[Janet Kenny]

Chris
I meant partly that we pass through a time of learning when we are absorbed by virtuosity. That is an essential process. Gradually virtuosity loses its attraction. Happens to artists of all kinds.
best
Janet

[A. E. Stallings]

Hi folks--I'm back, but quite behind with everything. Glad to see so much interest in classical meters in my absence! I rather suspect that Homer and Virgil would not fare terribly well in classical hexameters in English--the lines would tend, I would guess, to feel overstuffed and sluggish. There's a reason Surrey invented blank verse for Virgil, or that Chapman's Homer is in galloping fourteeners. But no reason not to give it a try. Homer seems to be translated afresh every year, but Virgil, curiously, relatively seldom. I hear Fagles is doing an Aeneid, though.

I absolutely agree with Chris that the vital part of the dact. hex. line, the main indicator, is the ending--which, like the adonic colon in Sapphics, must end on a dactyl spondee (or a dactyl trochee). Strawberry pancakes. Taking it easy. Run into trouble. Etc. (There are spondaic lines--lines that end spondee spondee--in Virgil, for instance, but these are exceedingly rare and emphatic in going against the expected rhythm.) It's a very distinctive rhythm and one easy to hear in English as well.

Perhaps the most famous example of classical hexameters in English is Longfellow's Evangeline. The rhythm comes through quite clearly I think; even more so if you are used to hearing Latin or Greek hex:

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers --
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

[Tim Murphy]

I'm bumping this back up to accompany the new Hope thread. Can't believe I really typed the entirety of Tongues. I'm also pretty well blown away by Observation Car, for which I thank Henry Quince.

[Jan D. Hodge]

Tim-- Thanks for bumping it back up. I missed it the first time around, and read it now with immense pleasure.

Jan

[Mike Slippkauskas]

Tim,

Thanks for rebumping this. As usual, Chris and Alicia are exactly right on the the DUM dee dee DUM DUM ending. The other point to remember is that in English "classical hexameters" the spondee is virtually always a trochee. It then becomes necessary that the opening syllable of the next foot is quite strong, thus demarcating clearly the feet involved. This, in effect, lengthens the unaccented syllable in the preceding trochee, giving us a sort of false spondee. Part of the charm of the dactylic hexameter in English (I think) is the way the meter impels you to the proper reading, a puzzle-like quality. The trick for the poet or translator working in the meter is to not let that quality take over, by putting the wrong emphases on words or syllables. The reading the meter supplies must, at mimimum, be a plausible one. I humbly submit a few hexameters I translated from the Hungarian of

Attila Jozsef (1905-1937)


Flóra

1 Hexameters

Porridgy snow collapses – see how it drips from the tin eaves!
Hummocks of blackening ice faint away, soon to dissipate wholly.
Loud liquefactions chatter, ruffle and flood toward the gutters.
Weather etherealizes, heavenly altitudes tremble.
Happy desire all aflush drapes its shirt on the dawn-breaking landscape.

See now, although I be fearful and waking, my love for you, Flóra!
You, in this fair and chittering melt-thaw, unbind the grieving
wrapped round my heart, like gauze from a wound. That heart again prickles.
Ceaseless, your name’s broad flood tide resounds in the delicate sunlight.
Gooseflesh creeps over me when I remember I once lived without you.

(Mercy, Dear Mother . . .)

Mercy, dear mother, mama, see how this verse too is finished!

Two Hexameters

Why must I act with honor? They will stretch me out thusly!
Why must I act with dishonor! They will stretch me out thusly.


Michael Slipp



[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited February 27, 2007).]

[Mark Allinson]

I have a problem with hexes which embody the oldest criticism of the line - that it is merely two syntactically self-suffient acc-tri lines roped together.

I think such criticism is mostly valid for most of the hex I have seen, including many of the lines above. And I believe that if a hex poem can be easily broken into syntactically whole tri lines, then it should be.

But this is something I consciously strive to avoid in my hex, if I can - it is not always possible, of course. To this end, I try to link the third and fourth beat syntactically, so that if you split the line in two, it will be heavily enjambed.

This, to my mind, makes for a true hex line - rather than two tri-lines pretending not to be.

[Peter Coghill]

Actually what I like about hex compared to pentameter which mostly caesuras 3/2 or 2/3 and only occasionally 1/4 4/1 is that the 6 allows for so many different patterns. I don't have a problem if there are a few 3/3 divisions but there are so many possible patterns 4/2 2/4 3/2/1 and 2/2/2 to mix up the pace etc. My attempts at hex have mostly been iamb/anapest mixes, nary a dactyl in sight.

[Mark Allinson]

That's right, Peter.

My aim is to reduce the number 3/3 lines to the minimum. The problem for me is when they predominate in a poem, as they so often seem to do - thus the common charge against the form.

My early attempts were fairly regular dac-hex, but like any regular pattern they quickly tire the ear.

I am been progressively loosening the meter lately, which to many readers begins to approximate to a heightened prose.

But I don't mind what the line is called, so long as it flows without too many lumps and bumps.

I know that Maryann has written in this form, with an eponymous poem in print.

Perhaps she will share her thoughts on this form?

Which goes for anyone else who uses it.

[Mark Allinson]

I have been uncovered in a resurrected old thread on Musing on mastery as declaring my discomfort with English forced into an alien beat.

Janet, seeing that you have already "outed" yourself on this issue, I hope you don't mind if I quote your above statement on the "Mastery" thread you mention. In fact, I will copy this post to that thread.

I am at present trying to get hold of an academic essay on the subject of: "The Dactylic Hexameter in English Prose." A. H. Tolman. Modern Language Notes, Vol. 6, No. 4, 124. Apr., 1891.

Not belonging to a participating university or library, I can't get access to this article, which is on the JSTOR site. Maybe someone who can access the essay will let us know what it says.

I suspect this essay will show many instances of dactylic rhythms in English prose, and argue that this rhythm is by no means foreign to English.

=========

This above is copied from my thread on TDE, since this is the appropriate forum to continue the discussion.

Are there others who feel that dac-hex is an inherently unsuitable meter in English?

[Jan D. Hodge]

This discussion of the rhythm of the dactylic hexameter, coupled with VP Cheney's (quite ridiculous) response to the British withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, leads me to ask:

If, Mr. Cheney, the British withdrawal proves that we’re winning,
why don’t we simply withdraw our own troops to prove we’ve succeeded?


Jan