Sapphic stanza Sapphic stanza The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form spanning four lines (originally three: in the poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus, there is no line-end before the final Adonean). The form is two hendecasyllabic verses, and a third verse beginning the same way and continuing with five additional syllables (given as the stanza's fourth verse in ancient and modern editions, and known as the Adonic or adonean line). Using "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short and "x" for an "anceps" (or free syllable), and displaying the Adonic as a fourth line: While Sappho
Accentual-syllabic verse Accentual-syllabic verse Accentual-syllabic verse is an extension of accentual verse which fixes both the number of stresses and syllables within a line or stanza. Accentual-syllabic verse is highly regular and therefore easily scannable. Usually, either one metrical foot, or a specific pattern of metrical feet, is used throughout the entire poem; thus we can talk about a poem being in, for example, iambic pentameter. Poets naturally vary the rhythm of their lines, using devices such as inversion, elision, masculine and feminine endings, the caesura, using secondary stress, the addition of extra-metrical syllables, or the omission of syllables, the substitution of