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Home > Meter (poetry)

1 Technical terms in poetic meter

• caesura: A caesura (literally, a cut or cutting) refers to a particular kind of break within a poetic line. In Latin and Greek meter, caesura refers to a break within a foot caused by the end of a word. In English poetry, a caesura refers to a sense of a break within a line. Caesuras play a particularly important role in Old English poetry.
• Inversion: When a foot of poetry is reversed with respect to the general meter of a poem, it is referred to as an inversion. This term is usually only used for the first foot in a line.
• Headless: A headless meter is one where the first foot is missing its first syllable.

1.1 Disyllables

• pyrrhus or dibrach: two short syllables
• iamb: Consisting of a short syllable followed by a long one, or of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented; as, an iambic foot.
• trochee or choree: A metrical foot of two syllables, the first long and the second short, as in the Latin word ante, or the first accented and the second unaccented, as in the English word motion; a choreus.
• spondee: A poetic foot of two long syllables

1.2 Trisyllables

• tribrach: three short syllables
• anapest: A poetic foot of two short syllables followed by a long one.
• amphibrach: short-long-short
• bacchius: short-long-long
• dactyl: A poetical foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented
• amphimacer or cretic: long-short-long
• antibacchius: long-long-short
• molossus: long-long-long

1.3 Tetrasyllables

• tetrabrach or proceleusmatic: short-short-short-short
• quartus paeon: short-short-short-long
• tertius paeon: short-short-long-short
• minor ionic, or double iamb: short-short-long-long
• secundus paeon: short-long-short-short
• diamb: short-long-short-long
• antispast: short-long-long-short
• first epitrite: short-long-long-long
• primus paeon: long-short-short-short
• choriamb: long-short-short-long
• ditrochee: long-short-long-short
• second epitrite: long-short-long-long
• major ionic: long-long-short-short
• third epitrite: long-long-short-long
• fourth epitrite: long-long-long-short
• dispondee: long-long-long-long

The most important Classical meter is the dactylic hexameter, the meter of Homer and Vergil. This form uses verses of six feet. The first four feet are dactyls, but can be spondees. The fifth foot is always a dactyl. The sixth foot is either a spondee or a trochee. The initial syllable of either foot is called the ictus, the basic "beat" of the verse. There is usually a caesura after the ictus of the third foot. The opening line of the Æneid is a typical line of dactylic hexameter:

("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy. . . ")

The first and second feet are dactyls; their vowels are grammatically short, but long in poetry because both are followed by two consonants. The third and fourth feet are spondees, with two long vowels, one on either side of the caesura. The fifth foot is a dactyl, as it must be, with the ictus this time falling on a grammatically long vowel. The final foot is a spondee with two grammatically long vowels.

The dactylic hexameter was imitated in English by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow ( February 27, 1807 March 24, 1882) was an American poet who wrote many poems that are still famous today, including The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline''. He lived for most of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Henry was the in his poem EvangelineEvangeline is a poem by the U. poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It describes an Acadian girl named Evangeline, who is separated from her love by the Great Expulsion of the Acadians, and the two lovers' struggles to reunite. The figure of Evangeline has si:

Also important in Greek and Latin poetry is the dactylic pentameter . This was a line of verse, made up of two equal parts, each of which contains two dactyls followed by a long syllable. Spondees can take the place of the dactyls in the first half, but never in the second. The long syllable at the close of the first half of the verse always ends a word, giving rise to a caesura.

Dactylic pentameter is never used in isolation. Rather, a line of dactylic pentameter follows a line of dactylic hexameter in the elegiacOriginally used for a type of poetic metre ( Elegiac metre), the term is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. Some notable elegies include: The Elegies of Propertius Thomas distich or elegiac coupletElegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable, a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long syllable. Example: In the Hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, In th, a form of verse that was used for the composition of elegies and other tragicTragedy is a form of drama which can be traced back as far as the theatre of ancient Greece. The Greek tragedies were originally written and produced for theatrical competitions, and the winning team in the tragic competition would receive a goat to feast and solemn verse in the Greek and Latin world. An example from OvidFor other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation Publius Ovidius Naso ( March 20, 43 BC AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ovid wrote in elegiac couplets, with's Tristia :

("I only saw Vergil, greedy Fate gave Tibullus no time for me.")

The Greeks and Romans also used a number of lyricA Lyric (from the Greek) is a song sung with a lyre. Now, it is commonly used to mean a song of no defined length or structure. A lyric poem is one that expresses a subjective, personal point of view. I would be the Lyric Ever on the lip, Rather than the meters, which were typically used for shorter poems than elegiacs or hexameter. One important line was called the hendecasyllabic, a line of eleven syllables. This meter was used most often in the Sapphic stanza, named after the Greek poet Sappho, who wrote many of her poems in the form. A hendecasyllabic is a line with a never-varying structure: two trochees, followed by a dactyl, then two more trochees. In the Sapphic stanza, three hendecasyllabics are followed by an "Adonic" line, made up of a dactyl and a trochee. This is the form of Catullus 51 (itself a translation of Sappho 31):

("He seems to me to be like a god; if it is permitted, he seems above the gods, he who sitting across from you gazes at you and listens to you.")

The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English by Swinburne in a poem he simply called Sapphics:

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