iambic tetrameter
Quick Summary
Iambic tetrameter is a line of poetry consisting of four metrical feet, most commonly iambs. An iamb is a metrical foot made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, like the word "be-cause".1
This meter is frequently found in English poetry, second only to iambic pentameter. It is notably used in traditional English and Scottish ballads, often in four-line stanzas that alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter (three metrical feet).1
Prosody is the study of all the elements in language that contribute to acoustic and rhythmic effects, particularly in poetry. This includes the study of meter, which refers to the rhythmic patterns in verse.2
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- The Road Not Taken
Written in iambic tetrameter, it employs an abaab rhyme scheme in each of its four stanzas. The poem presents a narrator recalling a journey through a woods, when he had to choose which of two diverging roads to travel. The work’s meaning has long been disputed by…
Read MoreWritten in iambic tetrameter, it employs an abaab rhyme scheme in each of its four stanzas. The poem presents a narrator recalling a journey through a woods, when he had to choose which of two diverging roads to travel. The work’s meaning has long been disputed by…
Read More - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
…poem is composed of four iambic tetrameter quatrains, and the meditative lyric derives its incantatory tone from an interlocking rhyme scheme of aaba bbcb ccdc dddd.
Read More…poem is composed of four iambic tetrameter quatrains, and the meditative lyric derives its incantatory tone from an interlocking rhyme scheme of aaba bbcb ccdc dddd.
Read More