Fourteener
Quick answer: A fourteener is a fourteen syllable line of iambic heptameter, a Tudor favourite that lives on in ballad metre. Learn how it scans and how to use it.
A fourteener is a line of verse containing fourteen syllables arranged as seven iambic feet, making it the iambic form of heptameter. The measure flourished in sixteenth century England, when poets and translators treated it as a serious rival to the ten syllable line that eventually won. Its long, loping stride splits naturally after the eighth syllable into a four-beat phrase and a three-beat phrase.
That built-in split explains the fourteener's double life. Written out long, it is a stately Tudor line; folded at the seam, it becomes the ballad quatrain that carries hymns, folk songs and half the anonymous poetry of the language. When you sing 'Amazing Grace', you are singing folded fourteeners, whether you knew the word or not.
How It Works
Seven iambs run da-DUM seven times, as in this invented example: 'She kept the letters in a tin above the kitchen door.' The natural breath falls after 'tin', at the four-three seam. Because the line is long, Tudor poets tended to end-stop it and let each line carry a complete clause, producing a measured, processional effect. The danger is monotony: fourteen syllables with a predictable pause can plod, so the best practitioners shift the pause occasionally and vary their sentence shapes.
Where You Will See It
George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad (completed 1611) is the monument of the measure, its long lines big enough for epic similes; Keats's sonnet on first reading it is the best advertisement any translation ever received. Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a book Shakespeare knew intimately, also rolls in fourteeners. In the same century, poets paired the fourteener with a twelve syllable line to make poulter's measure. After 1600 the long line retreated into ballads and hymnbooks, where its folded form still thrives.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Decide first whether you want the line long or folded. Long fourteeners suit narrative with an archaic or ceremonial flavour, and rhymed couplets keep them organised. Folded into quatrains rhyming on the short lines, the same metre gives you instant ballad music for storytelling and song. Either way, guard the seventh foot: weak endings make a long line dissolve. Try drafting a stanza both ways and keep whichever the poem's voice prefers.
What poets can take from this
- Let each long line hold a complete clause; enjambed fourteeners strand the reader.
- Fold fourteeners into quatrains when you want song rather than procession.
- End lines on strong monosyllables to keep the seventh foot firm.
- Move the mid-line pause occasionally to stop the four-three split becoming a rut.
- Read a passage of Chapman's Homer aloud to feel the measure's epic stride.
Try it yourself
Translate a memory instead of a text: write six rhymed fourteener couplets retelling a story a grandparent told you, keeping the long lines end-stopped like a Tudor translator would.
Questions
What is the difference between a fourteener and ballad metre?
They are the same rhythm arranged differently. A fourteener prints seven iambic feet as one line; ballad metre breaks that line after the fourth foot into alternating four-beat and three-beat lines in a quatrain.
Who wrote in fourteeners?
Tudor poets and translators, most famously George Chapman in his Iliad and Arthur Golding in his Ovid. The measure also appears in early modern broadside ballads and, folded into quatrains, throughout the hymn tradition.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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