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More on Tom Bombadil and poetic metre
Several people have given me helpful links and comments - this is a link I found when following on from a LOTR Read through on TOR.
There's a discussion by Ursula le Guin on Tokiens use of patterning in speech and story. She says: " Tom Bombadil, in The Fellowship of the Ring, speaks metrically. His name is a drumbeat, and his meter is made up of free, galloping dactyls and trochees, with tremendous forward impetus: Tum tata Tum tata, Tum ta Tum ta . . . . "You let them out again, Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!""
I looked up dactyl - basically a long beat followed by two shorter ones (Like a long finger bone with two shorter joints after it - hence the name).
A trochee is a long beat followed by a short one. (Edgar Allen Poe's 'Raven' is a classic example of a poem using trochees)
There's a discussion by Ursula le Guin on Tokiens use of patterning in speech and story. She says: " Tom Bombadil, in The Fellowship of the Ring, speaks metrically. His name is a drumbeat, and his meter is made up of free, galloping dactyls and trochees, with tremendous forward impetus: Tum tata Tum tata, Tum ta Tum ta . . . . "You let them out again, Old Man Willow! What be you a-thinking of? You should not be waking. Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking!""
I looked up dactyl - basically a long beat followed by two shorter ones (Like a long finger bone with two shorter joints after it - hence the name).
A trochee is a long beat followed by a short one. (Edgar Allen Poe's 'Raven' is a classic example of a poem using trochees)