Meter

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Is there a meter in Russian that’s used as iambic meter is in English? I.e., commonly-used because it closely mimics the natural meter of speech?

Comments

[spokojnik.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's called ямб

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Russian uses iamb, too?

To clarify, English uses iambic pentameter, Latin uses dactyllic hexameter, all for the reason that it sounds natural and pleasing, but has a set rhythm.

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

Russian is actually a pretty variable language for poetry, so it uses a lot of different metres. In the works of all Russian poets you can find a wide variety of metric styles.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

If you mean poetry, English uses not only iamb, but many more meters. I can come up with examples, if you like:)

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Oh, no. I know that English uses not only iamb, but iamb is very popular in English for whatever reason. :) I had heard it was because it was a “natural” meter for English, and was wondering if there were any such popular “natural” meters in Russian.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

According to my stylistics lecturer, it's due to articles. They account for the first non-stressed syllable. I don't know for sure, it's just the "official" version.

I guess Russian has no natural meter, stress has never benn fixed on any particular syllable here. No articles. Nothing to "fix" the meter.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Ahh. That makes sense, then.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

(To be sure, I’m rather fond of trochaic tetrameter from time to time, but I’ve found that I use iamb more and more as I age.)

[oryx_and_crake]

ямб, хорей, дактиль, амфибрахий, анапест (iamb, choree, dactyl, amphibrach, anapaest)
I'd say those are the most popular (with the classic Russian poetry at least)

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Hexameter is used too! I once hear a story about street ad on a concrete fence, which said:

  Здесь за углом продаются решётки стальные

And some witty guy continued underneath:

  Их для дворца своего покупал шлемоблещущий Гектор

[oryx_and_crake]

:-)

[000sh4d0w000.livejournal.com]

8)))

[oryx_and_crake]

BTW I am sure there is no such thing as a "natural meter of speech", as all languages have words of different length and only one stressed syllable per word. So no speech will have a meter unless you make it, so it is not "natural" any more.

[apollotiger.livejournal.com]

Alright. In my rhetoric class, we read that Aristotle wrote about poets using dactyllic hexameter in his time because it mimicked the Greek pattern of speech, and my teacher compared dactyllic hexameter in Greek to iambic pentameter in English. :) Perhaps I just assumed the bit about it being “natural”.

[grafinok.livejournal.com]

Not all languages at all.

[belacane.livejournal.com]

there's a whole book on it...

Russian poetry : meter, rhythm, and rhyme
Scherr, Barry P.