GENRE STUDIES UNIT-IV Foot

 

Foot

            The smallest unit of rhythm in line of poetry is called foot. In English Poetry, a foot is typically one accented syllable combined with one or two unaccented syllables. There are many different types of feet. When the accent is on the second syllable of a two syllable word (con- tort), the foot is an ‘iamb’; the reverse accentual pattern (tor-ture) is a “trochee”. Other feet that commonly occur in poetry in English are “anapaest”, two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable as in in-ter-cept, and “dactyl”, an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables as in su-i-cide.