The trochaic inversion

[milo]

So, the other day we were discussing the pyrrhic/spondee substitution because I happened to run into it and relish the effect while reading through some Frost and I thought it might not be a bad idea to run through some other common substitution scenarios.

The most common substitution in English poetry by far is the trochaic inversion.  

What is a trochaic inversion?
For discussion purposes here, we will consider IP - iambic pentameter though it is useful by extension to all iambic meters.
In a standard IP line we get 5 iambs - daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM
In a trochaic inversion, one of these is substituted with a trochee giving us a DUMdadaDUM somewhere in our line.
It is used to greatest effect at the beginning of a line, lesser in the middle and, dare I say, to no good effect at the end of a line.

Here is an example from Browning's Sonnet 43:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height


The poem begins with it:

HOW do i LOVE thee LET me COUNT the WAYS - first 2 feet is the inversion

This is used to great effect here as it promotes the How which is the focus of the entire poem and sets our expectations. There was some debate about this at some point but this is generally accepted as the correct scansion today.

here is one from Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer - here, it puts such a heavy emphasis on whether, it really raise the import and then allows us to skip along the next few syllables

In Frost's Birches, he plays with trochaic inversion a LOT, here is a mid-line example:

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay - perfect IP, I included this so we could get teh predominant meter
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them - This line reads quite strange and really showcases the problems caused by mid-line inversion.  If I ran into this line alone, I would struggle to know the author's intent.  Because the whole poem is predominantly IP we can see it should be :  

as ICE storms DO. OFten you MUST have SEEN them. - the inversion occurs on "often"

later in the poem, Frost uses four trochaic inversions to start lines in a row giving an insistence to the section:

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

before reverting to more standard IP

Anyway, fun technique, you can add it to your own verse to add insistence and emphasis to lines ( I wouldn't recommend pairing it to an enjambed line but I also wouldn't complain if you made a great example that surprised me)



There has been some small debate about the difference between a trochaic inversion and the choriamb and if there is interest, I can go over that as well but for now:

Feel free to practice your trochaic inversions here:

[wasellajam]

Thanks for such a clear explanation. How's this?

Always behind absorbing poetic
tricks that will help my metered write.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

[rayheinrich]

I dislike characterizing variations as named feet. I like to think of
iambic pentameter as a line of five stressed syllables with spaces
around them. As long as you fill most of the preceding spaces with
unstressed syllables, you can take the liberty of filling in two short
unstressed syllables, a stressed syllable, a pause, or excluding one
at the beginning or including one at the end.

I always read that line as:
how DO i LOVE thee LET me COUNT the WAYS

And I read these lines like:
to BE, or NOT to BE: that IS the QUEStion: (PAUSE)
WHEther 'tis NObler in the MIND to SUFfer
The SLINGS and ARrows of outRAGeous FORtune, (PAUSE)
or to take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUBles,
and BY opPOSing END them? (PAUSE) To DIE: to SLEEP;

And read these lines like:
but SWINGing DOEsn’t BEND them DOWN to STAY
as ICE-storms DO. (pause) OFten you MUST have SEEN them
LOADed with ICE a SUNny WINter MORNing
AFter a RAIN. (pause) They CLICK uPON themSELVES
as the BREEZE RISes, and turn MAny-COLored
as the stir CRACKS and CRAZES their eNAmel. (pause)
SOON the sun’s WARMTH makes them SHED crystal SHELLS (pause)
SHATtering and AvaLANCHing on the SNOW-CRUST— (pause)

Such HEAPS of BROken GLASS to SWEEP aWAY (pause)
You’d THINK the INner DOME of HEAven had FALLen.

[milo]

I dislike characterizing variations as named feet. I like to think of
iambic pentameter as a line of five stressed syllables with spaces
around them. As long as you fill most of the preceding spaces with
unstressed syllables, you can take the liberty of filling in two short
unstressed syllables, a stressed syllable, a pause, or excluding one
at the beginning or including one at the end.

