Opinions on: line as a functional unit

[bi3mw]

Hard to prove or disprove and therefore not a very good hypothesis but I think we must acknowledge that some sort of algorithm is at work here that continuously shapes the text in a much more rigid way than ordinary prose or even poetry.

As far as I have familiarized myself with the subject so far, creating a text in meter is definitely a very strictly functional methodology. One must first understand the rules. A line of text can also deviate significantly from the standard pattern. See here:

Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.

—  —  | —  u  u  |  —  // —  |  —    —  |  —  u  u | —  x

Al bā | nī que pa | trēs // at | que al tae | moe ni a | Rō mae


A purely dactylic line of hexameter would look like this (—  = long, u = short , x = variable)

— uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — uu | — x