Dactylic tetrameter is a metre in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four dactylic feet. "Tetrameter" simply means four poetic feet. Each foot has a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, the opposite of an anapest, sometimes called antidactylus to reflect this fact.
Example A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones:
DUM da da
A dactylic tetrameter would therefore be:
DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da DUM da da
Scanning this using an "x" to represent an unstressed syllable and a "/" to represent a stressed syllable would make a dactylic tetrameter like the following:
/ x x / x x / x x / x x
The following lines from The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" demonstrate this, the scansion being:
/ x x / x x / x x / x x Pic- ture your- self in a boat on a riv- er with / x x / x x / x x / x x tan- ger- ine tree- ees and marm- a- lade skii- ii- es
Another example, from Browning:
/ x x / x x / x x / x Just for a hand- ful of sil- ver he left us! Another example from Leonard Cohen of his song "Famous Blue Raincoat":
/ x x / x x / x x / x What can I tell you my bro- ther my kee- per / x x / x x / What can I poss- ib- ly say
See also Dactyl (poetry) Tetrameter Alcmanian verse, for the dactylic tetrameter in Greek and Latin poetry
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