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Updated: June 2, 2025
A long syllable put after a short one is termed an iambus, a lively measure, whence also it commanded the name of trimeters to be added to iambics, though it yielded six beats of time, being similar to itself from first to last.
He could make Greek iambics, and doubted whether the bishop knew the difference between an iambus and a trochee. He could disport himself with trigonometry, feeling confident that Dr Tempest had forgotten his way over the asses' bridge. He knew "Lycidas" by heart; and as for Thumble, he felt quite sure that Thumble was incompetent of understanding a single allusion in that divine poem.
We were told, of course, that it was not all quite as simple as this: that there were frequent metrical variations, such as trochees changing places with dactyls, and anapests with iambi; that feet could be inverted, so that a trochaic line might begin with an iambus, an anapestic line with a dactyl, or vice versa; that syllables might be omitted at the beginning or the end or even in the middle of a line, and that this "cutting-off" was called catalexis; that syllables might even be added at the beginning or end of certain lines and that these syllables were called hypermetric; and that we must be very watchful about pauses, particularly about a somewhat mysterious chief pause, liable to occur about the middle of a line, called a caesura.
It was a matter, not of quantity, but of accent; and if we remembered this fact, there was no harm but rather a great convenience, in retaining the technical names of classical versification. Only we must be careful that by "iambus," in English poetry, we meant an unstressed syllable, rather than a short syllable followed by a long one.
The Greek lyric poetry was characterized by the expression of deeper and more impassioned feeling, and a more impetuous tone than the elegy and iambus, and at the same time the effect was heightened by appropriate vocal and instrumental music, and often by the figures of the dance.
They were for the most part the beginning of some word which reminded him of a thing he cared to remember. First he had, in sport, named some of them after the metrical feet of Latin verse, which had been but ill friends of his in his school days, and in his kennel there was a Troch, Iamb, Spond and Dact, whose full names were Trochee, Iambus, Spondee and Dactyl.
It is a dialogue between the poetess and her muse: she excuses herself for essaying so slight a subject in epic metre, and implies that she is more at home in lighter rhythms. This may be believed when we find that she makes the i of iambus long! However, the poem is corrupt, and the readings in many parts uncertain.
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