Yamb is ... Yamb, trochee, amphibrachia

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

Rhythm is a sound structure that has a poetic line. This is the general order of verse speech. The meter is a particular case of rhythm. This orderly alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables (weak and strong places) in the poem, the general scheme of its sound rhythm.

Size is a certain way of sound organization of a poem; This is a special case of the meter already described by us. For example, the iambic can theoretically include variants from one-to-one to twelve-feet, as well as free. The size in syllabic versification can be determined by the number of syllables, in the tonic - by counting the number of stresses, and in the syllabo-tonic and metric - by the number of stops and by the meter (iambic, trochee, amphibrachia, etc.).

The etymology of the word "iambic"

Let us answer the question about the origin of the term of interest to us. The word "iamb" is an ancient Greek name for a musical instrument. It denotes in the ancient metric a disyllabic, simple, three-legged foot (short + long syllable). In the versification of the syllabo-tonic (Russian, for example) it is an unstressed + stressed syllable. Iamb is also called a iamba, which consists of iambic meters.

The etymology is not exactly established. Iambic hymns, as is known, were an integral part of special fertility festivals, which were held in honor of Demeter.

This term was associated with the name of Yamba, the servant of Keleus, the Eleusinian king. According to the myth, the girl enraged Demetra with indecent poems, which inconsolably everywhere looked for her daughter Persephone. It is also possible that the name Yamba is the echo of an ancient word that has obscene significance.

Yamb in antiquity

In the poetry of antiquity, the most common types of iambs were the trimeter and the senarium. The senarium includes six iambic feet. The second species, the trimet, also has six iambic stops, which are grouped in pairs (double stops are called dipodia). Two easy syllables in the ancient versification could be replaced by a heavy one, and vice versa, the heavy one could be replaced by two lungs. In real practice, from this premise, a huge variety of iambic poetry was born. Poems written in this size, were more like all the rest on ordinary speech and were used therefore mostly not in epic genres, but in drama and lyrics (in comedies, tragedies, fables).

In the Greek metric, the iamb is a two-syllable foot consisting of the first short syllable and the second long one. Anakrusa did not suppose the musical notation of the ancient Greeks, and therefore the rhythm was either ascending (iambic) or descending (i.e., trochee).

Iamb and trochee

Iamb and trochee in ancient metrics were united under the general name of a stop with iambic rhythm on the basis of the fact that iamb was more frequent (and still occurs) than the trochee.

Khorei is also an ancient Greek term, derived from the word "dance", and also means "size", "chorus foot". In the syllabo-tonic verse, the most common are the four-legged and six-legged, and from the middle of the 19th century the five-legged trochee begins to be used.

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

Three-syllable verse sizes

We have considered two-syllable dimensions. Let us now say a few words about trisyllabic ones. Amphibrachium consists of three feet, with an accent on the second syllable. The most frequent size of the domestic syllabo-tonic versification is the four-legged (from the beginning of the 19th century), and also the three-legged (beginning from the middle of the 19th century). Dactyl is also a trisyllabic size, but with an emphasis on the first, and the anapeste on the last of the three.

Yamb in Russian literature

The first mention of him in the literature of our country we find in the book published in 1619 M. Smotrytsky called "Grammar ...". However, as a term of poetics, which refers to a specific poetic dimension, iambs began to appear in our country only after the theoretical works conducted by V. Trediakovsky. There are no poems from Russian syllabists written in this size. In Russia, the first iambic poems were created by Trediakovsky.

Yamb this was four-legged. Then the tradition of using size was continued. For example, Lomonosov composed an ode, in which iamb is used, - poems dedicated to the taking of Khotin, the Turkish fortress.

Four-legged iambic

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

It was also popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the six-legged iambic, characterized by a smooth ceremonial rhythm. He is less accepted in the domestic lyric poetry, but in theatrical plays - the canonical size of the verse (with the absence of rhyme). Exceptions are "Woe from Wit" by Griboyedov, as well as the drama "Masquerade", which belongs to the pen of M. Lermontov, which are written in free verse. The size of the iambic futurists, which they encounter quite rarely, is characterized by a rough opposition to various homophonic moves, as well as minted phonemes. Yamb pentameter is used in poems characterized by a solid form, such as octave, sonnet, etc. Quite rarely there is a three-legged one (mainly among poets belonging to the period of the first third of the 19th century). The theory of the iambic tetrameter is most developed in the poetical literature . It can be noted the studies of G. Shengeli, B. Tomashevsky, A. Bely.

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

Two-legged and one-legged iambs do not exist, because they are impossible rhythmologically: the ambiance of two-leggedness or one-footedness is created because of a short rhyme. For example, the poet V. Bryusov considered his poem erroneously one-footed iambs.

Yamb was actually an amphibrachium. It happened, probably because if these poems are written down on the basis of rhyme signs in separate lines, then it will visually resemble a one-legged iamba.

Multistopy iambs

The six-legged iambic is usually the second six-leg with a monosyllabic anacrisis.

Many-footed, in the main, were designed by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

It can be argued that there was no iambic pentameter before it. The poem (iambic) "Gavriliada" is the first work written by him. Alexander Sergeevich was very rigorous with respect to everything that concerned the introduction of the spoken language in verse. It is curious that contemporaries spoke of Cantemir with praise precisely because of the fact that for the verse he took the spoken language of modern times.

Analogues of iambic size in folk poetry

Although the size of the iambs was introduced into the domestic literature thanks to the reform of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, folk poetry developed distinctive dimensions independent of the influence of the book or the west, among which there is a formally four-footed form close to the yamba. It is called the quadrilateral of the second. With this verse a poem written by Nekrasov, entitled "To Whom in Russia Live Well" is written.