4 LITERATURE
The creation of poetry generally is due to two causes, both rooted in human
nature. The instinct for imitation is inherent in man from his earliest days.... Also
inborn in us is the instinct to enjoy works of imitation.... The instinct for imitation,
then, is natural to us, as is also a feeling for music and for rhythm – and metres are
obviously detached sections of rhythms.
Aristotle, Poetics, 4Introduction
For epic, Homer had used the dactylic hexameter, a line composed of six units or
feet. Each unit (for which the Greek word is metron, a measure) may be a dactyl,
made up of a long syllable followed by two short syllables (— ̆ ̆) or by a spondee,
made up of two long syllables (— —). Long and short refer to the time taken in
pronunciation, to the ‘quantity’ or length of the syllables. Greek metre, unlike English,
is not determined by a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. In literature after
Homer, we see the establishment of new metrical forms used for kinds that
developed after him. The elegaic couplet, consisting of a hexameter followed by a
pentameter, was used for epitaphs, inscriptions and epigrams. It may be represented
as follows:
–— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_
–— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— | –— ̆ ̆_ | –— ̆ ̆_ | ̆__The pentameter line is actually two and a half feet repeated. At particular points
in the line, the pattern allows syllables to be either long or short, thus making the
metre very flexible. The iambic, which later became the metre for the spoken parts