[R. S. Gwynn]

I'm always a little dubious about claims that iambic rhythm is somehow biologically sanctioned (Did the hearts of ancient Greeks beat in 3/4 time?), so I'll just post the link without further comment.

https://thepoetintopeka.wordpress.co...-the-internet/

[AZ Foreman]

The claim that iambs are biologically linked is complete crock and doesn't stand up at all to cross-linguistic examination of actual prosodic systems either in metrical or normal speech. The article to my mind equivocates a great deal, and mixes in a couple truisms for good measure.

[Matt Q]

Hi AZ,

What do you think of Kenney's point that the existence of a causal link between biology and iambs need not predict that all cultures should give primacy to the iambic? Iambic rhythms may be successful/pleasurable due to biological predispositions, he says, but that doesn't predict that that all cultures will favour them: if I say that trousers are designed around the biological fact of humans having two legs, you pointing to cultures where people don't wear trousers doesn't seem like an objection (his example). So your claim that iambic rhythms are not culturally universal, he would say, does not disprove a claim that there is some biological basis in our enjoyment of them.

Matt