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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 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):
This metre was used for songs sung by galli (or gallae), eunuch devotees of the goddess Cybele, the ancient nature goddess of Anatolia, who was also known as the Mother of the Gods. [ 2 ] The most famous poem in this metre is Catullus 's Attis (poem 63), a poem of 93 lines describing the self-emasculation of a certain Attis, who later regretted ...
The eleven-syllable line is normally a line of 5+6 syllables with medial caesura, primary stresses on the fourth and tenth syllables, and feminine endings on both half-lines. [14] Although the form can accommodate a fully iambic line, there is no such tendency in practice, word stresses falling variously on any of the initial syllables of each ...
A line in poetry that ends in a pause, indicated by a specific punctuation, such as a period or a semicolon. [13] English sonnet enjambment The continuing of a syntactic unit over the end of a line. Enjambment occurs when the sense of the line overflows the meter and line break. [3] entr'acte envoi epanalepsis epic poetry
Runs of glyconic lines are often ended by a pherecratean (a catalectic glyconic): x x – u u – – The acephalous ("headless") version (^gl), also known as the telesillean (Latin: telesilleus), is: x – u u – u – The glyconic can also be expanded into the lesser and greater asclepiad lines: [2] x x – u u – – u u – u –
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