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The Latin rhythmic hexameter [1] or accentual hexameter [2] is a kind of Latin dactylic hexameter which arose in the Middle Ages alongside the metrical kind. The rhythmic hexameter did not scan correctly according to the rules of classical prosody; instead it imitated the approximate sound of a typical metrical hexameter by having roughly the same number of syllables and putting word accents ...
A masculine caesura follows a stressed syllable while a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura is also described by its position in a line of poetry: a caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an initial caesura, one in the middle of a line is medial , and one near the end of a line is terminal.
The verse also has a stress preceding the caesura, on either the fourth or sixth syllable. The first case is called endecasillabo a minore, or lesser hendecasyllable, and has the first hemistich equivalent to a quinario; the second is called endecasillabo a maiore, or greater hendecasyllable, and has a settenario as the first hemistich. [10]
A hexameter line can be divided into six feet (Greek ἕξ hex = "six"). In strict dactylic hexameter, each foot would be a dactyl (a long and two short syllables, i.e. – u u), but classical meter allows for the substitution of a spondee (two long syllables, i.e. – –) in place of a dactyl in most positions. Specifically, the first four ...
Latin readers probably gave words their natural stress, so that the quantitative metrical pattern acted as an undercurrent to the stresses of natural speech. [10] Here, for example, is a line in dactylic hexameter from Virgil's Georgics when the words are given their natural stress: quíd fáciat laétas ségetes, quó sídere térram,
In the example above, it is found after the fifth element, as so (with ¦ representing the caesura): | x – u – | x ¦ – u – | x – u – | Finally, Porson's Law is observed, which means here that if the anceps of the third metron is long, there cannot be a word-break after that anceps.
The ionic metre is occasionally found in Greek tragedies in appropriate settings, for example in Aeschylus's The Persians and in Euripides' The Bacchae. Ionic metres are rare in Latin. Horace Odes 3.12 is a rare example composed entirely in ionic feet, with ten feet to each stanza. Anacreontics are also very rare. [15]
While the above classical hexameter has never enjoyed much popularity in English, where the standard metre is iambic pentameter, English poems have frequently been written in iambic hexameter. There are numerous examples from the 16th century and a few from the 17th; the most prominent of these is Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (1612) in ...