Double dactyl
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A dactyl is a poetic foot of the form >-- (ON-off-off). For example, matador, realize, cereal, limerick, etc. A double dactyl can therefore mean simply two dactyls in a row.
A double dactyl is also a verse form, also known as "higgledy piggledy," purportedly invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal in 1961, but having a history as a parlor word game earlier in the century. Like a limerick, it has a rigid structure and is usually humorous, but the double dactyl is considerably more rigid and difficult to write. There must be two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is the subject of the poem, a proper noun. Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. There is also a requirement for at least one line of the second stanza to be entirely one double dactyl word, for example "va-le-dic-tor-i-an". Some purists still follow Hecht and Pascal's original rule that no single six-syllable word, once used in a double dactyl, should ever be knowingly used again. [1]
An example by John Hollander[2]:
- Higgledy piggledy,
- Benjamin Harrison,
- Twenty-third president
- Was, and, as such,
- Served between Clevelands and
- Save for this trivial
- Idiosyncrasy,
- Didn't do much.
An example by E. Jaksch[3]:
- Inheritance
- Higgledy-Piggledy
- Gay Caius Julius.
- Tribune sojourning a
- Long way from home,
- Seeking distraction in
- Nicomedophily,
- Earned with his service a
- Province for Rome.
A double dactyl by Paul Pascal on the subject of Antony and Cleopatra:
- Tact
- "Patty cake, patty cake,
- Marcus Antonius,
- What do you think of the
- African queen?"
An example about Joe DiMaggio by Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten:
- Higgledy Piggledy
- Joseph DiMaggio,
- Jolted the ball but was
- Jilted in bed.
- Marilyn walked, but he
- Necro-romantically
- Laid her in rose bouquets
- When she was dead.
A similar verse form called a McWhirtle was invented in 1989 by American poet Bruce Newling.
A related form is the double amphibrach, similar to the McWhirtle but with stricter rules more closely resembling the double dactyl.
In literature, Neil Gaiman's Stardust (novel) contains a Double Dactyl.
- Hankety pankety
- Boy in a blanket, he’s
- Off on a goose-chase to
- Look for a star
- Incontrovertibly
- Journeys through Fäerie
- Strip off the blanket to
- See who you are.
John Bellairs' classic fantasy novel The Face In The Frost also contains several Double Dactyls, used as nonsense magic spells, such as the following.
- Higgledy-Piggledy
- St. Athanasius
- Rifled through volumes in
- Unseemly haste
- Trying to find out if,
- Hagiographically,
- John of Jerusalem
- Liked almond paste.
[edit] References
- ^ Anthony Hecht and John Hollander, Jiggery-Pokery, A Compendium of Double Dactyls (New York: Atheneum, 1967)
- ^ Hect and Hollander
- ^ Article from Texas Classical Association
