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hexameters

About This Item

  • Title: hexameters
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1860
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00603
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: These notes about verse forms are similar to notes in "dithyrambic trochee," a manuscript currently housed at Rutgers University. Edward Grier posits that the Rutgers manuscript probably dates to around 1856, when Whitman was pursuing a self-education in poetry (Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts [New York: New York University Press, 1984], 1:355–356). These manuscript notes may also date to that period, although the draft lines on the reverse of the leaf, which were probably written before 1855, may suggest a slightly earlier date.
  • Related Item(s):
    • Draft lines on the back of this manuscript leaf relate to the poem ultimately titled "Song of Myself." See uva.00263.
    • See wwa.00580.
  • Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "13"
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "hexameters." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00603.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto]
  • hexameters—verses whose lines are six poetic feet, either dactyls or spondees "Then when An1dromache2 ended, said3 tall bright4 helmeted5  
      Hector6     All thy cares, dear wife, are partaken by me—but above them! 
     &c"
  • dactyl, a poetic foot of one long and two short syllables Aurora now Oft at the—close of the—day when the  
     &c.
  • Spondee—a poetic foot of two long syllables Auro, ra now, fain daugh, ter of, the dawn,
  • Pentameter, having five regular feet, (as the line immediately above,)
  • Iambus—two short syllables
  • Trochee—a long and a short syllable Ex—ult, ing—trem, bling—faint, ing—dy, ing— Possessd by—all the—muse 's paint ing
13 [cut away]   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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