Verso de arte mayor (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

for 'verse of higher art', or in short 'arte mayor') refers to a multiform verse that appeared in Spanish poetry from the 14th century and has 9 or more syllables. The term 'verso de arte mayor' is also used for the 'pie de arte mayor', which is a verse composed of two hemistiches, each of which has a rhythmic accent at the beginning and the end, separated by two unstressed syllables. Originally, it was - in contrast to the shorter 'verso de arte menor' (Spanish for 'verse of lower art') – a long verse of eight to 16 syllables, which later developed into a regular 12-syllable verse with four stressed syllables and a medial

caesura 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for " cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begin ...

. The verso de arte mayor came to maturity in the 15th century with

Juan de Mena Juan de Mena (1411–1456) was one of the most significant Spanish poets of the fifteenth century. He was highly regarded at the court of Juan II de Castilla, who appointed him ''veinticuatro'' (one of twenty-four aldermen) of Córdoba, ''sec ...

’s didactical-allegorically epic poem “ Laberinto de Fortuna” (1444). The couplets of this poem, the so-called “Octavas de Juan de Mena”, consisted each of eight arte mayor verses. In the 16th century, the verso de arte mayor gave way to the Italianate

hendecasyllable In poetry, a hendecasyllable (sometimes 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 ...

.Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, Paul Rouzer (ed.). "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition." Princeton, 2012, p. 86.

Literature

* Julio Saavedra Molina:'' El verso de arte mayor.'' Santiago de Chile 1946 * Martin J. Duffell:'' Modern metrical theory and the verso de arte mayor.'' London, 1999. * Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, Paul Rouzer (ed.). "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition." Princeton, 2012.

References

{{Reflist 14th century in Spain Spanish poetry