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Dodecasyllable

Foot
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A line of twelve syllables, often used in French alexandrine verse or English narrative poetry

Detailed Definition
Dodecasyllable refers to a twelve-syllable line, foundational in French alexandrine poetry and occasionally adopted in English for its stately, flowing rhythm; while not a single foot, it appears in foot glossaries due to its metrical regularity—often iambic hexameter—and its use by poets like Dryden or Arnold to achieve narrative breadth and lyrical dignity.
Example
Example in poetry:
The dodecasyllable (12-syllable line) appears in French Alexandrine verse: Racine’s “Phèdre”: “La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé”; In English, it surfaces in Longfellow’s “Evangeline”: “This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks”; Some Italian canzoni use 12-syllable lines for lyrical expansiveness; Modern poets like Auden occasionally adopt it for classical effect; The dodecasyllable allows room for complex syntax and imagery; It often divides into two hemistichs of six syllables each.
Additional Notes
Dodecasyllable: A line of twelve syllables, common in French alexandrine verse and occasionally in English (e.g., in heroic couplets with feminine endings); in classical contexts, it may refer to the Sapphic stanza’s total syllable count; helps students compare cross-linguistic metrical norms.
Also Known As
Twelve-syllable line
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