A note for would-be poets who may be put off by phrases such as "iambic tetrameter" and "versification will be scrutinised".
IAMBIC TETRAMETER is a heavy-sounding label for something that kids achieve painlessly as soon as they can recite lines like "The boy stood on the burning deck" or "Mary had a little lamb".
A tetrameter is simply a line of verse that has four measures or "beats". "Tetra" is from the classical Greek word for "four". Centuries ago, scholars discovered that if they used an ancient Greek word for something very common, such as the number four, everyone would think them very learned and they wouldn't have to pay for their own dinner like ordinary people. A line with five measures is called a pentameter, for the same reason.
A "measure", in English verse, means a set of two or three syllables which make a rhythmic effect. The same thing is also called a "foot". The most common measures are:
| 1 | ti-TUM | "The boy/ stood on/ the burn/ ing deck" | four iambs |
| 2 | TUM-ti | "Thenthe/little / congre/ gation" | four trochees |
| 3 | ti-ti-TUM | "Fairy tales/ can come true, / it could hap/ pen to you" | four anapaests |
| 4 | TUM-ti-ti | "Elephants / kickedhim with / sickening / frequency" | four dactyls |
The different rhythms could perfectly well be called ti-TUM and so on. But scholars of course prefer to give them Greek names as shown in the right hand column. So the first of the four tetrameters above is an IAMBIC tetrameter. Words like "today", "begin", "amuse", "impossible", and phrases like "in love", "a bus", "come in", are naturally iambic.
It's pretty important with comic verse to stick to the rhythm. Half the joke is to say wild or witty things within the strict confines of the verse. Look at John Bennett's verses in the "Proverbs" forum to see beautifully crafted examples.
As soon as the versification slips, even clever ideas lose their punch. However, it's also true that there's something very mechanical about a number of lines that go "ti-TUM, ti-TUM, ti-TUM, ti-TUM" all the way through, and poets have always been "allowed" a few variants. What follows are the three most important ones - best not to stray beyond these, in my view, in comic verse.
Example:
I know / that Mark / must be / my brother,
We both / call M/rs Thatch /er mother.
In each line the final "ti-TUM" has got an extra syllable, making it "ti-TUM-ti".
Examples:
To make / your vers /es ex /tra fine
Here's / a short /er kind / of line.In line 2 above, the opening "ti-TUM" has been reduced to just "TUM". As also in these famous lines:
Mar /y had / a litt /le lamb ...
Tig /er, tig /er, burn /ing bright ...
Examples:
And when / "ti-TUM's" / attrac /tion thins
Alter / the way / the line / begins.
And did / those feet / in an /cient time
Walk up /on Eng /land's mount /ains green?In the above couplets it's the second line that demonstrates this change of rhythm.
All of the above are very common, and can be mixed and matched. But in perhaps the greatest use of rhyming IAMBIC TETRAMETERS in the English language (see below), the author allows himself only one of these variants (no. 3 in my list), and not very often, either ...
Above is written by David Ash, who retains all rights.
Comments or mistakes ... please e-mail iambs@davidash.fsnet.co.uk
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred years to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart:
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust;
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now, therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at one our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.