Iamb (foot) - Accentual-syllabic Use

Accentual-syllabic Use

In accentual-syllabic verse an iamb is a foot that has the rhythmic pattern:

Using the 'ictus and x' notation (see systems of scansion for a full discussion of various notations) we can write this as:

The word 'attempt' is a natural iamb:

In phonology, an iambic foot is notated in a flat representation as (σ'σ) or as foot tree with two branches W and S where W = weak and S = strong.

Iambic pentameter is one of the most commonly used measures in English and German poetry. A line of iambic pentameter comprises five consecutive iambs.

Iambic trimeter is the metre of the spoken verses in Greek tragedy and comedy, comprising six iambs - as one iambic metrum consisted of two iambs. In English accentual-syllabic verse, iambic trimeter is a line comprising three iambs.

Less common iambic measures include iambic tetrameter (four iambs per line) and iambic heptameter, sometimes called the "fourteener" (seven iambs per line). Lord Byron's poem She Walks in Beauty exemplifies iambic tetrameter; iambic heptameter is found in Australian poet A. B. "Banjo" Paterson's The Man from Ironbark. Related to iambic heptameter is the more common ballad verse, in which a line of iambic tetrameter is succeeded by a line of iambic trimeter, usually in quatrain form. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a classic example of this form.

The reverse of an iamb is called a trochee.