Iambic tetrameter is a poetic meter in ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of a rhythm, iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form | x – u – |, consisting of a spondee and an iamb, or two iambs. There usually is a break in the centre of the line, thus the whole line is:
("x" is a syllable that can be long or short, "–" is a long syllable, and "u" is a short one.)
In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. However, the particular foot can vary, as follows:
In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is an elegy for his Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died of cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna, at the age of twenty-two years, in 1833. As a sustained exercise in tetrametric lyrical verse, Tennyson's poetical reflections extend beyond the meaning of the death of Hallam, thus, In Memoriam also explores the random cruelty of Nature seen from the conflicting perspectives of materialist science and declining Christian faith in the Victorian era (1837–1901), the poem thus is an elegy, a requiem, and a dirge for a friend, a time, and a place.