posses English as a first language if the verses on this page were written with a format similar to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamb where unstressed syllables are not bold and stressed syllables are written in bold, so as to get a clearer idea of the flow of sound in a trochee.

Succubusisis 03:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)Succubusisis


 * I agree. I've made what I see to be the necessary changes.  Does that help?
 * Blowery 15:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

A Docked Syllable
I hate to be pedantic, but isn't it more accurate to say that trochaic lines often have the final unstressed syllable ommitted, rather than an extra stressed one added? Just a thought. Blowery 15:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Example from "The Raven"
Another thing, placing the excerpt of "The Raven" w/o attribution right after the references to the Song of Hiawatha is very confusing. Plus, I don't think "The Raven" is a "perfect" (whatever that means) example of the use of trochees. I believe that "The Raven" is a fine example of trochaic octameter, so maybe moving the excerpt to the end of the article & adding a reference to the article on trochaic octameter would make things clearer. Mlaude123 (talk) 05:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Substitutions"?
On what basis are "and tra-" and "with the" (Song of Hiawatha) classed as pyrric substitutions, while "-on the" (The Raven) is classed as a trochee?--72.225.250.121 (talk) 21:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hiawatha scansion: Not a good example of trochaic meter
I was surprised to see Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" given as the first example of trochaic meter. To my ear, Longfellow's meter is usually composed of two four-beat feet, with the main accent on the third beat of each:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea Water, Stood the wigwam of Nikomis, In the example given, I hear:

Should you ask me, whence these stories? Whence these legends and traditions, With the odours of the forest, ...

Or perhaps:

Should you ask me, whence these stories?

I think "The Raven" is also best heard in four-beat feet, rather than trochees.

I realize that scansion is often a matter of taste or opinion, but I would argue that any scansion that requires repeated stressing of unimportant words like "by," "and," and "of" sounds unnatural and mechanical -- and is a good way of turning young readers against poetry.

So I would suggest omitting the Longfellow and Poe examples in this article, or at least starting with the Shakespeare, Blake, and Latin examples, which, like the nursery rhyme, are clearly and unambiguously trochaic. Then one could introduce more complex examples that can be considered trochaic, such as the Longfellow and Poe.

Twdevine (talk) 03:29, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I noted trap music in the bottom, since using the cadences of certain english troochees will naturally in fact tap trap rap scotch snaps — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.76.209 (talk) 14:08, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

I came to this Talk page to complain that the Longfellow and Poe examples are poorly chosen because they don't contain what the writer says they contain and they aren't even primarily trochaic. I see that Twdevine already said much the same thing a long time ago, and no one has challenged it, so I'm going to remove the examples I disagree with. TooManyFingers (talk) 19:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Latin: conflicting info requires clarification
The "Examples" section says, near the beginning, that trochaic poetry in Latin was common and particularly suited to the language, and gives an example. Near the end of the same section, it says that trochaic poetry in Latin was very unusual, and a supporting reference is given. I suspect that the disagreement might be due to one writer's exclusive focus on medieval Latin in the first case, and a different writer's exclusive focus on the Latin of ancient Rome in the second. But I'm no expert in any type of Latin. TooManyFingers (talk) 05:04, 21 October 2020 (UTC)