iamb

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An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in i-amb). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in a-bove).

Origin

The word iamb comes from Iambe, a Greek minor goddess of verse, especially scurrilous, ribald humour. In ancient Greece iambus was mainly a satirical poem, a lampoon, which did not automatically imply a particular metrical type. Iambic metre took its name from being characteristic of iambi, not vice versa^[1].

Accentual-syllabic use

A metrical tree representation of an iamb. W = weak syllable, S = strong syllable

An alternate metrical tree representation of an iamb. F = foot, σ = syllable. The head of the foot constituent, i.e. the stressed syllable, is indicated with a vertical line

A bracketed grid representation of an iamb. The x's in the lower grid are syllables, the x in the upper grid indicates the position of the stressed syllable

In accentual-syllabic verse we could describe an iamb as a foot that goes like this:

Using the 'ictus and x' notation (see systems of scansion for a full discussion of various notations) we can write this as:

The word 'attempt' is a natural iamb:

In phonology, an iambic foot is notated in a flat representation as (σ'σ) or as foot tree with two branches W and S where W = weak and S = strong.

Iambic pentameter is one of the most commonly used measures in English and German poetry. A line of iambic pentameter comprises five consecutive iambs.

Iambic trimeter is the metre of the spoken verses in Greek tragedy and comedy, comprising six iambs - as one iambic metrum consisted of two iambs. In English accentual-syllabic verse, iambic trimeter is a line comprising three iambs.

Another common iambic form is ballad verse, in which a line of iambic tetrameter is succeeded by a line of iambic trimeter, usually in quatrain form.

A. B. "Banjo" Paterson wrote much of his poetry in iambic heptameter (which is sometimes called the 'fourteener'), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner also conforms to this stress pattern (although it is usually written as though it were composed of lines alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter).

The reverse of an iamb is called a trochee.

Types of Meter

Tetrameter

Lo, thus I triumph like a king,

Content with that my mind doth bring. (Edward Dyer, "My Mind to Me A Kingdom Is")

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. (Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky")

Pentameter

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (Alfred Tennyson, "Ulysses")

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)

(Although, it could be argued that this line in fact reads: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Meter is often broken in this way, sometimes for intended effect and sometimes simply due to the sound of the words in the line. Where the stresses lie can be debated, as it depends greatly on where the reader decides to place the stresses. Although in this meter the foot ceases to be iambs but trochees.)

A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! (William Shakespeare, Richard III)

Heptameter

I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark. (A. B. Paterson, The Man from Ironbark)

Key:

• Non-bold = unstressed syllable
• Bold = stressed syllable

References

See also

• Anapaest
• Trochee
• Iambic pentameter
• Blank verse