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Further information: Prosody (Latin) and Prosody (Greek)
Greek and Latin metre
Greek prosody
Latin prosody
Dactylic hexameter
Elegiac couplet
Alcmanian verse
Archilochian
Latin rhythmic hexameter
Iambic trimeter
Saturnian (poetry)
Metres of Roman comedy
Trochaic septenarius
Hendecasyllable
Choliamb
Aeolic verse
Choriamb
Glyconic
Asclepiad (poetry)
Sapphic stanza
Alcaic stanza
Ionic metre
Anacreontics
Galliambic verse
Sotadean metre
Dochmiac
Lekythion
Anaclasis (poetry)
Metrical foot
Metron (poetry)
Brevis in longo
Anceps
Biceps (prosody)
Resolution (meter)
Brevis brevians
Porson's Law
Arsis and thesis
Catalexis
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Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, u for a short, and u u for a position that may be a long or two shorts):
| – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – –
Here, "|" (pipe symbol) marks the beginning of a foot in the line.
Thus there are six feet, each of which is either a dactyl (– u u) or a spondee (– –). The first four feet can either be dactyls, spondees, or a mix. The fifth foot can also sometimes be a spondee, but this is rare, as it most often is a dactyl. The last foot is a spondee.
The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be the grand style of Western classical poetry. Some well known examples of its use are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lucan's Pharsalia (an epic on Caesar's civil war), Valerius Flaccus's Argonautica, and Statius's Thebaid.
However, hexameters had a wide use outside of epic. Greek works in hexameters include Hesiod's Works and Days and Theogony, Theocritus's Idylls, and Callimachus's hymns. In Latin famous works include Lucretius's philosophical De rerum natura, Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, book 10 of Columella's manual on agriculture, as well as Latin satirical poems by the poets Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. The hexameter continued to be used in Christian times, for example in the Carmen paschale of the 5th-century Irish poet Sedulius and Bernard of Cluny's 12th-century satire De contemptu mundi among many others.
Hexameters also form part of elegiac poetry in both languages, the elegiac couplet being a dactylic hexameter line paired with a dactylic pentameter line. This form of verse was used for love poetry by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, for Ovid's letters from exile, and for many of the epigrams of Martial.
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Dactylichexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin...
Hexametrica, a tutorial on Latin dactylichexameter at Skidmore College Hexameter.co, practice scanning lines of dactylichexameter from a variety of Latin authors...
but it is always long by position. A dactylic tetrameter catalectic is sometimes joined to the dactylichexameter to form a couplet termed the Alcmanian...
part of a larger work. Each couplet consists of a dactylichexameter verse followed by a dactylic pentameter verse. The following is a graphic representation...
pattern | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – – | (the so-called dactylichexameter, where – represents a long syllable, and u a short one.) It would...
The dactylic pentameter is a verse-form which, in classical Greek and Latin poetry, follows a dactylichexameter to make up an elegiac couplet. It consists...
and Zeus. The Odyssey is 12,109 lines composed in dactylichexameter, also called Homeric hexameter. It opens in medias res, in the middle of the overall...
Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylichexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas'...
poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus, which were written in dactylichexameter. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in...
consists of one line of poetry in dactylichexameter followed by a line in dactylic pentameter. Because dactylichexameter is used throughout epic poetry...
the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylichexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set...
of Homer and didactic poems of Hesiod, which were composed in the dactylichexameter. A variety of other metres were used for lyric poetry and for classical...
a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylichexameters. He is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria...
story, poem." In ancient Greek, 'epic' could refer to all poetry in dactylichexameter (epea), which included not only Homer but also the wisdom poetry of...
and his triumphant return. It was written in Homeric Greek and in dactylichexameter, and it consists of 48 books at 20,426 lines. There is almost no evidence...
of feet, the iambic (where the ratio of arsis to thesis was 1:2), the dactylic (where it was 2:2) and the paeonic (where it was 3:2). Lines of verse are...
interpreted as the enigmatic prophecies and turned them into poetic dactylichexameters preserved in Greek literature. This idea, however, has been challenged...
140b LP = 214 Voigt Fragments 142 and 143 can be analysed either as dactylichexameters, or according to Aeolic principles. 168A Voigt = 178 LP Not included...
The Latin rhythmic hexameter or accentual hexameter is a kind of Latin dactylichexameter which arose in the Middle Ages alongside the metrical kind. The...
Alcmanian verse refers to the dactylic tetrameter in Greek and Latin poetry. Ancient metricians called the dactylic tetrameter the Alcmanic because of...
philosophy to a Roman audience. The poem, written in some 7,400 dactylichexameters, is divided into six untitled books, and explores Epicurean physics...
Athens. Similarly, "dactylichexameter", comprises six feet per line, of which the dominant kind of foot is the "dactyl". Dactylichexameter was the traditional...
Minor, possibly in the second or third centuries AD. The poems, in dactylichexameter, are relatively short in length, and the collection is prefaced by...
came from Longfellow's friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Longfellow used dactylichexameter, imitating Greek and Latin classics. Though the choice was criticized...
sometime after 127. Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in the verse form dactylichexameter. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows Lucilius—the...
poem written by ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. It is in dactylichexameter and contains 828 lines. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's...
BCE) (see Cyclic Poets). The poem comprised two books of verse in dactylichexameter. The Iliou persis was probably composed in the seventh century BCE...
Kýklos) was a collection of Ancient Greek epic poems, composed in dactylichexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War, including the Cypria,...
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