Measures in versification: iambic tetrameter

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

To begin with, let's take a short digression into the history of Russian poetry.

Reform of Russian versification

The process of forming the size of poems (one of which is iambic tetrameter) in Russian literature took a long time and was not uniform. At the beginning of the 18th century, rhyme was cumbersome, heavy and perceived very difficult. But after a few decades, poetry was subjected to a large-scale reformation, which is associated primarily with the names of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov. The latter generalized all the knowledge about versification, recognizing the equality of all sizes allocated by Trediakovsky, but he himself gave preference to iambic. Needless to say, he is not alone. Yamb is firmly established in the works of many great Russian poets such as Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin and Lermontov.

The iambic tetrameter has become the most common size. A foot is a group of syllables in a poem that are united by a common rhythm, in other words, stress. The number four in the title indicates that the stress must be placed on every even (second in a row) syllable. From these simple studies, the iambic itself is formed. Consider illustrative examples.

How to identify iambic?

It's not that hard to define iambic tetrameter, there are a lot of examples of it. If we demonstrate this size in the form of random syllables and, for greater clarity, highlight in capital letters those syllables that will be stressed, we get something like:

tADA TADA TADA PUBOOM

TADA PUBOOM TADA TADA

And so on, the examples are endless. Instead of syllables taken from the head, it is easy to substitute words and thus get a couplet, the size of which is iambic tetrameter:

YOU ARE MY FAVORITE, LIGHT BEAM, Those syllables that follow the stressed syllables are called "clauses". And the stresses in each line are iktami. When reading aloud, some stresses can be skipped to make the line more melodic, flying, weightless. This technique is called "pyrrhic". But in order to understand the iambic tetrameter is in front of you, you need to rewrite one line of the poem and highlight all the stresses for yourself, and then calculate how many stressed syllables are in the work. It is important not to forget that the stress should fall on the even syllable!

What is an iambic?

Don't think that only iambic tetrameter exists. The number of stops depends only on the author of the poetic work. Therefore, you can even find its one-foot modification, for example:

SMOKE

SMOKE

taRAM

paraRAM

If the lines are odd - in front of you is a two-foot iambic, if even - a three-foot one.

kaRA, kaRA

taRA, TIRA, VARA

There are an infinite number of such examples. The variety of iambic depends only on the poet. But iambic tetrameter is by far the most popular of all. Increased attention arose due to the simplicity, weightlessness of this poetic rhythm. It is easy and pleasant to write, and even easier to read. Actively use iambic to this day. By learning to identify it once, you may be able to compose good poetry yourself. There would be a rhyme, but you can deal with the melody. We sincerely wish you good luck in all your endeavors!