amphibrach

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

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 a spondee):

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