BLANK VERSE, the unrhymed measure of iambic decasyllable in five beats which is usually adopted in English epic and dramatic poetry.
The iambic blank verse of Italy was, however, mainly hendecasyllabic, not decasyllabic, and under French influences the habit of rhyme soon returned.
He is claimed as the introducer of blank verse--the iambic pentameter without rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of the cæsural pause.
No amount of elaboration and detail would enable one to see the Hermitage better, or indeed, as well; and the lyrical freedom of the ostensibly iambic verse gives to it an irresistible charm.
A satirical poem (such poems having been anciently written in iambic verse); a satire; a lampoon.
Mr. Bryant, of course, relinquished the hope of competing with him in this respect when he adopted iambic verse.
The iambic pentameter is, in his hands, surprisingly plastic.
Our common heroic metre is enough; the pure iambic bearing only a sparing introduction of spondees, trochees, &c.
But the difference of the iambic and heroic measure destroys that at once.
They are like the lampoons of Archilochus and the early Greek Iambic writers, purely personal in their object.
Again, in imitating the iambic and trochaic metres of the Greek drama, the Roman poets were quite indifferent to the laws by which their finer harmony is produced.
Many of the epigrams refer to the persons who are the subject of the short lyric and iambic pieces.
Any of the feet admissible in an iambic line might occupy any place in the line, with the exception of the last.
The poems numbered from i to lx, are short lyrical or satiric pieces, written in the phalaecian, glyconic, or iambic metres, and devoted almost entirely to subjects of personal interest.
In like manner, the blank verse dialogue between Silvius and Phebe (Silvius and Pippa) is in Norwegian rendered, or rather paraphrased, in iambic verse rhyming regularly abab.
Though the prevailing verse is iambic pentameter, we rarely find more than three or four real accents.
The iambic movement is constantly broken and compelled to fight its way through.
In Wildenvey this is changed to a rhymed dialogue in iambic tetrameters between Jacques and Amiens.
This gives an added delight, since the ear, attuned to the iambic beat, readily recognizes it when it recurs.
The Italian hendecasyllable is an accentual iambic line of five feet with one unaccented syllable over and included in the rhyme.
Therefore, nothing very distinct can be asserted about the origin of the hendecasyllable iambic line, which marks Italian poetry.
What seems tolerably certain is that the modern Italian hendecasyllable was suggested by one of the Latin eleven-syllabled meters, but that, in the decay of quantitative prosody, an iambic rhythm asserted itself.
So he has hardly a rule left, save theiambic pattern, which he treats merely as a point of departure or reference, a background or framework to carry the variations imposed upon it by the luxuriance of a perfectly controlled art.
The great charm of the metre of Wither, which Charles Lamb admired and imitated, lies in its facile combination of what, for the sake of brevity, may be called the iambic and trochaic movements.
While the trochee suggests the bursting out of feeling against the will, the iambicmay suggest the spontaneous cumulation of emotion under the dominion of will with a definite purpose or conscious realization of a situation.
The iambic can express passion controlled for an end, the trochee seems rather to float with the passion or be thrust forward by waves or bursts of feeling, which the will is trying to hold back.
The change to the iambic in the central part of the poem only proves the real character of the trochaic feet, and, in fact, accentuates their spirit.
Note the effect of the first line of most of the stanzas, then the quick change toiambic movement expressing the rebuke which is the real theme of the poem.
Notice that in stanza four, when the ride begins, the first foot is not iambic, but choriambic; yet all through the poem where manly resolution and confidence is asserted and expressed, the iambic movement is strong.
Adequate rendering of this poem requires a very decided touch upon the strong foot, that is, an accentuation of the iambic movement.
The iambic foot, more than any other, expresses controlled passion,--passion expressed with deliberation.
A positive settling of the question by his own illustration is indicated by the emphasis of the iambic movement in the next line.
Like most of Shakespeare's verse, it is written iniambic pentameter.
The sonnet may be briefly defined as a rimed poem in iambic pentameter, containing fourteen lines, divided into the octave of eight lines and the sextet of six.
The seventh and last form of ourIambic measure is made up of seven Iambuses.
Iambic verses are of several kinds, each kind consisting of a certain number of feet or syllables.
But in iambic verse, which reproduces, as far as may be, familiar speech, the most appropriate words are those which are found even in prose.
The appropriate metre was also here introduced; hence the measure is still called the iambic or lampooning measure, being that in which people lampooned one another.
The iambic measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry was of the Satyric order, and had greater affinities with dancing.
On the other hand, the iambic and the trochaic tetrameter are stirring measures, the latter being akin to dancing, the former expressive of action.
Orm’s verse is monotonously regular; every line has its fifteen syllables exactly counted out and ends in x́ x; the caesura comes after the eighth syllable; the rhythm is iambic without substitution.
And it was not until I made the iambic rising movement prevail in my translation, that I felt myself approaching the impression made on me by the original.
This rhythm varies frequently and easily in Swedish, so that you may pass from iambic to trochaic metre without giving offence to the ear--or to that subtle rhythmical susceptibility that seems to be inherent in our very pulses.
But, this redoubtable critic, as I discovered upon a closer inspection, has himself been betrayed into a senarian or iambic verse in the very paragraph in which he censures the composition of Isocrates.
Unless "ipsi prodeant" was pronounced after a pause, the hearer must have discovered a complete iambic verse.
The Iambic is most commonly used in a six-foot line of iambics (the trimeter iambic, vide note on last paragraph).
One writer on versification has attempted to do this, and calls the iambic "march" measure, and the trochaic "trip.
The iambic is most common perhaps, represented by two syllables with the accent on the last syllable.
But still this critic, in the very passage in which he finds this fault with him, (as I noticed when I was examining his work very closely,) himself makes an iambic without knowing it.
For the iambic and the dactyl are those which are most usually employed in verse; and, therefore, as we avoid verses in making speeches, so also a recurrence of these feet must be avoided.
Accordingly, the dactyl is of the first class, the paeon of the last, the iambic of the second.
For the iambic is most frequent in those orations which are composed in a humble and lowly style; but the paeon is suited to a more dignified style; and the dactyl to both.
But Aristotle's opinion is very different, for he considers that the heroic rhythm is a grander one than is admissible in prose, and that an iambic is too like ordinary conversation.
He wrote two famous hymns, one of them in the popular trochaic tetrameter, the other in the equally simple iambic dimeter.
Trochaic and iambic rhythms then constituted the chief measures for accentual verse, as they had for centuries, and do still.
In this verse the first two lines are accentual iambic dimeters; while the last two begin each with two trochees, and close apparently with two dactyls.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "iambic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
