Hints & articles
Writing Latin verse
One of the aims of VATES is to feature articles on the history of the genre and hints and tips about writing Latin poetry. Here is where to find them.
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Classical Latin Poetry: Some Introductory Notes
Notes by Mark Walker on how Latin verse works, for readers who know English poetry but are new to the quantitative verse of the Romans. They begin with what Latin and English poetry have in common and how they differ (stress versus quantity), then cover:
- rhetorical features of Latin poetry, from alliteration and chiasmus to zeugma
- recitation and the commonest metrical feet
- rules for heavy and light syllables, and for the length of vowels
- word stress, elision, the beat (ictus), caesura and diaeresis
- the hexameter and the elegiac couplet, with a poetical glossary
- Chapter 2, ‘Lyrical Latin’: stress-accented Medieval hymns and lyrics, among them O quanta qualia, Veni Creator Spiritus, Dies irae, Stabat Mater and Ave maris stella
- scanned elegiac and hendecasyllabic epitaphs
- ‘Verba Modulata’ on Latin song lyrics, and ‘Advice for Beginners’ columns on trochees, vowel length versus syllable quantity, and hexameter endings and the Adonic
PDF · 62 pages (A4) · 1.0 MB
‘Advice for Beginners’
A semi-regular column in which contributors offer nuggets of helpful advice for aspiring Latin poets.
- Issue 8, p. 43 →
Vowels have length while syllables have quantity
Mark Walker. On the distinction between vowel length and syllable quantity, a source of confusion for newcomers to quantitative verse.
- Issue 9, p. 39 →
Start with Trochees
Mark Walker. Why trochaic, stress-based verse is a good place to begin composing in Latin.
- Issue 10, p. 50 →
The Michigan Experiment
David Money. A website from the University of Michigan to encourage would-be poets and readers of poetry.
- Issue 11, p. 43 →
On hexameter endings
Mark Walker. A brief look at hexameter endings, word stress and metrical rhythm.
Essays on composing and teaching
- Issue 1, p. 27 →
Verse Comp in the Classroom
John P. Piazza. On bringing Latin verse composition back into the classroom.
- Issue 2, p. 46 →
Prosodia
Brian Bishop. Practical advice on syllable weights and accents.
- Issue 5, p. 32 →
Verba Modulata
Mark Walker. Why we Latin poets don’t more often turn to writing song lyrics.
- Issue 7, p. 34 →
Communal Composition
Chris DeLisle. How a group of people can get together informally and pool their efforts to produce verse.
- Issue 3, p. 30 →
Steganometrographia
Laura Gibbs. An extraordinary method of ‘encoding’ elegiac verses.
Metres explained
Each early issue closes with a short guide to the poetical metres used in its poems.
- Issue 1, p. 43 →
Matters Metrical
Vates. A guide to the metres used in the issue’s Carmina.
- Issue 2, p. 50 →
Matters Metrical
Vates. The same guide for Issue 2, with the elegiac couplet and the First Archilochian among others.
For teachers
- Issue 15, p. 8 →
A Challenge to Teachers
David Money. An invitation to teachers of Latin to introduce a Latin poem by a living author to their students, perhaps once a year.
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