Acephalic verse

Acephalous verse (from Greek ἀκέφαλος aképhalos , German , headless' ) referred to in the ancient metric a relative to the meter to the first syllable or the first element shortened verse . A well-known form in which acephalic verse occurs frequently is the limerick . The first syllable can also be omitted here in the case of a fundamentally anapaesic meter , in the example

A chain smoker from Nice
who looked in the tank of his car for fuel ...

in the first verse. In metric notation with omitted syllables in brackets:

(◡) ◡ — ◡ (◡) —◡◡ — ◡

◡◡ — ◡◡ — ◡◡ — ◡

An example from antiquity is the Reizianum .

literature

• Otto Knörrich: Lexicon of lyrical forms (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 479). Kröner, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-520-47901-X , p. 2.

Web links

• Meaning of verse duden.de