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There are two main divisions within the meters of ancient Greek poetry: lyric and non-lyric meters. "Lyric meters (literally, meters sung to a lyre) are usually less regular than non-lyric meters. The lines are made up of feet of different kinds, and can be of varying lengths.
The individual rhythmical patterns used in Greek and Latin poetry are also known as "metres" (US "meters"). Greek poetry developed first, starting as early as the 8th century BC with the epic poems of Homer and didactic poems of Hesiod, which were composed in the dactylic hexameter. A variety of other metres were used for lyric poetry and for ...
Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, u for a short, and u u for a position that may be a long or two shorts):
A dactylic hexameter, however, has six feet, not six metra, since according to Paul Maas's definition a dactylic metron (as used in lyric poetry) is – ᴗᴗ – ᴗᴗ. Normally in Greek and Latin, in those metres where a metron is defined as having two long elements, there are no more than four metra in any line of poetry.
The elegiac couplet is presumed to be the oldest Greek form of epodic poetry (a form where a later verse is sung in response or comment to a previous one). Scholars, who even in the past did not know who created it, [3] theorize the form was originally used in Ionian dirges, with the name "elegy" derived from the Greek ε, λεγε ε, λεγε—"Woe, cry woe, cry!"
Much lyric poetry depends on regular meter based either on syllable or on stress – two short syllables or one long syllable typically counting as equivalent – which is required for song lyrics in order to match lyrics with interchangeable tunes that followed a standard pattern of rhythm. Although much modern lyric poetry is no longer song ...
Greek poetry is based on syllable length, not on syllable stress, as in English.The two syllable lengths in Greek poetry are long and short.It is probable that in the natural spoken language there were also syllables of intermediate length, as in the first syllable of words such as τέκνα /tékna/ 'children', where a short vowel is followed by a plosive + liquid combination; but for poetic ...
In English poetry, feet are determined by emphasis rather than length, with stressed and unstressed syllables serving the same function as long and short syllables in classical metre. The basic unit in Greek and Latin prosody is a mora, which is defined as a single short syllable. A long syllable is equivalent to two morae.