The Yambus is a verse which we find in many lyrical texts. Several such verses form the metrum (→ verse) within a poem. The metrum rhythmizes a text because it indicates which syllables are emphasized in a text or remain unstressed. The jambus is formed of a light and a heavy syllable (unstressed, emphasized).
The word “Yambus” refers back to ancient Greek (ἴαμβος ~ ïambos) and can be translated into German with the German word “schleudern”. In ancient Greece the verse was described by the sequence of a short and a long syllable (- -). If the jambus is described by means of short and long syllables, we speak of a quantitatively metric.
The German imitation of this sequence of syllables describes the fact that in the Yambus an unaccented one follows a stressed syllable (→ accentuating metric) and this schema is also applied and taught in our German lessons and German books.
Construction of the Yambus
As described, an unaccented one follows a stressed syllable at the Yambus. We usually specify this as follows: x x ‘.
Sometimes the spelling of x X has also been used. What is most important is that we choose a label and stick it out consistently when we edit a lyric text. In this way, our readers can better understand what we want to label and name when we write about a work (German teachers, lecturers, lecturers).
Since the jambus describes two syllables, the “smallest possible” yambus is thus a two-syllable word, such as the mind or the ghost.
Hint: If a syllable is pronounced unstressed or accentuated, we recognize best when we pronounce it loudly and distinctly. In principle, we speak a pronounced syllable louder and raise the voice in pronunciation. We have described this in more detail in the article on verses.
The Jambus in the poem
Now, however, it is so that the Jambus can also be over several words. An iambic structure of four jambs would look like this: x x ‘x x’ x x ‘x x’.
This means that the line of a poem consists of eight syllables, which can be accentuated alternately and not emphasized when we speak them loudly. Looking at the first verse of the poem “On the gray beach, on the gray sea” by Theodor Storm, we find such a sequence.
On the gray beach, on the gray sea
In this verse it is also clear that the yambus does not have to be stuck inside a word, and it is really only about the sequence of individual syllables in the actual line.
Cadence and yambus
The Yambus, as described in this article, always ends with a male cadence. This means that the last syllable of the verse is emphasized. This observation is only correct, however, if all the iambic verses are present in the verse and are not cut in a single verse line (→ cadence).
However, there are poems that have an iambic structure and still lack the last syllable to be “complete”. In science, we call such a verse line catalectic verse (→ verse).
Let’s suppose Storm would have circumcised his poem for the last syllable and simply renounced the noun sea. Then the whole thing would look like this and end with a female cadence.
On the gray beach, on the gray
We would then have only three complete Jambian verses and a syllable that remains certain. Nevertheless, we would classify the verse as a jambus, since the superordinate structure appears quite clear and clear.
Note: Alternate verses do not have to go up. Alternating means that unaccented and emphasized verses alternate, as is the case in Yambus.
The yambus and the elevation
In the last section, we have written that the first verse of Storm’s poem consists of four jambs, since in 8 syllables they alternate again and again unstressed and emphasized. In German studies, but also in the German language, this observation is, however, named by the Hebeigkeit.
This is explained by the fact that the yambus can also be described by the sequence of lowering and elevation, whereby lowering is emphasized synonymously to unstressed and elevation.
This means that we are talking about a four-strong yambian when there are four jambs lining each other within a row. If there were only three, it would be a three-legged yambus, etc.
The Alexandrian, a special form of the Yambus
Similar to rhymes (→ Reimschema), there are certain special forms, which means that we must resort to a different name. A special form of the Yambus is the Alexandrian.
This Alexandriner encounters us chiefly in Sonnet’s poem, and describes a six-tenth jubilee (twelve syllables, six unaccented & six), the center of which is a caesura. As a caesura, a mental incision, a turning point in content, or in connection with rhetoric and poetics, is a short pause in reading, that is, an atempause.
Referring to the Alexandrians, it means that a verse, which is formed by a six-strong yambian, undergoes a short speech pause after the first three elevations and depressions. Such an event can be accompanied by a change in terms of content. A parade example for this use of the yambus is the work It is all vain by Andreas Gryphius. The first stanza is to serve as an example.
You see where you see, only vanity on earth.
What is building this today,
Where there are cities and cities, / will be a meadow,
On which a shepherd’s child will play with the herds.
The Alexandrians and the Yambus are very clear in this respect, the elevations and depressions alternating alternately, and showing a caesura after the third elevation, that is, the sixth syllable. Furthermore, in verse two and three, it introduces a contradiction in content, which compares the part before the caesura and the after the caesura (→ antithesis).
It must be noted, however, that the first and last verse of these verses have 13 syllables, which is why the cadences are changing and the uniform picture a little cloudy. Why this is so, we have elaborated extensively in the contribution to Alexandrian verse (→ Alexandriner).
Nevertheless, the Iambian structure is lost, and the caesura separates pairs of opposites. The second and third verses form a major turning point in this stanza.
Effect and function of the yambus
In principle, it is, of course, very difficult to attribute a function to a footer or a stylistic device. Nevertheless, they can, of course, have an effect on the reader.
Frequently the jambus is very rhythmic by the alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables, although we might compare such texts with a beating heart or a galloping horse. As a result, works that make use of the Yambus often sound like a singsang.
This effect can be additionally reinforced by the use of cross-rhymes and pair rhymes. Also other rhyme schemata, which continue to support and emphasize the interaction, can greatly intensify this effect.
Note: Nevertheless, this circumstance should not affect our readership. For merely because one or another poem is galloping, this does not have to be true of all the works of literature, simply because a jambus occurs in it.
Jambus and Trochäus
The counterpart to the Jambus forms in the metric of the Trochaeus, which is formed from a stressed and unstressed syllable. The word of Yambus is, therefore, itself a Trochaeus, as we emphasize the syllable jam in speech and bus remains unstressed. Sounds funny, but is really so.
