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Iambic pentameter (/ aɪ ˌ æ m b ɪ k p ɛ n ˈ t æ m ɪ t ər / eye-AM-bik pen-TAM-it-ər) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama.The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line.
The iambic tetrameter was one of the metres used in the comedies of Plautus and Terence in the early period of Latin literature (2nd century BC). This kind of tetrameter is also known as the iambic octonarius, because it has eight iambic feet. [1] There were two varieties. One had a break at the end of the second metron as in Ambrose's hymn.
A line in which accents fall consistently on even-numbered syllables ("Al còr gentìl rempàira sèmpre amóre") is called iambic (giambico) and may be a greater or lesser hendecasyllable. This line is the simplest, commonest and most musical but may become repetitive, especially in longer works.
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.
Sonnet 60 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet.The Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet.It follows the form's typical rhyme, abab cdcd efef gg and is written a type of poetic metre called iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions.
The basic structure is much like iambic trimeter, except that the last cretic is made heavy by the insertion of a longum instead of a breve. Also, the third anceps of the iambic trimeter line must be short in limping iambs. In other words, the line scans as follows (where — is a long syllable, ⏑ is a short syllable, and × is an anceps):
In a line of verse that normally employs iambic meter, trochaic substitution describes the replacement of an iamb by a trochee. The following line from John Keats's To Autumn is straightforward iambic pentameter: [2] To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
Iambic trimeter, the most common meter in the dialogue portions of tragedy and comedy (also known in Latin as Iambic senarius) Trochaic tetrameter (in Latin also known as Trochaic septenarius) Iambic tetrameter catalectic (in Latin also known as Iambic septenarius) Choliambic (also known as Scazon), a variation on the Iambic trimeter