Iamb is Iamb, trochee, amphibrach

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

In this article we will tell you about iambic, as well as briefly about other poetic sizes. Let's first define the key concepts that will be used in the text.

Rhythm is a sound structure that a line of poetry has. This is the general ordering of poetic speech. Meter is a special case of rhythm. This is an ordered alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables (weak and strong places) in a poem, the general scheme of its sound rhythm.

Size is a certain way of sound organization of a poetic work; this is a special case of the meter we have already described. For example, iambic can theoretically include options from one-foot to twelve-foot, as well as free. We can determine the size in syllabic versification by the number of syllables, in tonic - by counting the number of stresses, and in syllabo-tonic and metric - by the number of stops and meter (iamb, trochaic, amphibrach, etc.).

Etymology of the word "iamb"

Let's answer the question about the origin of the term we are interested in. The word "iamb" is an ancient Greekthe name of the musical instrument. It denotes in ancient metrics a two-syllable, simple, three-dimensional foot (short + long syllable). In syllabo-tonic versification (Russian, for example) - this is an unstressed + stressed syllable. Also called an iambic verse, which consists of iambic meters.

The etymology is not exactly established. Iambic chants, as you know, were an integral part of the special fertility festivals that were held in honor of Demeter.

This term was associated with the name of Yamba, the servant of Keley, the Eleusinian king. According to the myth, the girl amused Demeter with obscene poems, who was inconsolably looking everywhere for her daughter Persephone. It is also possible that the name Yamba is an echo of an ancient word that has a obscene meaning.

Iamb in antiquity

In the poetry of antiquity, the most common types of iambs were trimeter and senarius. Senarius includes six iambic feet. The second type, trimeter, also has six iambic feet, which are grouped in pairs (double feet were called dipodia). Two light syllables in ancient versification could be replaced by a heavy one, and vice versa, a heavy one could be replaced by two light ones. In real practice, from this premise, a huge variety of iambic poetry was born. Poems written in this size resembled ordinary speech more than anyone else and were therefore used mainly not in epic genres, but in drama and lyrics (in comedies, tragedies, fables).

In Greek metric, iambic is a two-syllable foot consisting offrom the first short syllable and the second long. The musical notation of the ancient Greeks did not imply anacruses, and therefore the rhythm was either ascending (that is, iambic) or descending (that is, choreic).

Iamb and trochee

Iambic and trochee among ancient metrics were combined under the general name stop with iambic rhythm on the basis that iamb was more common (and still occurs) than trochee.

The trochee is also an ancient Greek term, derived from the word "dancing", and also denoting "size", "choir foot". In syllabic-tonic verse, the most common are four-foot and six-foot, and since the middle of the 19th century, the five-foot trochaic has also been used.

Both iambic and trochee represent disyllabic meters. In chorea, the stress is placed on the first syllable, in iambic - on the second.

Tri-syllable poetic meters

We have considered two-syllable sizes. Now let's say a few words about trisyllabic ones. The amphibrach consists of three feet, with the stress on the second syllable. The most frequent size of the domestic syllabic-tonic versification is four-foot (from the beginning of the 19th century), as well as three-foot (beginning from the middle of the 19th century). The dactyl is also a three-syllable meter, but with the accent on the first, and the anapaest on the last of the three.

Iamb in Russian literature

The first mention of it in the literature of our country, we find in the book published in 1619 by M. Smotrytsky called "Grammar …". However, as a poetic term that refers to a specific poetic meter, iambic began to appear in our country onlyafter the theoretical work carried out by V. Trediakovsky. There are no poems by Russian syllabists written in this size. In Russia, the first iambic poems were created by Trediakovsky.

This iambic was tetrameter. Then the tradition of using size was continued. For example, Lomonosov composed an ode in which iambic is used - poems dedicated to the capture of Khotin, a Turkish fortress.

Iambic tetrameter

Until today, of all the iambic meters in Russian poetry, the most favorite is precisely the four-meter one. Approximately 80-85 percent of the poems of domestic poets were written by him. This meter of verse gained the widest popularity not so much due to the rhythmic capacity of the form, which was adapted to poetic speech in Russian, but because of the established tradition of its systematic mass use by the first great poets - V. Petrov, M. Lomonosov, G. Derzhavin, and a little later, and A. Pushkin and E. Baratynsky (see photo).

Iambic six-foot was also popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by a smooth solemn rhythm. It is less accepted in Russian lyrics, but in theatrical plays it is the canonical size of the verse (with the absence of rhyme). The exceptions are "Woe from Wit" by Griboedov, as well as the drama "Masquerade", written by M. Lermontov, which are written in free verse. The iambic size of the Futurists, which is quite rare among them, is characterized by a rough opposition of various homophonicmoves, as well as minted phonemes. The iambic pentameter is used in poems characterized by a solid form, such as the octave, sonnet, etc. The trimeter is quite rare (mainly among poets belonging to the period of the first third of the 19th century). The theory of iambic tetrameter is the most developed in the literature of poetry. It is worth noting the studies of G. Shengeli, B. Tomashevsky, A. Bely.

Are there two-foot and one-foot iambs in syllabo-tonic versification?

Two-foot and one-foot iambs do not exist, since they are rhythmologically impossible: the illusion of two-foot or one-foot is created due to a shortened rhyme. For example, the poet V. Bryusov considered his poem to be erroneously one-foot iambs.

Iamb was actually an amphibrach. This happened, probably, due to the fact that if these verses are written in separate lines according to the signs of rhymes, then you get a visual similarity to a one-foot iambic.

Multisted iambic

Iambic six-foot is usually the second six-footed with a monosyllabic anacrusis.

Multi-foot were mainly designed by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

It can be argued that iambic pentameter did not exist before him. The poem (iambic) "Gavriliad" is the first work written by him. Alexander Sergeevich was very rigorous in relation to everything that concerned the introduction of colloquial language into verse. It is curious that contemporaries spoke of Cantemir with praise precisely because forverse, he took the colloquial language of his contemporary time.

Analogues to iambic meter in folk poetry

Although the size of iambic was introduced into Russian literature thanks to the reform of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, folk poetry developed, regardless of the influences of the book or the West, original sizes, among which there is formally close to iambic tetrameter. It is called the second quadruple. A poem written by Nekrasov called "Who lives well in Russia" was written with this verse.