I have a poetry assignment....ENGLISH MAJORS NEEDED!?

Question

I need to figure out the meterical foot fot this line

" O memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise, "

its a stanza from Abraham Lincoln's "Memory"
(the thing thats throwing me of is the word Memory because it has 3 syllables.

Answer 1

I think the problem is that most people do not pronounce all 3 syllables in "memory." Most people say (phonetically) "mem-ry." Therefore, it's iambic and mostly tetrameter, but the third line is a quadrameter.

1) Iambic tetrameter
2) Iambic tetrameter
3) Iambic quadrameter
4) Iambic tetrameter

Iambic feet consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable ("duh-DUM"). You count how many feet (one stressed and one unstressed together are one foot) are in each line.

The line that is different (the iambic quadrameter) is disected below:

Where THINGS....... de-CAYED....... and LOVED....... ones LOST
First foot...................2nd foot.............3rd foot...............4th foot

Since the rhythm is a duh-DUM sound, it's iambic. Since there are 4 feet, it's quadrameter: iambic quadrameter. The other lines have 3 feet each. Therefore, they are iambic tetrameter.

Hope I helped and wasn't too verbose!

Answer 2

If it is the word "memory" that throws you, remember that in spoken English, the middle syllable is often elided, and is pronounced "mem'ry."

However, I don't think that's what's happening here:

Isn't the stanza (in iambic feet):

8 feet
6 feet
8 feet
6 feet?

Answer 3

just a thought...
could the pronunciation of memory in this case be mem-ree?
I would suggest hexamter feet.

Answer 4

that sounds like iambic pentameter..I'm not sure but I think so...