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Common metre or common measure〔Blackstone, Bernard., "Practical English Prosody: A Handbook for Students", London: Longmans, 1965. 97-8〕 — abbreviated as C. M. or CM — is a poetic metre consisting of four lines which alternate between iambic tetrameter (four metrical feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) and iambic trimeter (three metrical feet per line, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), rhyming in the pattern ''a-b-a-b''. The metre is denoted by the syllable count of each line, i.e. 8.6.8.6, 86.86, or 86 86, depending on style, or by its shorthand abbreviation "CM". It has historically been used for ballads such as "Tam Lin", and hymns such as "Amazing Grace" and the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem". The upshot of this commonality is that lyrics of one song can be sung to the tune of another; for example, "Advance Australia Fair", the national anthem of Australia, can be sung to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun". ==Variants== Common metre is related to three other poetic forms: ballad metre, fourteeners, and common-metre double. Like the stanzas of the common metre, each stanza of ''ballad metre'' has four iambic-lines. Ballad metre is "less regular and more conversational"〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=Britannica Online Encyclopedia )〕 than common metre. In each stanza, ballad metre needs to rhyme only the second and fourth lines, in the form ''A-B-C-B'' (where ''A'' and ''C'' need not rhyme), while common metre must rhyme also the first and third lines, in the pattern ''A-B-A-B''. Another closely related form is the ''fourteener'', consisting of iambic heptameter couplets: instead of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, rhyming ''a-b-a-b'' or ''x-a-x-a'', a fourteener joins the tetrameter and trimeter lines, converting four-line stanzas into couplets of seven iambic feet, rhyming ''a-a''.〔Kinzie, Mary. ''A Poet's Guide to Poetry.'' Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999. 121-2, 414-5〕 The first and third lines in common metre typically have four stresses (tetrameter), and the second and fourth have three stresses (trimeter). Ballad metre follows this stress pattern less strictly than common metre.〔 The fourteener also gives the poet greater flexibility, in that its long lines invite the use of variably placed caesuras and spondees to achieve metrical variety, in place of a fixed pattern iambs and line breaks. Another common adaptation of the common metre is the ''common-metre double'', which as the name suggests, is the common metre repeated twice in each stanza, or 8.6.8.6.8.6.8.6. Traditionally the rhyming scheme should also be double the common metre and be ''a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d'', but it often uses the ballad metre style, resulting in ''x-a-x-a-x-b-x-b''. Examples of this variant are "America the Beautiful" and "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Common metre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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