Historical metric

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The historical metric is the part of the verse that deals with the metrical forms in their historical development, mostly related to a certain language or literature. Another subject is the investigation of historical theories, such as the works of the ancient Alexandrian grammarians or the effect of Martin Opitz 's book Von der Deutschen Poeterey on German poetry. And finally, the relationships, influences and takeovers between the various literatures are explored in their historical dimension, for example the influence of French poetry on Baroque poetry in Germany and France.

overview

The (old) Greek metric was fundamental and formative to the present day for the conceptions and conceptual formations in European literatures since antiquity . Especially during the Hellenistic period , the poems of the Greek classical period, and here primarily the Homeric epics Iliad and Odyssey, were examined and the regularities found were formalized into an elaborate system of schemes , the hierarchical measuring as arrangements of similar or different feet , which in turn consist of certain sequences of long or short verse elements existed, and the different stanza forms were described as sequences of similar or different verses. The duration ( quantity ) assigned to the syllables was fundamental .

In late antiquity, however, the feeling for quantities was gradually lost. Since then, the rule systems of the quantitative metric had to be learned in grammar and rhetoric lessons within the framework of the Artes liberales . In addition to the quantitating poetry, there was therefore a non-quantitating, accentuating poetry, which began on the one hand from accentuating transformations of quantitating verses ( Commodian ), on the other hand from vernacular songs, so-called Psalmi ( Augustine ).

Since the early Middle Ages , under the influence of vernacular poetry, rhyme gradually gained acceptance , and in Middle Latin poetry , in part, separate verse and stanza forms developed, such as the - once quantitating - hymn , the trope , the sequence and the vagant line . The development of the Middle Latin accented poetry was closely interrelated with vernacular poetry, so that this, too, broke away from the Germanic form , which was based on the alliance and the long line with a fixed or variable number of syllables, since the end of the 9th century . In parallel with the accent seal as rhythm or prose (also Prosula ) was called, survived the quantitative system seal, often originally foreign rhyme, such as the leonine , elaborately decorated, by the Middle Ages continued and was even treated exclusively in the seal teachings. On the one hand, the individual authors softened the ancient norms, for example when treating the final -o as anceps , that is, any metric. On the other hand, it was also tightened, for example the synaloephe , avoiding the blurring of an ending vowel with the beginning of the subsequent word to a diphthong . The lyrical forms acrostic poem and figure poem , adopted from antiquity, were particularly popular in the Middle Ages and were further developed.

In Germany, the work of Martin Opitz Von der Deutschen Poeterey of 1624 was groundbreaking for verse teaching. Opitz wanted to systematize and regulate poetic practice and make it compatible with the ancient model. He declared the stress on the syllables and the expiratory accent to be the only structural element of bound language. There are roughly the following equivalents to quantitative poetry:

A short syllable in ancient metrics corresponds to an unstressed syllable or lowering in German verse theory; a long syllable in the ancient metrics, where they do not represent a double soon, a stressed syllable or uplift . Thus a versic or verse accent was constituted, which was also used in the performance of Latin poetry, in order to make the rhythm audible to an ear not used to quantitating poetry. Using the same procedure, the ancient verse feet, which were originally based on quantitative stress, could be transferred into the German language.

In contrast, the ancient verses in the time before Opitz were brought into German in a different way. Since the Latin stress rule, the so-called Pänultimageetz , in conjunction with the caesuras , leads to word accents appearing with a certain regularity in the quantifying verse at certain points of the verse, German verses could be built that had the same number of syllables as the Latin verse and also have word accents in the same places. Example: The hymn Hérzliebster Jésu, what did you talk about / that someone spoke such a sharp judgment? / What is the Schúld, in what for wrongdoers / did you get into? is the accenthythmic implementation of a sapphic stanza .

In addition, in the time before Opitz, it was extremely common to use syllable-counting procedures, to introduce additional unstressed syllables, to set syncopation and to use impure rhymes .

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