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Falling tercet

Form
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 three-line stanza structured with descending rhythm or shorter lines.

Detailed Definition
A Falling tercet is a three-line stanza in which the rhythm, imagery, or emotional tone descends progressively across the lines—often moving from assertion to doubt, strength to fragility, or presence to absence; this structural and thematic downward arc creates a sense of inevitable decline or quiet resolution, commonly used in elegiac or meditative poetry to mirror psychological or seasonal transitions.
Example
Example in poetry:
Falling tercet: three-line stanza with descending stress pattern—dactylic or trochaic; Swinburne’s “The Garden of Proserpine” uses falling rhythms for elegiac tone; A tercet moving from “Glory fades” to “dust returns” to “silence”; Contemporary poets use falling tercets to convey resignation or decay; Meter mirrors thematic descent.
Additional Notes
A Falling tercet is a three-line stanza where the metrical pattern or rhythm ends with an unstressed syllable or has a 'falling' rhythm (like dactylic or trochaic feet) dominant, creating a sense of finality or descent at the stanza's close; the term is often descriptive of the rhythm's feeling rather than a strict form.
Also Known As
Descending tercet Falling triplet Downward stanza Cascading tercet
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