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:
(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: Good King Wenceslas looked out, (4 beats, blunt)
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
Iambic, like Trochaic and Anapaestic Metre, was scanned by Dipodies, not by single feet. The chief metrical ictus of the line, in other words the syllables at which the baton of a conductor keeping time would fall, were in an Iambic Trimeter the 2nd, 4th, and 6th Arses [34] (in a Trochaic Tetrameter the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th). Hence the ...
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.
The iambic trimeter is also the basic meter used in the dialogue parts of Greek comedies, such as the plays of Aristophanes and Menander. In comedy there tend to be more resolutions into short syllables than in tragedy, and Porson's Law is not observed. Sometimes even a short element can be replaced by two short syllables, making for example:
For example, here is the first ... Some stanzaic forms, written in iambic tetrameter in the poetry of Vladimír Holan, especially in the poems "První testament" [1] ...
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")