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HEXAMETER

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 418 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HEXAMETER , the name of the earliest and most important See also:

form of classical See also:verse in dactylic See also:rhythm. The word is due to each See also:line containing six feet or See also:measures (uirpa), the last of which must be a spondee and the penultimate a See also:dactyl, though occasionally, for some See also:special effect, a spondee may be allowed in the fifth See also:foot, when the line is said to be spondaic. The four other feet may be either spondees or dactyls. All the See also:great heroic and epic verse of the See also:Greek and See also:Roman poets is in this See also:metre, of which the finest examples are to be found in See also:Homer and in See also:Virgil. Varied cadences and varied See also:caesura are essential to this form of verse, otherwise the monotony is wearying to the See also:ear. The most usual places for the caesura are at the See also:middle of the third, or the middle of the See also:fourth foot: the former is known as the penthemimeral and the latter as hepthemimeral caesura. There are several more or less successful examples of See also:English poems in this metre, for example See also:Longfellow's Evangeline, See also:Kingsley's See also:Andromeda and See also:Clough's Bothie of Tober-na-Vuoilich, but it does not really suit the See also:genius of the English See also:language. In English the lack of true spondees is severely See also:felt, even though the English metre depends, not, as in Greek and Latin, on the distinction between See also:long and See also:short syllables, but on that between accented and unaccented syllables. The See also:accent must always (or it sounds very ugly) fall on the first syllable, whatever may have been the See also:case in Greek and Latin—See also:Voss, See also:Klopstock and See also:Goethe have written hexameter poems of varying merit and the metre suits the See also:German language distinctly better than the English. The customary form of hexameter in English verse is exemplified by See also:Coleridge's descriptive line: " In the hex 1 ameter rises the I See also:fountain's I silvery j See also:column." Several See also:modern poets, and in particular See also:Robert See also:Browning, and See also:Lord See also:Bowen (1835–1894) have used with effect a truncated hexameter consisting of the usual verse deprived of its last syllable. Thus Browning: " Well, it is I gone at I last, the i See also:palace of I See also:music I [ reared." It is not sufficiently observed that even the classic Greek poets introduced considerable See also:variations into their treatment of the hexameter. These have been treated with erudition in G.

See also:

Hermann's De aetate scriptoria Argonauticorum. The See also:differences in the hexameters of the Latin poets were not so remarkable, but even these varied, in various epochs, their treatment of the See also:separate feet, and the position of the caesura. The satirists in particular allowed themselves an extraordinary See also:licence: these hexameters, from See also:Persius, are as far removed from the rhythm of Homer, or even of Virgil, as possible, if they are to remain hexameters: " Mane piger stertis. ' See also:Surge !' inquit Avaritia, ' heia Surge ! ' negas; instat ' Surge ! ' inquit ' Non queo.' ' Sure !' ' Et quid agam ? ' ' Rogitas ? en saperdam advehe Ponto. ' It is also to be noted that various prosodical liberties, due origin-ally to the extreme antiquity of the hexameter, and long reformed and repressed by the culture of poets, were See also:apt to be revived in later ages, by writers who slavishly copied the most See also:antique examples of the See also:art of verse. See Wilhelm See also:Christ, Metrik der Griechen and Romer, 2te Aufl. (t879).

End of Article: HEXAMETER

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