amphibrach

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An amphibrach is a metrical foot used in Latin and Greek prosody. It consists of a long syllable between two short syllables. The word comes from the Greek αμφίβραχυς, amphíbrakhys, "short on both sides".

In English accentual-syllabic poetry, an amphibrach is a stressed syllable surrounded by two unstressed syllables. It is the main foot used in the construction of the limerick, e.g., "There was a | young lady | of Wantage." It was also used by the Victorians for narrative poetry, e.g. Samuel Woodworth's "The Old Oaken Bucket" beginning "How dear to | my heart are | the scenes of | my childhood." W.H. Auden's "Oh Where Are You Going" is a more recent and slightly less metrically-regular example. The amphibrach is also often used in ballads and light verse, such as the hypermetrical lines of Sir John Betjeman's "Meditation on the A30."

Amphibrachs are a staple meter of Russian poetry. A common variation in an amphibrachic line, in both Russian and English, is to end the line with an iamb, as Thomas Hardy does in "The Ruined Maid": "Oh did n't | you know I'd | been ru in'd | said she".

Some books by Dr. Seuss contain many lines written in amphibrachs, such as these from If I Ran the Circus:

All ready | to put up | the tents for | my circus.

I think I | will call it | the Circus | McGurkus.

And NOW comes | an act of | Enormous | Enormance!

No former | performer's | performed this | performance!

Much of Leonard Cohen's song "Famous Blue Raincoat" ^[1] is written in amphibrachs - e.g. the first verse (apart from the first foot of the third line, which is an iamb):

It's four in | the morning, | the end of | December

I'm writing | you now just | to see if | you're better

New York | is cold, but | I like where | I'm living

There's music | on Clinton | Street all through | the evening.

The individual amphibrachic foot often appears as a variant within, for instance, anapaestic meter.

References

External links

• "The Old Oaken Bucket" by Samuel Woodworth