what is a spondee in poetry
Lesson Summary. A spondee is a metrical foot that consists of two stressed syllables. A metrical foot is a beat in a line of poetry. A spondee is not as common as other forms of metrical feet, such as the iamb. It is rare to find a poem written entirely in spondee, but poets make use of the spondee in combination with other metrical feet. One example of a word containing spondee is the word downtown.