Pyrrhic



A pyrrhic is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach.

Tennyson used pyrrhics and spondees quite frequently, for example, in In Memoriam: "When the blood creeps and the nerves  prick ." "When the" and "and the" in the second line may be considered as pyrrhics (also analyzable as ionic meter).

Pyrrhics alone are not used to construct an entire poem due to the monotonous effect. Poe observed that many experts rejected it from English metrics and concurred:"The pyrrhic is rightfully dismissed. Its existence in either ancient or modern rhythm is purely chimerical, and the insisting on so perplexing a nonentity as a foot of two short syllables, affords, perhaps, the best evidence of the gross irrationality and subservience to authority which characterise our Prosody."