What Do Metrical Feet Mean?
In poetry, many metres use feet or prosodies as basic units to describe the basic rhythm of the poem. The classical form of poetry uses the quantitative metre and most modern poetry which is written in the English language now uses the accentual-syllabic metre as the fundamental building block. A foot consists of a number of syllables. Each of these syllable combine together to form a part of a line of verse. A metrical foot is displayed by the character and number of syllables it contains. In English, the feet are named for the combination of both accented and unaccented syllables. On the other hand, in such languages as Latin and Greek, the duration of the syllable, irrespective of whether it is a long syllable or a shirt one, is measured. When a poet is scanning a line of verse, he or she looks at the feet (and not the words) as the basic rhythmic unit.
