Decasyllable (
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
: ''decasillabo'',
French: ''décasyllabe'',
Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a
poetic
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...
meter
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
of ten
syllables used in poetic traditions of
syllabic verse. In languages with a
stress accent (
accentual verse Accentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line regardless of the number of syllables that are present. It is common in languages that are stress-timed, such as English, as opposed to syllabic verse which is common in syllable-timed langua ...
), it is the equivalent of
pentameter
Pentameter ( grc, πεντάμετρος, 'measuring five ( feet)') is a poetic meter. А poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five feet, where a 'foot' is a combination of a particul ...
with
iambs or
trochee
In English poetic metre and modern linguistics, a trochee () is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. But in Latin and Ancient Greek poetic metre, a trochee is a heavy syllable followed by a light one ( ...
s (particularly
iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...
).
Medieval French heroic
epics (the ''
chansons de geste'') were most often composed in 10 syllable verses (from which, the decasyllable was termed "heroic verse"), generally with a regular
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 ...
after the fourth syllable. (The medieval French
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
(''roman'') was, however, most often written in 8 syllable (or ''octosyllable'') verse.)
Use of the 10 syllable line in French poetry was eclipsed by the 12 syllable
alexandrine
Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roman ...
line, particularly after the 16th century.
Paul Valéry
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...
's great poem "The Graveyard by the Sea" (Le Cimetière marin) is, however, written in decasyllables.
Similarly,
South Slavic and in particular
Serbian epic poetry
Serbian epic poetry ( sr, Српске епске народне песме, Srpske epske narodne pesme) is a form of epic poetry created by Serbs originating in today's Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The ...
sung with the accompaniment of the
gusle is traditionally sung in the decasyllabic verse.
In 19th-century Italian
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
, this form was often employed in the
libretto. Noting its use in the operas of
Giuseppe Verdi, musicologist
Philip Gossett
Philip Gossett (September 27, 1941 – June 12, 2017) was an American musicologist and historian, and Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music at the University of Chicago. His lifelong interest in 19th-century Italian opera bega ...
describes the composer's request to the librettist for his opera ''
Macbeth'',
Francesco Maria Piave
Francesco Maria Piave (18 May 18105 March 1876) was an Italian opera librettist who was born in Murano in the lagoon of Venice, during the brief Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy.
Career
Piave's career spanned over twenty years working with many of th ...
, as follows: "I'd like to do a chorus as important as the one in ''
Nabucco
''Nabucco'' (, short for Nabucodonosor ; en, "Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, J ...
'', but I wouldn't want it to have the same rhythm, and that's why I ask you for ottonari"
syllables; and then Gossett continues“Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate” from ''Nabucco'', “O Signore del tetto natio” from ''
I Lombardi
''I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata'' (''The Lombards on the First Crusade'') is an operatic ''dramma lirico'' in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, which was "very much ...
'', and “Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia” from ''
Ernani'' all employ the poetic meter of decasillabi.
Geoffrey Chaucer, author of ''
The Canterbury Tales'', utilized this poetic form. Chaucer
evolved this meter into
iambs, or the alternating pattern of five stressed and unstressed syllables made famous by Shakespeare. Because Chaucer's
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
included many unstressed vowels at the end of words which later became silent, his poetry includes a greater number of
hendecassylables than that of
Modern English poets.
References
Notes
Sources
*
Gossett, Philip, ''Divas and Scholar: Performing Italian Opera'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008
See also
*
Meter (poetry)
*
Hexasyllable, the six-syllable line
*
Octosyllable The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in trochees in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, the '' Vie de ...
, the eight-syllable line
*
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 ...
, the eleven-syllable line
*
Dodecasyllable
Dodecasyllable verse ({{Lang-it, dodecasillabo) is a line of verse with twelve syllables. 12 syllable lines are used in a variety of poetic traditions.
Jacob of Serugh (c. 451 – 29 November 521), a Miaphysite Bishop of Batnan da-Srugh, also ...
, the twelve-syllable line
Types of verses
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