A masculine ending and feminine ending or weak ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. In general, "masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable; "feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. The terms originate from a grammatical pattern of the French language. When masculine or feminine endings are rhymed with the same type of ending, they respectively result in masculine or feminine rhymes. Poems often arrange their lines in patterns of masculine and feminine endings. The distinction of masculine vs. feminine endings is independent of the distinction between metrical feet.

Description

In prosody (the study of verse form), masculine ending refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable while a feminine or weak ending describes a line ending in a stressless syllable.

Etymology

The terms masculine ending and feminine ending are not based on any cultural concept of masculinity or femininity. Rather, they originate from a grammatical pattern of French, in which words of feminine grammatical gender typically end in a stressless syllable and words of masculine gender end in a stressed syllable.

Example

Below are the first two stanzas of "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In each stanza, the first and third lines have a feminine ending and the second and fourth lines a masculine one. The final stressless syllables, creating feminine endings, are -bers, again -bers, -nest, and again -nest. The final stressed syllables, creating masculine endings, are dream, seem, goal, and soul.

Rhyme

Masculine rhymes

When masculine endings are rhymed (such as "dream" and "seem" in the previous example), the result is called a masculine rhyme (or single rhyme). In English-language poetry, especially serious verse, masculine rhymes comprise a majority of all rhymes. John Donne's poem "Lecture Upon the Shadow" is one of many that use exclusively masculine rhyme:

Feminine rhymes

When lines with feminine endings are rhymed, the result is termed a feminine rhyme (or double rhyme). Shakespeare's "Sonnet 20" is an extravagant example of feminine rhymes, since (unusually) all fourteen lines end in one. The following unstressed syllables of a feminine rhyme are often identity rhymes (all syllables the same), but do not have to be; they may be a ****mosaic rhymes, such as "expand me" and "strand thee". The feminine rhyme is rare in a monosyllabic language such as English, but the gerund and participle suffix -ing, which adds an additional stressless syllable, can make it readily available. For instance, the -ing ending makes available three of the feminine rhymes in Shakespeare's sonnet above, rolling, trolling, and doting. The Hudibrastic relies upon feminine rhyme for its comedy, and limericks will often employ outlandish feminine rhymes for their humor. Irish satirist Jonathan Swift used many feminine rhymes in his poetry. Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" employs multiple feminine rhymes as internal rhymes throughout. An example is the following: Here, uttered and muttered form internal feminine rhymes with fluttered.

In couplets and stanzas

Poems often arrange their lines in patterns of masculine and feminine endings, for instance in "A Psalm of Life", cited above, every couplet consists of a feminine ending followed by a masculine one. This is the pattern followed by the hymns that are classified as "87.87" in standard nomenclature (for this system see Meter (hymn)); an example is John Newton's "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken": Here is a German example, from Goethe's verse:

Relation to verse feet

The distinction of masculine vs. feminine endings is independent of the distinction between iambic and trochaic feet. For instance, the Longfellow and Newton examples above are written in trochaic tetrameter; the feminine endings occur in the full octosyllabic lines, with perfect final trochaic foot; and the masculine endings occur in the truncated seven-syllable lines, with an exceptional final monosyllabic foot. In contrast, the following poem by Oliver Goldsmith is written in iambic tetrameter; the masculine endings occur in ordinary octosyllabic lines, whereas the feminine endings occur with a ninth, extrametrical syllable:

Lines ending in two stressless syllables

Particularly in unrhymed verse, lines occur that end in two stressless syllables, yet have the syllable count of lines with uncontroversial masculine endings. For instance, the following four lines from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, written in iambic pentameter: HELENA: The first of these, with ten syllables, has an uncontroversial masculine ending: the stressed syllable more. The last line, with eleven syllables, has an uncontroversial feminine ending: the stressless syllable me. The second and third lines end in two stressless syllables (-tri-us, on you). Having ten syllables, they are structurally parallel to masculine lines, even though they do not end in stressed syllables. Tarlinskaja (2014) proposes to classify cases like Demetrius or fawn on you as masculine endings (her example is "To sunder his that was thine enemy", from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet). Thus for Tarlinskaja, "syllable 10 in masculine endings can be stressed or unstressed". There remains a further logical possibility: an eleven-syllable line ending in two stressless syllables. In actual verse, such lines are rare at best; Tarlinskaya asserts: "syllable 10 in feminine endings is always stressed."

Footnotes