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Prosody (Latin)
Latin prosody (from Middle French ''prosodie'', from Latin ''prosōdia'', from Ancient Greek προσῳδία ''prosōidía'', 'song sung to music', 'pronunciation of syllable') is the study of Latin poetry and its laws of meter. The following article provides an overview of those laws as practised by Latin poets in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, with verses by Catullus, Horace, Virgil and Ovid as models. Except for the early Saturnian (poetry), Saturnian poetry, which may have been accentual, Latin poets borrowed all their verse forms from the Greeks, despite significant differences between the two languages. Latin verse: a Greek gift A brief history The start of Latin literature is usually dated to the first performance of a play by Livius Andronicus in Rome in 240 BC. Livius, a Greek slave, translated Greek New Comedy for Roman audiences. He not only established the genre fabula palliata, but also adapted meters from Greek drama to meet the needs of Latin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle French
Middle French () is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the mid-14th to the early 17th centuries. It is a period of transition during which: * the French language became clearly distinguished from the other competing Oïl languages, which are sometimes subsumed within the concept of Old French () * the French language was imposed as the official language of the Kingdom of France in place of Latin and other Oïl and Occitan languages * the literary development of French prepared the vocabulary and grammar for the Classical French () spoken in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is the first version of French that is largely mutual intelligibility, intelligible to Modern French, contrary to Old French. History The most important change found in Middle French is the complete disappearance of the noun declension system, which had been underway for centuries. There was no longer a distinction between nominative and oblique case, oblique forms of nou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( ; ; – October 15, 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, which usually is translated into English as ''On the Nature of Things''—and somewhat less often as ''On the Nature of the Universe''. Very little is known about Lucretius's life; the only certainty is that he was either a friend or client of Gaius Memmius, to whom the poem was addressed and dedicated. ''De rerum natura'' was a considerable influence on the Augustan poets, particularly Virgil (in his ''Aeneid'' and ''Georgics'', and to a lesser extent on the '' Eclogues'') and Horace. The work was almost lost during the Middle Ages, but was rediscovered in 1417 in a monastery in Germany by Poggio Bracciolini and it played an important role both in the development of atomism (Lucretius was an important influence on Pierre Gassendi) and the efforts of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcaeus Of Mytilene
Alcaeus of Mytilene (; , ''Alkaios ho Mutilēnaios''; – BC) was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was a contemporary of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems. He was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, where he was involved in political disputes and feuds. Biography The broad outlines of the poet's life are well known. He was born into the aristocratic, warrior class that dominated Mytilene, the strongest city-state on the island of Lesbos and, by the end of the seventh century BC, the most influential of all the North Aegean Greek cities, with a strong navy and colonies securing its trade-routes in the Hellespont. The city had long been ruled by kings born to the Penthilid clan but, during the poet's life, the Penthilids were a spent force and rival arist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving plays belong to the genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are considered its most valuable examples. Aristophanes' plays were performed at the religious festivals of Athens, mostly the City Dionysia and the Lenaia, and several of them won the first prize in their respective competitions. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes wrote plays that often dealt with real-life figures, including Euripides and Alcibiades, and contemporary events, such as the Peloponnesian War. He has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His plays are characterized by preposterous premises, explicit language, wordplays, and political satire. His powers of ridicule ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iambic Tetrameter
Iambic tetrameter is a meter (poetry), poetic meter in Ancient Greek poetry, ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spondee and an Iamb (poetry), iamb, or two iambs. There usually is a break in the centre of the line, thus the whole line is: , x – u – , x – u – , , x – u – , , x – u – , ("x" is a syllable that can be long or short, "–" is a long syllable, and "u" is a short one.) In modern English poetry, it refers to a line consisting of four iamb (poetry), iambic foot (prosody), feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; ''iambic tetrameter'' is a line comprising four iambs, defined by accent. The scheme is thus: x / x / x / x / (In this case, "x" is an unstressed syllable while "/" is a stressed syllable.) Some poetic forms rely upon the iambic tetrameter, for example triole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choliamb
Choliambic verse (), also known as limping iambs or scazons or halting iambic,. is a form of meter (poetry), meter in poetry. It is found in both Ancient Greek literature, Greek and Latin literature, Latin poetry in the classical antiquity, classical period. Choliambic verse is sometimes called ''scazon'', or "lame iambic", because it brings the reader down on the wrong "foot" by reversing the stresses of the last few beats. It was originally pioneered by the Greek lyric poet Hipponax, who wrote "lame trochaics" as well as "lame iambics". The basic structure is much like iambic trimeter, except that the last cretic is made heavy by the insertion of a Long syllable, longum instead of a syllable weight, breve. Also, the third anceps of the iambic trimeter line must be short in limping iambs. In other words, the line scans as follows (where — is a long syllable, ⏑ is a short syllable, and × is an anceps): :× — ⏑ — , × — ⏑ — , ⏑ — — — As in all classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asclepiad (poetry)
