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Dictionary:

hexameter

  (hĕk-săm'ĭ-tər) pronunciation
n.
  1. A line of verse consisting of six metrical feet.
  2. In classical prosody, a line in which the first four feet are either dactylic or spondaic, the fifth dactylic, and the sixth spondaic.

[Latin, from Greek hexametros, having six metrical feet : hexa-, hexa- + metron, meter; see meter1.]

hexametric hex'a·met'ric (hĕk-sə-mĕt'rĭk) or hex'a·met'ri·cal (-rĭ-kəl) adj.
 
 
Literary Dictionary: hexameter

hexameter [hek‐samm‐it‐er], a metrical verse line of six feet (see foot). Its most important form is the dactylic hexameter used in Greek and Latin epic poetry and in the elegiac distich: this quantitative metre permitted the substitution of any of the first four dactyls (and more rarely of the fifth) by a spondee, and was catalectic in that the final foot was either a spondee or a trochee. Although successfully adapted to the stress‐based metres of German, Russian, and Swedish verse (by, among others, Goethe and Pushkin), the dactylic hexameter has not found an established place in English or French verse, except in some rather awkward experiments such as A. H. Clough's The Bothie of Tober‐na‐Vuolich (1848), from which this hexameter comes:

This was the final retort from the eager, impetuous Philip.
The iambic hexameter in English is more usually known as an alexandrine.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: hexameter
(hĕksăm'ətər) [Gr.,=measure of six], in prosody, a line to be scanned in six feet (see versification). The most celebrated hexameter measure is dactylic, which was the meter for most Greek and Latin poetry. In dactylic hexameter each foot may have a long syllable followed by two shorts, except the last, which has only two syllables, the first being long; any of the first four feet may have two long syllables. The origin of the dactylic hexameter is not known, but it appears first, and in its purest form, in Homer. Classical epic poets thereafter, including Vergil, used this meter, and it was extended to didactic and satirical literature, as in the works of Lucretius and Martial. In modern languages the only possible substitute for the quantitative differences that were essential to classical meters is in the stress accent; hence we have a noticeably singsong effect when English dactylic hexameter is read aloud. One of the few examples of its use in modern languages is in Longfellow's Evangeline: “Thís is the fórest priméval. The múrmuring pínes and the hémlocks.” A famous dactylic hexameter in English prose is in Isa. 14.12: “Hów art thou fállen from héaven, O Lúcifer, són of the mórning!” The alexandrine is the only important modern hexameter.

 
Poetry Glossary: Hexameter

A line of verse consisting of six metrical feet; the term, however, is usually used for dactylic hexameter, consisting of dactyls and spondees, the meter in which the Greek and Latin epics were written.

 
Wikipedia: hexameter

Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. It was the standard epic metre in Greek and became standard for Latin too. It was also used in other types of composition -- in Horace's satires, for instance, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe.

The hexameter has never enjoyed a similar popularity in English, where the standard metre is iambic pentameter; however, various English poems have been written in hexameter over the centuries. There are numerous examples of iambic hexameter from the 16th century and a few from the 17th; the most prominent of these is Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion (1612) in hexameter couplets. An example from Drayton:

Nor any other wold like Cotswold ever sped,
So rich and fair a vale in fortuning to wed.

In the 17th century the iambic hexameter, or alexandrine, was used as a substitution in the heroic couplet, and as one of the types of permissible lines in lyrical stanzas and the Pindaric odes of Cowley and Dryden.

In the late 18th century the hexameter was adapted to the Lithuanian language by Kristijonas Donelaitis. His poem "Metai" (The Seasons) is considered the most successful hexameter text in Lithuanian as yet.

Several attempts were made in the 19th century to naturalise the dactylic hexameter to English, by Longfellow, Arthur Hugh Clough and others, none of them particularly successful. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote many of his poems in six foot iambic and sprung rhythm lines. In the 20th century a loose ballad-like six-foot line with a strong medial pause was used by Yeats. The iambic six-foot line has also been used occasionally, and an accentual six-foot line has been used by translators from the Latin and many poets.

See also: Dactylic hexameter

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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
Translations: Translations for: Hexameter

Dansk (Danish)
n. - heksameter

Nederlands (Dutch)
hexameter, zesvoetige dichtregel

Français (French)
n. - hexamètre

Deutsch (German)
n. - Hexameter (Vers aus sechs metrischen Füßen)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (προσωδ.) εξάμετρο

Italiano (Italian)
esametro

Português (Portuguese)
n. - hexâmetro (m)

Русский (Russian)
гекзаметр

Español (Spanish)
n. - hexámetro

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - hexameter

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
六步格, 六步格的诗

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 六步格, 六步格的詩

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 6보격

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 六歩格
adj. - 六歩格の

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) السداسي التفاعيل‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שורה בעלת שישה קצבים, הקסמטר‬

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Poetry Glossary. Copyright © 2007, ILOVEPOETRY, Inc, All Rights Reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hexameter".  Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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