Double dactyl

The double dactyl is a verse form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal in 1951. Like the limerick, the double dactyl has a fixed structure, is usually humorous, and is rigid in its prosodic structure. The double dactyl's prosodic requirements are more strenuous due to its increased length, and its specific requirements as to subject matter and word choice much more rigid, making it significantly more difficult to write. There must be two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter ( ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̆ ) followed by a line consisting of just a choriamb ( ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ). The last lines of these two stanzas must rhyme. Further, the first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense, and the second line of the first stanza is the subject of the poem, which in the purest instances of the form is a double-dactylic proper noun. (Hecht and other poets sometimes bent or ignored this rule, as in the Robison poem below.) There is also a requirement for at least one line, preferably the second line of the second stanza, to be entirely one double dactyl word. Some purists still follow Hecht and Pascal's original rule that no single six-syllable word, once used in a double dactyl, should ever be knowingly used again. An example by John Hollander: Higgledy piggledy, Benjamin Harrison, Twenty-third president Was, and, as such, Served between Clevelands and Save for this trivial Idiosyncrasy, Didn't do much. Metapoetically, Roger L. Robison crafted this poem describing itself: Long-short-short, long-short-short Dactyls in dimeter, Verse form with choriambs (Masculine rhyme): One sentence (two stanzas) Hexasyllabically Challenges poets who Don't have the time. The Dutch version, called after a children's verse, was introduced in the Dutch language by Drs. P. A similar verse form called a McWhirtle was invented in 1989 by American poet Bruce Newling. Another related form is the double amphibrach, similar to the McWhirtle but with stricter rules more closely resembling the double dactyl.

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Concepts associés (2)

Poésie

upright=0.8|thumb|Manuscrit du poème Les Assis d’Arthur Rimbaud recopié par Paul Verlaine. La poésie est un genre littéraire très ancien, aux formes variées, écrites généralement en vers mais qui admettent aussi la prose, et qui privilégient l'expressivité de la forme, les mots disant plus qu'eux-mêmes par leur choix (sens et sonorités) et leur agencement (rythmes, métrique, figures de style). Sa définition se révèle difficile et varie selon les époques, au point que chaque siècle a pu lui trouver une fonction et une expression différente, à quoi s'ajoute l'approche propre à la personnalité de chaque poète.

Double dactyl