An Asclepiad (Latin: ''Asclepiadeus'') is a line of poetry following a particular metrical pattern. The form is attributed to Asclepiades of Samos and is one of the Aeolic verse, Aeolic metres. As with other Aeolic metrical lines, the asclepiad is built around a choriamb. The Asclepiad may be described as a glyconic that has been expanded with one (Lesser Asclepiad) or two (Greater Asclepiad) further choriambs. The pattern (using "–" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" or free syllable, which can be either – or u) is: x x - u u - , - u u - u - (Lesser Asclepiad / ''Asclepiadeus minor'') x x - u u - , - u u - , - u u - u - (Greater Asclepiad / ''Asclepiadeus maior'') In Horace's ''Odes'', there is almost always a caesura after the 6th syllable. Asclepiads are often found mixed with the pherecratean and glyconic, which have a similar rhythm: x x - u u - - (Pherecratean) x x - u u - u - (Glyconic) Martin Litchfield West, West (1982) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sapphic Stanza
The Sapphic stanza, named after the Ancient Greek poet Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form of Quatrain, four lines. Originally composed in quantitative verse and unrhymed, imitations of the form since the Middle Ages typically feature rhyme and accentual prosody. It is "the longest lived of the Classical lyric strophes in the West". Definitions In poetry, "Sapphic" may refer to three distinct but related Aeolic verse forms; for full discussion see Hendecasyllable. # The ''greater Sapphic'', a 15-syllable line, with the structure: – u – – – , u u – , – u u – u – – –=long syllable; u=short syllable; , =caesura # The ''lesser Sapphic'', an 11-syllable line, with the structure: – u – x – u u – u – – x=anceps (either long or short) # The ''Sapphic stanza'', typically conceptualized as comprising 3 ''lesser Sapphic'' lines followed by an adonic, with the structure: – u u – – Classical Latin poets duplicated the Sapphic stanza with subtle modificati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hendecasyllabic Verse
In poetry, a hendecasyllable (as an adjective, hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poetry, and the newer of which are syllabic or accentual-syllabic and used in medieval and modern poetry. Classical In classical poetry, "hendecasyllable" or "hendecasyllabic" may refer to any of three distinct 11-syllable Aeolic meters, used first in Ancient Greece and later, with little modification, by Roman poets. Aeolic meters are characterized by an Aeolic base × × followed by a choriamb – u u –; where – = a long syllable, u = a short syllable, and × = an anceps, that is, a syllable either long or short. The three Aeolic hendecasyllables (with base and choriamb in bold) are: Phalaecian hendecasyllable (): × × – u u – u – u – – This line is named after Phalaecus, a minor Hellenistic poet who used it in epig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeolic Verse
Aeolic verse is a classification of Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poetry referring to the distinct verse forms characteristic of the two great poets of Archaic Greece, Archaic Lesbos, Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, Alcaeus, who composed in their native Aeolic dialect. These verse forms were taken up and developed by later Greek and Latin poetry, Roman poets and some modern European poets. General description Essential features and origin Sappho and Alcaeus' verses differ from most other Greek lyric poetry in their Meter (poetry), metrical construction: * Verses consist of a fixed number of syllables (thus, for example, no resolution (meter), resolution, contraction, or biceps (prosody), biceps elements). * Consecutive anceps syllables may occur, especially at the beginning of the verse (where two initial anceps syllables are called the aeolic base). (This forms an exception to the principle, otherwise observed in Greek verse, that two successive unmarked elements are not pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Nisbet
Robert George Murdoch Nisbet, FBA (21 May 1925 – 14 May 2013), known as Robin Nisbet, was a British classicist and academic, specializing in Latin literature. From 1970 to 1992, he was Corpus Christi Professor of Latin at the University of Oxford. He was the son of Robert G. Nisbet, who was also a classicist, lecturing at the University of Glasgow for 35 years, and author of a commentary on Cicero's speech ''De domo sua'' (1939). Robin Nisbet was educated at the Glasgow Academy, then as an undergraduate at the University of Glasgow from 1943 to 1947, before going to Balliol College, Oxford, as Snell Exhibitioner to take a further undergraduate degree. After graduating in 1951 he moved to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was appointed a fellow in 1952. He was made a fellow of the British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Callimachus
Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which do not survive, in a wide variety of genres. He espoused an aesthetic philosophy, known as Callimacheanism, which exerted a strong influence on the poets of the Roman Empire and, through them, on all subsequent Western canon, Western literature. Born into a prominent family in the Greek city of Cyrene, Libya, Cyrene in modern-day Libya, he was educated in Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. After working as a schoolteacher in the city, he came under the patronage of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and was employed at the Library of Alexandria where he compiled the ''Pinakes'', a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek literature. He is believed to have lived into the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
