Dactyl (poetry)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A dactyl (Gr. δάκτυλος dáktulos, “finger”) is an element of meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. The word "strawberry" is a dactyl, as is the word "poetry," as pointed out in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle (Will Shortz, ed.) for May 31, 2006.

A useful mnemonic for remembering this long-short-short pattern is to consider the relative lengths of the three bones of a human finger: beginning at the knuckle, it is one long bone followed by two shorter ones. In accentual verse, such as English, it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables -- the opposite, that is, of the anapest (two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable).

An example of dactylic meter is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline, which is in dactylic hexameter:

This is the / forest prim- / eval. The / murmuring / pines and the / hemlocks,

The first five feet of the line are dactyls; the sixth a trochee.

A modern example is the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds":

Picture your self in a boat on a river with

tangerine tree-ees and marmalade skii-ii-es.

Written in dactylic tetrameter, the song has the rhythm of a waltz. The word "skies" takes up a full three beats. Dactyls are the metrical foot of Greek elegiac poetry, which followed a line of dactylic hexameter with dactylic pentameter.