“If we take the idea of a poetic language seriously, it can be defined first as a language in which the sound of the words is raised to an importance equal to that of their meaning, and also equal to the importance of grammar and syntax.” As we read Latin poetry, the very local effects of sound in a specific line of a specific poem can be as important as the larger thematic issues raised by the poem itself. The various ways these grammarians, the grammatici Latini, described Latin verse affected how it was read, and how it was read affects how we perceive it. 2 The ictus or verse beat was a way of measuring and dividing the line into feet or larger metrical pieces. A major aspect of the ancient description of meter was an emphasis on the ictus, also known as verse beat or pulse, which was an artificial accent, mentioned by Horace and Quintilian and used by the ancient grammarians, the teachers of the Latin language, to help students scan a line aloud. This paper considers the way the Romans defined and explained the alcaic meter, the meter used most often in the Odes of Horace, the first century BCE master of Latin lyric, and how it can enhance our reading of his poems. Wilkinson, Horace and His Lyric Poetry (1945) p. “.with Alcaics it is no light task to reproduce the gathering wave of the first two lines, the thundering fall of the third and the rapid backwash of the fourth…” -L.P. Having worked on this undergraduate research topic now for a couple years, I intend to submit an expanded version of the paper as a writing sample to graduate schools in the hopes of continuing my research and developing it into a Master’s thesis.
I hope to start graduate school next fall in Classical Studies.
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