Home › Glossary › Letter L

Latin classical verse

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 Latin during antiquity, exemplified by authors like Virgil and Ovid, adhering to classical meters and themes.

Detailed Definition
Latin classical verse encompasses the metrical and stylistic conventions of ancient Roman poetry, including dactylic hexameter (epic), elegiac couplets, and hendecasyllabics, characterized by quantitative meter (long and short syllables), mythological allusion, and rhetorical sophistication, as exemplified by Virgil, Ovid, and Horace.
Example
Example in poetry:
Poetry written in English that deliberately uses the quantitative meter of ancient Greek or Roman verse (e.g., dactylic hexameter) instead of the accentual-syllabic meter native to English; Attempts to use Hexameter in English, such as those by Longfellow in Evangeline
Additional Notes
Latin classical verse: Refers to the poetic forms and metrical systems (like the hexameter or elegiac couplet) used by ancient Roman poets such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid; key concepts include quantitative meter, where syllable length (long or short) determines rhythm, not stress, which is very different from English poetry.
Also Known As
classical Latin meter Roman verse Augustan poetry Ancient Roman (Golden, Silver Age)
Skip to main content