| 释义 |
pentameter, n. and a. Pros.|pɛnˈtæmɪtə(r)|
[a. L. pentameter n., ad. Gr. πεντάµετρος adj. consisting of five measures, n. a verse or line of five measures; f. πεντα- five + µέτρον measure. Cf. F. pentamètre n. (c 1500 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
A. n. A verse or line consisting of five feet.
1. In Greek and Latin prosody: A form of dactylic verse composed of two similar halves (penthemimers), each consisting of two feet and a long syllable (thus equivalent to a dactylic hexameter with the second half of the third and of the sixth foot omitted); in the first penthemimer each of the two feet may be either dactyl or spondee, in the second they must both be dactyls. Most commonly used in alternation with hexameters, constituting elegiac verse: see elegiac A. 1.
The name arose from a mistaken analysis of the verse as two dactyls (or spondees), a spondee, and two anapæsts.
1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. xxiv. (Arb.) 64 Elegie..was in a pitious maner of meetre, placing a limping Pentameter, after a lusty Exameter, which made it go dolourously more then any other meeter. 1725Watts Logic iii. ii. §3 Certain Latin words should be framed in the form of hexameters or pentameters; and this may be done by those who know nothing of Latin or of verses. c1805Coleridge Misc. Poems, Eleg. Metre, [Example] In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column, In the pentameter aye falling in melody back. 1874Sayce Compar. Philol. ix. 384 The charm of the Latin pentameter is enhanced by the rhyming of the last syllables of the two penthemimers.
2. Applied to lines of verse consisting of five feet in other languages; e.g. the English ‘heroic’ or iambic verse of ten syllables.
1706A. Bedford Temple Mus. vi. 114 Odes and Hymns..in several kinds of Verse..some were Pentameters. 1749Power Pros. Numbers 30 The Cæsura falling constantly on the fourth Syllable in the English Pentameters or Heroicks, creates a dull Uniformity in the Flow of the Verse. 1886Briggs Messianic Proph. xi. 340 The pentameters use quite frequently the divine name 'Adonay Jahveh.
B. adj. (Now attrib. use of n.) Consisting of five metrical feet; having the form of a pentameter (see A), esp. of the dactylic pentameter.
1546Langley Pol. Verg. De Invent. i. viii. 17 Of the nomber of the fete, as Exameter and Pentameter which is also called Elegiacal. 1782J. Warton Ess. Pope x. II. 211 Like Ovid's Fasti, in hexameter and pentameter verses. 1854Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims, Poet. & Imag. Wks. (Bohn) III. 171 Those weary pentameter tales of Dryden and others.
Hence penˈtametered a., written in pentameters; penˈtametrist, a writer of pentameters; penˈtametrize v. trans., to make into, or like, a pentameter.
1599Preserv. Hen. VII i. (1866) 5 This trew kinde of hexametred and pentametred verse. 1803Todd Spenser's Wks. I. p. xxii. note, English hexametrists and pentametrists. a1843Southey Doctor, Fragm. (1848) 674/2 Horace has been made to say the same thing by the insertion of an apt word which pentametrises the verse. 1898W. E. Heitland in Jrnl. Philol. XXVI. 10 There was not the same risk of pentametrizing the hexameters. |