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PENTAMETER

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 122 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PENTAMETER , the name given to the second and shorter See also:

line of the classical elegaic See also:verse. It is composed of five (mine) feet or See also:measures (,Erpa), and is divided into two equal parts of two and a See also:half feet each: the second of these parts must be dactylic, and the first may be either dactylic or spondaic. The first See also:part must never overlap into the second, but there must be a break between them. Thus: - V V I-V V I I IV V I-U VI In the best Latin poets, the first See also:foot of each part of the pentameter is a See also:dactyl. The pentameter scarcely exists except in See also:conjunction with the See also:hexameter, to which it always succeeds in elegaic verse. The invention of the rigidly dactylic See also:form was attributed by the Greeks to See also:Archilochus. See also:Schiller described the See also:sound and method of the elegaic See also:couplet in two very skilful verses, which have been copied in many See also:languages: See also:Im Hexameter steigt See also:des Springquells flussige Saule, Im Pentameter drauf fallt sie melodisch herab. The pentameter was always considered to add a See also:melancholy See also:air to verse, and it was especially beloved by the Greeks in those recitations (/lasPybeIrai) to the sound of the See also:flute, which formed the earliest melodic performances at See also:Delphi and else-where.

End of Article: PENTAMETER

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