Catalectic
Encyclopedia
A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot
Foot (prosody)
The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The unit is composed of syllables, the number of which is limited, with a few...

. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line.

Making a meter cataletic can drastically change the feeling of the poem, and is often used to achieve a certain effect.
Compare this selection from Book III of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

's "Song of Hiawatha" with that from W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...

's "Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love". The first is in trochaic tetrameter
Trochaic tetrameter
Trochaic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line of four trochaic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that the poem has four trochees...

, and the second in trochaic tetrameter catalectic (or headless iambic tetrameter).
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

--H. W. Longfellow>

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

--W. H. Auden


A line missing two syllables is called brachycatalectic.

Ancient and Musical Use

Very few ancient Greek poems survive with authentic musical notation. Four of these are by Mesomedes
Mesomedes
Mesomedes of Crete was a Greek lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century.He was a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, on whose favorite Antinous he is said to have written a panegyric, specifically called a Citharoedic Hymn . Two epigrams by him in the Greek Anthology Mesomedes of Crete was a...

 (early 2nd century CE). The Sphinx employs a form of anapestic dimeter and its catalectic form, the paroemiac. Secondary sources of Mesomede's poems To Helios and To Nemesis are in a catalectic meter known as apokrota "sonorous." In each case, in place of the missing short element of the text (i.e., missing syllable) one often finds lengthening signs. In two cases in To Helios, this appears to be a three-note melisma. It is possible ancient use of catalexis indicated some form of melody or continued singing in place of the missing syllables.

In ancient Greek drama, catalectic meters may have been associated with a male aulete
Aulos
An aulos or tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology.An aulete was the musician who performed on an aulos...

 or had some other special use. For example, of Menander
Menander
Menander , Greek dramatist, the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy, was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the Athenian general and governor of the Thracian Chersonese known from the speech of Demosthenes De Chersoneso...

's surviving plays, almost all are in iambic trimeters. He changed the meter in one long scene in Misanthrope to 15-syllable catalectic iambic tetrameter recited to an aulos
Aulos
An aulos or tibia was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology.An aulete was the musician who performed on an aulos...

 accompaniment.

Venantius Fortunatus
Fortunatus
Fortunatus is a German proto-novel or chapbook about a legendary hero popular in 15th and 16th century Europe.-The tale:The tale follows the life of a young man named Fortunatus from relative obscurity through his adventures towards fame and fortune; it subsequently follows the careers of his two...

' hymn Pange lingua is in trochaic tetrameter catalectic—the meter of the marching chants of the Roman armies. The hymn is one of the oldest with surviving musical notation.

As Greek meter is often used to describe musical phrasing, some famous themes include:
  • The opening theme to Mozart's violin sonata in B-flat (Trochaic Dimeter Catalectic)
  • The slow movement to Haydn's Surprise Symphony (Spondaic dimeter cataectic)
  • The theme of Webers Rondo brillante in E-flat (Anapestic Tetrameter brachycatectic)
  • The slow movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony (alternating acatalectic and catalectic dactylic tetrameter)

In all these cases, the catalectic "syllable" represents a held note (in which a player may choose to introduce or withhold a "breath"). It is a place where the metrical melody is subject to harmonic reinforcement.
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