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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.
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.
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.
In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. However, the particular foot can vary, as follows: Anapestic tetrameter: "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib") "Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas")
Heroic couplet: written in iambic pentameter. Poulter's measure: couplets in which a 12-syllable iambic line rhymes with a 14-syllable iambic line. [1] Envoi (or envoy): the brief stanza that ends French poetic forms such as the ballade or sestina. Ghazal; Octave: an 8-line stanza or poem.
Occasionally, as an alternative to iambic, Greek playwrights use trochaic feet, as in the trochaic tetrameter catalectic. According to Aristotle (Poet. 1449a21) this was the original meter used in satyr plays. In the extant plays, it is more often used in comedy, although occasionally also in tragedy (e.g. Aeschylus' Agamemnon 1649-73).
(b) When a line with a blunt ending such as iambic (x – u –) is made catalectic, the result is a line with a pendant ending (u – x). An example of a blunt line becoming pendant in catalexis is Goethe 's poem Heidenröslein , [ 2 ] or, in the same metre, the English carol Good King Wenceslas :
Iamb, iambus, or iambic may refer to: Meter and poetry. Classical poetry and quantitative verse ... Iambic tetrameter; Iambic pentameter; Iambic hexameter, or the ...