Trochaic octameter
Trochaic octameter is a poetic meter that has eight trochaic metrical feet per line. Each foot has one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic octameter is a rarely used meter.
Description and uses
The best known work in trochaic octameter is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", which utilizes five lines of trochaic octameter followed by a "short" half line (in reality, 7 beats) that, by the end of the poem, takes on the qualities of a refrain.
Another well-known work is Banjo Paterson's "Clancy of the Overflow", which uses four lines of trochaic octameter for each verse throughout.
Because of the length of the line, trochaic octameter lends itself to the heavy use of internal rhyme and alliteration and is also extraordinarily difficult to use consistently. The Raven, for example, breaks into two half-lines of approximately 8 syllables, generally with a caesura between them.
Example
A trochee foot is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. We could write the rhythm like this:
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