If the first syllable is stressed, as for example in ‘ha-ppy’, but not the second, it is called a trochee. A trochee is DUM-da. How many iambs or trochees should there be in each line of a ballad?
Why do we often teach English poetic meter by the Greek terms iamb and trochee? How is our understanding of English meter influenced by the history of England's sense of itself in the nineteenth ...