Van Raalte Marlein. Rhythm and Metre: Towards a Systematic Description of Greek Stichic Verse

Van Gorcum, 1986. — 490 p. — (Studies in Greek and Latin Linguistics).Types of poetic rhythm are associated in origin with different regions and poetic genres. Iambic and trochaic. These two metres can be seen as different segments of the sequence. The iambic metron is, as above, longs may be resolved. In the early iambic trimeter, caesura falls in the second metron, after anceps or after short. In the 5th century the iambic trimeter became the standard spoken verse of drama. The dactylic hexameter (six‐metron line) is the metre of Homeric epic. Aristotle describes it as the ‘most solid and massive of metres’, but he may have been swayed by the subject matter. The hexameter usually has caesura in the third metron, either after the long or between the two shorts. Verse is composed in sequences of verses (stichoi, lines) of from three to six metra, uniform in metrical type and length. This kind of composition is associated with spoken delivery. Stichic verses must have word‐end at or near mid‐verse. Such word‐end is called caesura if it falls within a metron.