This is mostly fine and works most times.  It never hurts to know a little more though

I always read that line as:
how DO i LOVE thee LET me COUNT the WAYS

Many people do, there has been serious debate about it over the years but it has been mostly settled at this time

And I read these lines like:
to BE, or NOT to BE: that IS the QUEStion: (PAUSE)
WHEther 'tis NObler in the MIND to SUFfer

Pretty settled at this time, hopefully you notice the trochaic on "WHEther tis NOB"

The SLINGS and ARrows of outRAGeous FORtune, (PAUSE)
or to take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUBles,
and BY opPOSing END them? (PAUSE) To DIE: to SLEEP;

And read these lines like:
but SWINGing DOEsn’t BEND them DOWN to STAY
as ICE-storms DO. (pause) OFten you MUST have SEEN them

yes to both, hopefully you notice the trochaic inversion on "OFten youMUST"

<snip>

certainly a bunch more here as well, the whole poem has some great little metrical tricks

Thanks for commenting, care to take a stab at it?

---

oh, one final note, and most don't notice it bu due to limitations of English candence, you will not speak either 3 stressed or 3 unstressed syllables in a row without artificially promoting or demoting one, regardless of what your mind may tell you is correct when analyzing the meter.

[rayheinrich]

oh, one final note, and most don't notice it bu due to limitations of English candence, you will not speak either 3 stressed or 3 unstressed syllables in a row without artificially promoting or demoting one, regardless of what your mind may tell you is correct when analyzing the meter.

The first three words here come pretty close:
"or to take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUBles,"

But truth is, it's hard to say any one word at the same amplitude as any other. If we're going to designate
every word as either stressed or unstressed, there's a lot of rounding up or down that needs to be done.
I guess we could be more accurate by assigning an amplitude level from zero to ten. But it's not just the amplitude,
it's the length as well. A longer syllable at amplitude five probably counts as having more stress than a short one
at amplitude seven. But there are so many other things that factor in to calculate stress. You could pronounce "blood"
and "bud" at the same amplitude level and in the same length of time, but the psychological weight of "blood" would
guarantee it a higher stress level. So yeah, assigning binary values is always an approximation.

[busker]

I dislike characterizing variations as named feet. I like to think of
iambic pentameter as a line of five stressed syllables with spaces
around them. As long as you fill most of the preceding spaces with
unstressed syllables, you can take the liberty of filling in two short
unstressed syllables, a stressed syllable, a pause, or excluding one
at the beginning or including one at the end.

This is mostly fine and works most times.  It never hurts to know a little more though

I always read that line as:
how DO i LOVE thee LET me COUNT the WAYS

Many people do, there has been serious debate about it over the years but it has been mostly settled at this time

And I read these lines like:
to BE, or NOT to BE: that IS the QUEStion: (PAUSE)
WHEther 'tis NObler in the MIND to SUFfer

Pretty settled at this time, hopefully you notice the trochaic  on "WHEther tis NOB"

The SLINGS and ARrows of outRAGeous FORtune, (PAUSE)
or to take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUBles,
and BY opPOSing END them? (PAUSE) To DIE: to SLEEP;

And read these lines like:
but SWINGing DOEsn’t BEND them DOWN to STAY
as ICE-storms DO. (pause) OFten you MUST have SEEN them

yes to both, hopefully you notice the trochaic inversion on "OFten youMUST"

<snip>

certainly a bunch more here as well, the whole poem has some great little metrical tricks

Thanks for commenting, care to take a stab at it?

---

oh, one final note, and most don't notice it bu due to limitations of English candence, you will not speak either 3 stressed or 3 unstressed syllables in a row without artificially promoting or demoting one, regardless of what your mind may tell you is correct when analyzing the meter.

Hmmm….

“Mad Poseidon”
Also
“Bad Poseidon”

[milo]

Hmmm….

