In this article, we will tell you about iamba, as well as briefly about other poetic sizes. We will first determine the key concepts that will be used in the text.
A rhythm is a sound structure that has a poetic line. This is the general ordering of poetic speech. The meter is a special case of rhythm. This is an ordered alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables (weak and strong places) in a poem, the general scheme of its sound rhythm.
Size is a definite way to soundly organize a poetic work; This is a special case of the meter we have already described. For example, an iamb can theoretically include options from single-foot to twelve-foot, as well as free. We can determine the size in the syllabic versification by the number of syllables, in the tonic - by counting the number of stresses, and in the syllabonic-tonic and metric - by the number of feet and meter (iambic, trochee, amphibrach, etc.).
Etymology of the word "iamb"
We will answer the question about the origin of the term that interests us. The word "iamb" is the ancient Greek name for a musical instrument. It denotes in the ancient metric a two-syllable, simple, three-sea foot (short + long syllable). In the versification of the syllabonic-tonic (Russian, for example) - this is unstressed + stressed syllable. Also called a iambic verse, which consists of iambic meters.
The etymology is not exactly established. Iambic chants, as you know, were an integral part of special fertility holidays, which were held in honor of Demeter.
This term was associated with the name of Yamba, the servant of Kelei, king of Eleusis. According to myth, a girl obscene poems amused Demeter, who inconsolably everywhere was looking for her daughter Persephone. It is also possible that the name Yamba is an echo of an ancient word with obscene meaning.
Yamb in antiquity
In the poetry of antiquity, the most common types of iambic species were trimester and senaria. The senary includes six iambic feet. The second type, the trimester, also has six iambic feet, which are grouped in pairs (double feet were called dipodia). Two light syllables in ancient versification could be replaced by a heavy one, and vice versa, a heavy one could be replaced by two light. In real practice, a huge variety of iambic poetry was born from this premise. Poems written in this size resembled ordinary speech more than anyone else and were therefore used mainly not in epic genres, but in drama and lyrics (in comedies, tragedies, fables).
In the Greek metric, an iamb is a two-syllable foot, consisting of the first short syllable and the second long. Musical notation of the ancient Greeks did not suggest anacruses, and therefore the rhythm was either upward (i.e., iambic) or downward (i.e., choreic).
Yamb and trochees
Ancient metrics united iambic and trochee under the common name of feet with an iambic rhythm on the basis of the fact that iambic was more common (and still occurs) than trochees.
Chorea is also an ancient Greek term, derived from the word "dance", as well as meaning "size", "choral foot." In the syllabic-tonic verse, the most common are four-foot and six-foot, and from the mid-19th century the five-foot chorea also begins to be used.
Both iambic and trochee represent two-fold sizes. In chorea, emphasis is placed on the first syllable, in iamba - on the second.
Three complex verse sizes
We considered two-dimensional sizes. Let us now say a few words about the three-complex ones. Amphibrachium consists of three feet, with emphasis on the second syllable. The most frequent size of domestic syllabonic-tonic versification is four-foot (from the beginning of the 19th century), as well as three-foot (starting from the middle of the 19th century). Dactyl is also a three-syllable size, but with an emphasis on the first, and anapaest on the last of the three.
Yamb in Russian literature
The first mention of it in the literature of our country we find in the book of M. Smotrytsky published in 1619 under the title "Grammar ...". However, as a term of poetics, which refers to a specific poetic size, the iamb began to appear in our country only after the theoretical work carried out by V. Trediakovsky. There are no poems among Russian syllabists written in this size. In Russia, the first iambic verses were created by Trediakovsky.
This iamb was four-footed. Then the tradition of using size was continued. For example, Lomonosov composed an ode in which iamb was used - verses dedicated to the capture of Khotin, a Turkish fortress.
Four-legged iambic
To this day, of all the iambic dimensions in Russian poetry, the most favorite is the four-footed one. About 80-85 percent of the poems of Russian poets were written by him. This size of the verse gained widest popularity not so much because of the rhythmic capacity of the form, which was adapted to poetic speech in Russian, but because of the established tradition of the systematic mass use of it by the first great poets - V. Petrov, M. Lomonosov, G. Derzhavin, and a little later by A. Pushkin and E. Baratynsky (see photo).
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the six-legged iambus, characterized by a smooth solemn rhythm, was also popular. It is less accepted in Russian lyrics, but in theatrical plays - the canonical size of the verse (with the absence of rhyme). The exceptions are Griboedov's “Woe from Wit”, as well as the drama “Masquerade”, written by M. Lermontov, written in free verse. The size of the iambic in futurists, which is quite rare for them, is characterized by a rough opposition of various homophonic moves, as well as minted phonemes. Five-footed iambic is used in poems characterized by a solid form, such as octave, sonnet, etc. The three-footed iambic is quite rare (mainly among poets belonging to the period of the first third of the 19th century). The theory of four-foot iamba is the most developed in poetry literature . It may be noted the research of G. Shengeli, B. Tomashevsky, A. Bely.
Are there double-foot and single-foot iambic sillabonic-tonic versification?
Double-footed and single-footed iambes do not exist, since they are impossible rhythmologically: the illusion of double-footedness or single-footedness is created due to a shortened rhyme. For example, the poet V. Bryusov mistakenly considered his poem erroneously single-footed iambic.
Yamb was actually amphibrach. This happened, probably due to the fact that if these verses are written on the basis of rhyme in separate lines, then we get a visual similarity to a single-foot iamba.
Multi-footed iambic
The six-footed iamb is usually the second six-sided with a monosyllabic anacruz.
Multi-footed, basically, were designed by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.
It can be argued that before him there was no pentameter iamba. The poem (iambic) "Gavriliada" is the first work written by him. Alexander Sergeevich was very rigorous in relation to everything related to the introduction of a spoken language into the verse. It is curious that contemporaries spoke of Cantemir with praise precisely because for the verse he took the spoken language of modern times.
Analogs to iambic size in folk poetry
Although the size of iambic was introduced into Russian literature due to the reform of Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, folk poetry developed distinctive sizes, regardless of the influence of the book or the West, among which there is a four-legged formally similar to iambic. It is called the second quadrangular. Such a poem is written a poem created by Nekrasov, entitled "Who should live well in Russia."