Hexameter

The hexameter (Greek ἑξάμετρον, hexámetron, literally " Six - dimension" ) is the classic verse of epic poetry. In this use, it is therefore often called the epic hexameter, to distinguish him from his other classic use as the first part of a couplet.

The earliest evidence of epic poetry in hexameters are the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days ( 8th century BC); a non- Greek origin of the meter is discussed, but is not provable. Since Ennius the hexameter is established as Epenvers also in Roman literature; he is not only the meter of Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, but also the didactic poem De Rerum Natura of Lucretius, the Sermones of Horace and Virgil's Bucolics and Georgics of.

A Greco- Latin hexameter consists of six dactyls ( - υ υ ), of which the last metrical foot incomplete ( katalektisch ), is in fact always two syllables; the quantity of the final syllable does not matter ( " Syllaba anceps ", ie " ambiguous syllable "). Each of these dactyls can by a spondee - replace (). In the fifth metrical foot of this exchange is rare, a hexameter with a spondee in the fifth foot is therefore specifically referred to as "Versus spondiacus " (Latin ) or " Spondeiazon " (Greek ). Through the change of dactyls and spondees the hexameter is a highly variable meter, so that he (that is, not combined with other poetic meters ) use has no effect even at stichischer monotonous. Clean spondeische hexameter ( " Holospondeen " ) are as good as not before, but also purely dactylic hexameter ( " Holodaktylen " ) are rare.

The hexameter is organized by different turning points and Dihäresen, solid cuts in the verse that sometimes mark a sense incision. The earliest break occurs on the third Halbfuß ( " Trithemimeres " ), further turning points may be present after the fifth ( " Penthemimeres " ) and after the seventh Halbfuß ( " Hephthemimeres "). In addition to these "masculine " caesura (ie cuts in the middle of a Versfußes ) knows the hexameter nor the "feminine" caesura that at the end of a word after the third ( imäginären ) trochee ( gr κατὰ τρίτον τροχαῖον, Kata Triton trochaíon ) is present, i.e., later than the Penthemimeres Brevis, after 3/4 of the third Versfußes. Between the fourth and fifth metrical foot is another possible incision, the bucolic dihairesis.

The watershed is generally avoided after the fourth trochee ( gr κατὰ τέταρτον τροχαῖον, Kata tétarton trochaíon ), so between the two Breves the fourth dactyl ( between C1 and C2 in the sketch >; law of " Hermann 's Bridge " by Gottfried Hermann ).

Like the other ancient versification has been further developed and refined by later generations also the epic hexameter. The difference about between the hexameters in Homer and those in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodios Wilhelm Meyer has worked out and shown in the Hexametergesetzen named after him, after which a large number of Homeric verses would be faulty, you wanted the rules of poetic philologists of Hellenism on the apply Homeric early days.

The hexameter in European literature of the modern era

The Greco-Roman hexameter is quantitierend, that is, the sequence of long and short syllables constitute the verse Because of the fixed in Germanic languages ​​word stress on the root syllable and the reduced significance of the length of vowels (see accent language ), the verse in the German language implemented by the sequence of stressed and unstressed syllables. In the classical languages ​​came the iktierende, ie emphasizing reading only on in Late Antiquity: An example of the emphasis is the first line of the Odyssey: Andra moi Ennepe, Mousa, polỵtropon, hos mala polla ( emphasis marks = point under the letter ).

By far the largest is the role of the hexameter in the German literature of modern times. Previous attempts to epic form in the 16th and 17th centuries by Martin Opitz, Andreas Gryphius and others still did not use a hexameter, but the Romanesque verses of the Old French Alexander romance, the ( heroic ) the Alexandrians. For the first time based on the ancient form of the hexameter epic Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock with his successful epic Messiah ( 1748-1773 ). Klopstock was due to the rarity German spondees and trochees - about as a possible replacement of the dactyls and was severely criticized for, inter alia, by Johann Christoph Gottsched ( υ ). Johann Heinrich Voss also represented in his Homer translations stricter conception of the imitation of the Greek idol. But Enforced finally has the Klopstocksche variant, mainly engaged in Goethe's epic poems ( Reineke Fuchs, 1794; Achilleis 1808 Hermann and Dorothea, 1797) come into play and Schiller's philosophical poetry. In the 19th century, for example, Friedrich Hebbel wrote his epic poem Mother and Child ( 1859) in hexameters. Even modern translations of the great ancient epics usually form after the ancient verse. Occasionally, prose seals approaching the rhythm of the hexameter (for example, in Hölderlin's Hyperion or Thomas Mann ). Was written probably unintentionally hexametrisch about 1896 in § 923 paragraph 1 of the Civil Code.

In the French and Spanish literature of the hexameter is not used, because the words are endbetont in these languages ​​and thus can form dactyls difficult.

In the English literature of the hexameter plays a minor role. Chapmans Homer translations were written in Alexandrine ( Iliad, 1611) and in endbetonten iambic pentameter with rhyme pair, the heroic couplet in English (literally heroic couplet ) are called ( Odyssey, 1614 ). Milton's epics Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are written in blank verse. As a dominant form of the heroic consists in the 17th and 18th centuries, with Dryden and Pope for the epic poem by couplet, which is also used for the translation of ancient epics. Is not until the 19th century, inspired by the German model, with the hexameter experiment ( Coleridge, Tennyson, Swinburne and others). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published 1847 narrative poem Evangeline in pure hexameters, following the example of Hermann and Dorothea. But the English language is less suitable for the hexameters than the German because of their tendency to alternating rhythm and the rarity of dactylic feet word in their vocabulary.

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