The best known work in trochaic octameter is
Edgar Allan Poe's "
The Raven", which uses five lines of trochaic octameter followed by a "short" half line (in reality, 7 beats). By the end of the poem, the latter half line 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. Other examples are
Robert Browning's ''
A Toccata of Galuppi's'',
Alfred Tennyson's
Locksley Hall, and
Rudyard Kipling's
Mandalay. Lines in these poems are catalectic (' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' x ' ). A line of trochaic octameter is eight of these in a row: We can
scan this with a '
x' mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '
/' mark representing a stressed syllable. In this notation a line of trochaic octameter would look like this: The following first verse from "The Raven" shows the use of trochaic octameter. Note the heavy use of
dactyls in the second and fifth line, which help to emphasize the more regular lines, and the use of strong accents to end the second, fourth and fifth lines, reinforcing the rhyme: We can notate the
scansion of this as follows: The following first two lines from
"Womanizer" by
Britney Spears also show trochaic octameter. We can notate the
scansion of this as follows: It becomes more important in another section of the chorus, in which words are repeated so as to maintain the meter. == In other literatures ==