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hendecasyllable verse

Meter
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetry composed in lines of eleven syllables, common in classical and Romance traditions

Detailed Definition
Hendecasyllable verse is poetry composed in lines of eleven syllables, a dominant form in Italian literature (e.g., Dante’s Divine Comedy) and influential across European traditions; it typically employs iambic or anapestic rhythms and allows for lyrical elegance, rhetorical precision, and emotional depth within a flexible yet structured metrical framework.
Example
Example in poetry:
Garcilaso de la Vega’s sonnets in Spanish hendecasyllables; Petrarch’s Canzoniere using 11-syllable lines throughout; Rubén Darío’s modernist poems in consistent hendecasyllabic meter; English attempts like Robert Lowell’s translations of Juvenal in 11-syllable lines
Additional Notes
Hendecasyllable verse uses lines of eleven syllables as its structural norm; students should note that in English, this often results in iambic pentameter + extra syllable, not strict syllabic counting as in Romance languages.
Also Known As
Hendecasyllabic poetry undecasyllabic composition eleven-syllable form classical Italian verse Hendecasyllabic
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