Anapest, dactyl, amphibrach - this is Let's talk about poetic meters

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

Before describing specific definitions (they say, amphibrach is … etc.), one should understand what versification is. Usually, it is understood as the principles of organizing poetic speech into one rhythmic whole. Literary critics share the metric and accent systems, and the first, represented by ancient works, Russian folk verses, is more ancient. Accent versification is subdivided, in turn, into tonic, syllabic and syllabic-tonic systems.

The poet's appeal to one of them is dictated by the peculiarities of his language. For syllabic versification, the number of syllables is important, for tonic versification - stress. That is why syllabic versification is common in national literatures that use a language with a fixed accent. These include Polish, French. Russian and Ukrainian literature also knows examples of syllabic versification, but, for obvious reasons, it did not take root here. For syllabic-tonic versification (namely, it is most inherent in Russian poetry), the number ofstressed and unstressed syllables; the scheme of their alternation is called poetic size. It is two-syllable and three-syllable. The first group includes iambic and trochee, the second - dactyl, amphibrach, anapest.

Yamb

As M. Gasparov testified, about half of all poetic texts of the second half of the 19th century account for this meter. In iambic, the foot (combination of stressed and unstressed components) consists of two syllables. The first is unstressed, the second is stressed (for example: “Again I am standing over the Neva …”). In Russian classicism, the iambic 6-foot was especially common. It was used mainly in the so-called high genres - odes or messages. Subsequently, the 6-foot, as well as the free iambic amphibrachs and other trisyllabic sizes will completely replace.

Khorei

In this case, the first syllable of a two-syllable foot is stressed (for example, the familiar lines from children's poetry "My cheerful sonorous ball"). Especially often in the poetry of the past and the century before last there is a 5-foot trochee.

Dactyl

Let's move on to trisyllabic meters. These include, as already mentioned, dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest. The first measure from this list begins with a stressed syllable, while the other two remain unmarked. An example of a dactyl is a line from Lermontov's poetry: "Clouds of heaven, eternal wanderers …"

Amphibrachium is…

The stressed syllable may not be at the beginning, but in the middle of a three-syllable foot. Similar rhythmicthe organization of the line clearly says that we have an amphibrach in front of us. It was he who wrote the famous "He will stop a galloping horse …", which is almost the official anthem of all Russian women.

Anapest

Finally, the stress can fall on the last, third syllable, then we are dealing with an anapaest. It is clearly manifested, for example, in the lines: “It sounded over a clear river …” Anapaest, amphibrachs and dactyl were especially widespread in poetic texts of the century before last. As M. Gasparov points out, initially they were 4-foot, but then they were replaced by a variant with three stops.

If you need to indicate the poetic size in accordance with the task, do not take it at random to determine whether it is an amphibrach or, perhaps, a trochee. Or even Russian folk verse. To begin with, we advise you to read the text aloud, not particularly paying attention to the meaning of what is written, but simply minting each phrase. It's like you're knocking out a fraction. After that, write down the line, designate the shock sections, draw a diagram of the versification system - and the task is completed.

However, not everything is so simple. The poem may contain stops consisting entirely of stressed (spondei) or unstressed (pyrrhic) syllables. Initially, these terms were applied to ancient poetry. In relation to the syllabo-tonic system, they simply denote the omission (or presence) of stress where it should not be. In addition, the text can be written in dolnik. This means that there is a rhythmic organization in it, but the intervals between different syllables are not constant. bright volumean example is Blok’s lines: “The girl sang in the church choir …”

In the poetry of the twentieth century, the form of accent verse was also used (already mentioned by Blok, Mayakovsky). It differs by an equal number of stressed syllables and has a different number of unstressed components. That is, in fact, accent verse is the embodiment of the tonic system of versification in modern literature. There are also more exotic cases - a combination of one stressed and three unstressed syllables (the so-called peon). He wrote the famous lines: "Do not think about seconds down …" It is also necessary to remember the poetic experiments of the futurists, which ran counter to any theoretical ideas.

Finally, a poem can be white at all. This means that it has no rhyme, but the rhythmic organization is still present. So white anapaest or white iambic exist in nature.