Hexameter
Hexameter is a
Classical Hexameter
In classical hexameter, the six feet follow these rules:
- A foot can be made up of two long syllables (– –), a spondee; or a long and two short syllables, a dactyl (– υ υ).
- The first four feet can contain either one of them.
- The fifth is almost always a dactyl, and last must be a spondee/trochee (together forming an adonic). Exceptions can occur when a polysyllabic (especially Greek) name ends a verse.
A short syllable (υ) is a syllable with a short vowel and no consonant at the end. A long syllable (–) is a syllable that either has a long vowel, one or more consonants at the end (or a long consonant), or both. Spaces between words are not counted in syllabification, so for instance "cat" is a long syllable in isolation, but "cat attack" would be syllabified as short-short-long: "ca", "ta", "tack" (υ υ –).
Variations of the sequence from line to line, as well as the use of caesura (logical full stops within the line) are essential in avoiding what may otherwise be a monotonous sing-song effect.
Application
Although the rules seem simple, it is hard to use classical hexameter in English, because English is a stress-timed language that condenses vowels and consonants between stressed syllables, while hexameter relies on the regular timing of the phonetic sounds. Languages having the latter properties (i.e., languages that are not stress-timed) include Ancient Greek, Latin, Lithuanian and Hungarian.
While the above classical hexameter has never enjoyed much popularity in English, where the standard metre is
- Nor a | ny o | ther wold | like Cot | swold e | ver sped,
- So rich | and fair | a vale | in for | tuning | to wed.
In the 17th century the iambic hexameter, also called
.Several attempts were made in the 19th century to naturalise the
In the late 18th century the hexameter was adapted to the Lithuanian language by Kristijonas Donelaitis. His poem "Metai" (The Seasons) is considered the most successful hexameter text in Lithuanian as yet.
For dactylic hexameter poetry in Hungarian language, see Dactylic hexameter#In Hungarian.
Albert Meyer (1893–1962, Berne, Switzerland, translated verses of Homer's Odyssey into the Swiss dialect of Berne. This dialect uses a natural form of hexameter. See http://www.edimuster.ch/baernduetsch/chaernduetsch.htm
See also
- Dactylic hexameter
- Prosody (Latin)
- Poetic meter
Notes
References
- Stephen Greenblatt et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume D, 9th edition (Norton, 2012).
- Pausanias. Description of Greece, Vol. IV. Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918).
- Pliny the Elder. The Natural History. Translated by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1855).
External links
- Hexametrica, a tutorial on Latin dactylic hexameter at Skidmore College
- Hexameter.co, practice scanning lines of dactylic hexameter from a variety of Latin authors