Types of verses

poetic style

Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek as well as in Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the Hymns of Orpheus. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe, daughter of Apollo and the first Pythia of Delphi.

thumb|Alexander the Great in a diving bell: a scene from the line's namesake, the ''Roman d'Alexandre''. Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roman d'Alexandre of 1170, although it had already been used several decades earlier in Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne''. The foundation of most alexandrines consists of two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each, separated by a caesura (a metrical p

classical dramatic verse in German and English literature: unrhymed acatalectic or hypercatalectic iambic pentameter without a fixed caesura

poetry form

Pentameter (, 'measuring five (feet)') is a term describing the meter of a poem. A poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five metrical feet. A metrical foot is, in classical poetry, a combination of two or more short or long syllables in a specific order; although this "does not provide an entirely reliable standard of measurement" in heavily accented Germanic languages such as English. In these languages it is defined as a combination of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables in a specific order.

line consisting of six dactylic feet

line consisting of five iambic feet

metre in early Roman poetry

The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in trochees in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, the Vie de Saint Leger; another early use is in the early 12th-century Anglo-Norman Voyage de saint Brendan. It is often used in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese poetry. While commonly used in couplets, typical stanzas using octosyllables are: décima, some quatrains, redondilla.

In poetry, a hendecasyllable (as an adjective, hendecasyllabic) is a line of eleven syllables. The term may refer to several different poetic meters, the older of which are quantitative and used chiefly in classical (Ancient Greek and Latin) poetry, and the newer of which are syllabic or accentual-syllabic and used in medieval and modern poetry.

meter consisting of three dipodies each containing two iambs per line (i.e. 6 iambs per line)

An adonic (Latin: adoneus) is a unit of Aeolic verse, a five-syllable metrical foot consisting of a dactyl followed by a trochee. The last line of a Sapphic stanza is an adonic. The pattern (where "-" stands for a long and "u" for a short syllable) is: "- u u - -" when the pattern ends with a spondee (i.e. --) or " -uu -u " if a trochee is intended.

Decasyllable (Italian: decasillabo, French: décasyllabe, Serbian: десетерац, deseterac) is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual verse), it is the equivalent of pentameter with iambs or trochees (particularly iambic pentameter).

line of poetry following a particular matrical pattern; the form is attributed to Asclepiades of Samos and is one of the Aeolic metres

Dodecasyllable verse () is a line of verse with twelve syllables. 12 syllable lines are used in a variety of poetic traditions.

figure of speech

Knittelvers (also Knüttelvers or Knittel) is a kind of Germanic verse meter which originated in Germany during the Middle Ages. In Knittelvers, consecutive lines rhyme pairwise (AABB) and each line has four stresses. "Strict" Knittelvers has eight or nine syllables on each line, whereas "free" Knittelvers can use more or fewer. It may be considered a form of doggerel and is sometimes called "Knüttelvers" () because of its rhythm. In German, this form of poetry was popular during the 15th and 16th centuries but rejected in the 17th before being brought back into use by Johann Christoph Gottsche

Choliambic verse (), also known as limping iambs or scazons or halting iambic, is a form of meter in poetry. It is found in both Greek and Latin poetry in the classical period. Choliambic verse is sometimes called scazon, or "lame iambic", because it brings the reader down on the wrong "foot" by reversing the stresses of the last few beats. It was originally pioneered by the Greek lyric poet Hipponax, who wrote "lame trochaics" as well as "lame iambics".

Dochmiac (, from δόχμιος 'across, aslant, oblique', or 'pertaining to a δοχμή or hand's-breath') is a poetic meter that is characteristically used in Greek tragedy, expressing extreme agitation or distress. They appear in every extant tragedy—N.C. Conomis counted a total of 1,985 in the tragedies of Aeschylus (528×), Sophocles (291×), and Euripides (1166×)—, but there are also examples in satyric drama and Aristophanes, where they are often paratragic in tone and impassioned.

line of four trochaic feet

In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. However, the particular foot can vary, as follows: Anapestic tetrameter: "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib") "Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas") "And since birth I've been cursed with this curse to just curse / And just blurt this berserk and bizarre shit that works" (Eminem, "The Way I Am") Iambic tetrameter: "Because I could not stop for Death" (Emily Dickinson, eponymous lyric) Trochaic tetrameter: "Peter

Glyconic (from Glycon, a Greek lyric poet) is a form of meter in classical Greek and Latin poetry. The glyconic line is the most basic and most commonly used form of Aeolic verse, and it is often combined with others.

poetic metre used in Catullus's poem 63

line consisting of five dactylic feet

In poetry, a trimeter (Greek for "three measure") is a metre of three metrical feet per line. Examples:

Class of Ancient Greek poetic form

The hexasyllable or hexasyllabic verse is a line of verse with six syllables.