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The Iambic trimeter, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic metra (each of two feet) per line. In English poetry, it refers to a meter with three iambic feet. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, an iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consists of three iambic metra.
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:
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
For example, if the feet are iambs, and if there are five feet to a line, then it is called an iambic pentameter. [1] If the feet are primarily dactyls and there are six to a line, then it is a dactylic hexameter. [1] In classical Greek and Latin, however, the name "iambic trimeter" refers to a line with six iambic feet.
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 most popular type of iambic meter was the trimeter, also (especially with respect to the form used in comedy) called the iambic sēnārius (meaning "in groups of six"), because it was considered to have six beats (sēnõs ictūs) in each line. [24] The grammarian Terentianus Maurus has this to say about the iambic trimeter: [25] [26]
Common metre or common measure [1] —abbreviated as C. M. or CM—is a poetic metre consisting of four lines that alternate between iambic tetrameter (four metrical feet per line) and iambic trimeter (three metrical feet per line), with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The metre is denoted by the ...
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 ...