“Mad Poseidon”
Also
“Bad Poseidon”

I would read that as 

MADpo SEI don and BADpo SEI don

both regular trochaic

To fix it, we just need an unaccented syllable before the SEI like so
 Mad fish Poseidon
Bad fish Poseidon

That give us a Trochaic inversion (although in this case because it is not in an IP line, you could argue it is a choriamb)

Bad fish Poseidon swimming to the shore

bam, 1 trochaic inversion

See if you can do a quatern

Thanks

---

oh, one final note, and most don't notice it bu due to limitations of English candence, you will not speak either 3 stressed or 3 unstressed syllables in a row without artificially promoting or demoting one, regardless of what your mind may tell you is correct when analyzing the meter.

The first three words here come pretty close:
"or to take ARMS aGAINST a SEA of TROUBles,"

no, in this case, "Or" gets promoted. It can be difficult to mentally see it, but if you were to record yourself (especially if reading IP) you would note it is ORto take ARMS aGAINST aSEA ofTROUBle

THis is actually a great example of trochaic inversion (not sure if you just came up with this or not)

But truth is, it's hard to say any one word at the same amplitude as any other. If we're going to designate
every word as either stressed or unstressed, there's a lot of rounding up or down that needs to be done.
I guess we could be more accurate by assigning an amplitude level from zero to ten. But it's not just the amplitude,
it's the length as well. A longer syllable at amplitude five probably counts as having more stress than a short one
at amplitude seven. But there are so many other things that factor in to calculate stress. You could pronounce "blood"
and "bud" at the same amplitude level and in the same length of time, but the psychological weight of "blood" would
guarantee it a higher stress level. So yeah, assigning binary values is always an approximation.

All of these are good points and good discussion.

For this exercise, I was hoping to just focus on trochaic inversion.  Maybe I didn't pick great examples (though one is so famous it changed the print of the book as well as many other books).  If there were some examples you could provide of trochaic inversion that better illustrate the point, I would be happy to yield to those, I just grabbed the first few I saw and maybe could have researched better.

or

we could bang out a few of our own.

[wasellajam]

Thanks for such a clear explanation. How's this?

Always behind absorbing poetic
tricks that will help my metered write.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

I love reading these in depth posts but one of you has to take a breath and let me know if I'm hearing this correctly. Some of us are taking baby steps.

[milo]

Thanks for such a clear explanation. How's this?

Always behind absorbing poetic
tricks that will help my metered write.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

I love reading these in depth posts but one of you has to take a breath and let me know if I'm hearing this correctly. Some of us are taking baby steps.

lol - I was just getting to this one . . .

All 4 inversions are solid L1 and L2 are tetrameter and L4 and L5 are pentameter so it took me a few times.  Using alternate feet per line can work but usually either as a 5-4-5-4 pattern or as a shrinking pattern:

Reading the explanation, clear as day,
Always behind absorbing poetic
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.
tricks that will help my metered write.

[wasellajam]

Thanks for such a clear explanation. How's this?

Always behind absorbing poetic
tricks that will help my metered write.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

I love reading these in depth posts but one of you has to take a breath and let me know if I'm hearing this correctly. Some of us are taking baby steps.

lol - I was just getting to this one . . .

All 4 inversions are solid L1 and L2 are tetrameter and L4 and L5 are pentameter so it took me a few times.  Using alternate feet per line can work but usually either as a 5-4-5-4 pattern or as a shrinking pattern:

Reading the explanation, clear as day,
Always behind absorbing poetic
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.
tricks that will help my metered write.

ugh

ALways beHIND abSORBing (ah, now I can see how poetic has only one stress)

ugh, wtf, maybe I should try using shorter words, though that might not be as much fun.

[milo]

Just realized it may not be obvious but I switched the order of the lines

[wasellajam]

Always behind absorbing new techniques,
tricks that will help my metered writes improve.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

---

Just realized it may not be obvious but I switched the order of the lines

lol, as if I wasn't confused enough, now I have to recheck

[milo]

Always behind absorbing new techniques,
tricks that will help my metered writes improve.
Reading the explanation, clear as day,
somehow won't penetrate my foggy brain.

---

Just realized it may not be obvious but I switched the order of the lines

lol, as if I wasn't confused enough, now I have to recheck

Yah, I was trying to demonstrate how 5-4-5-4 kind of works