Accent (poetry)

In English poetry, accent refers to the stressed syllable of a polysyllabic word, or a monosyllabic word that receives stress because it belongs to an "open class" of words (noun, verb, adjective, adverb) or because of "contrastive" or "rhetorical" stress. In basic analysis of a poem by scansion, accents can be represented by a short vertical line (') preceding the syllable, while the divisions between feet are shown by a slash (/).^[1]

Metrical feet and accents

Disyllables
◡ ◡	pyrrhic, dibrach
◡ –	iamb
– ◡	trochee, choree
– –	spondee
Trisyllables
◡ ◡ ◡	tribrach
– ◡ ◡	dactyl
◡ – ◡	amphibrach
◡ ◡ –	anapaest, antidactylus
◡ – –	bacchius
– ◡ –	cretic, amphimacer
– – ◡	antibacchius
– – –	molossus
See main article for tetrasyllables.
v t e

There is generally one accent in each foot, for example:

Be-'hold / her, 'sin-/gle 'in / the 'field

Yon 'sol-/i-'tar-/y 'high-/land 'lass!

'Reap-ing / and 'sing-/ing 'by / her-'self;

'Stop here /or 'gent-/ly 'pass.

See also

• Stress (linguistics)