Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Iambic tetrameter is a poetic meter in ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of a rhythm, iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form | x – u – |, consisting of a spondee and an iamb, or two iambs. There usually is a break in the centre of the line, thus the whole line is:
As the examples show, iambic pentameter need not consist entirely of iambs, nor need it have ten syllables. Most poets who have a great facility for iambic pentameter frequently vary the rhythm of their poetry as Donne and Shakespeare do in the examples, both to create a more interesting overall rhythm and to highlight important thematic elements.
Related to iambic heptameter is the more common ballad verse (also called common metre), in which a line of iambic tetrameter is succeeded by a line of iambic trimeter, usually in quatrain form. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a classic example of this form. The reverse of an iamb is called a trochee.
Mostly these consist of either a dactylic hexameter or an iambic trimeter, followed by an "epode", which is a shorter line either iambic or dactylic in character, or a mixture of these. The first or second line can also end with an ithyphallic colon (– ᴗ – ᴗ – x). [9] For examples of such epodic strophes see: Archilochian; Alcmanian
Dactylic tetrameter; Dactylic pentameter; Dactylic hexameter. Golden line; Iambic meter: any meter based on the iamb as its primary rhythmic unit. Alexandrine (iambic hexameter): a 12-syllable iambic line adapted from French heroic verse. Example: the last line of each stanza in “The Convergence of the Twain” by Thomas Hardy. [1] Czech ...
For example, the following metre is known as a trochaic tetrameter catalectic (in Latin it is known as a trochaic septenarius): [26] – ᴗ – x | – ᴗ – x | – ᴗ – x | – ᴗ – If an iambic metre ending in a long element is made catalectic, the final metron changes from x – ᴗ – to ᴗ – x (with brevis in longo at the end ...
One such meter is the iambic tetrameter. This metre is generally catalectic , that is, the last syllable is removed; since the final syllable of a line always counts as long, in catalexis the formerly short penultimate is changed to a long when it becomes final, as in this extract from Aristophanes play the Clouds (1399ff):
However this sonnet is unique in the collection because, instead of iambic pentameter, it is written in iambic tetrameter, a poetic metre based on four (rather than five) pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 1st line exemplifies a regular iambic tetrameter: