He adopted the unrhymed decasyllabic line as the most suitable vehicle for his translation of the second and fourth books of the Aeneid, written about 1540.
For, like the Middle English four-foot verse and the Alexandrine, it derives its origin from a French source, its prototype being the French decasyllabic verse.
The two most usual forms are that with octosyllabic and that with decasyllabic lines.
French decasyllabic verse) the caesura is here moveable, though not to the same extent as in the later poems.
The decasyllabic form has three stanzas of ten verses on the scheme a b a b b c c d c D (cf.
We have a collection of ballades composed in the French language by Gower,[209] consisting of stanzas of either eight or seven (rhyme royal) decasyllabicverses with the same rhyme throughout the poem.
In Clément Marot we meet with another form of five eleven-line stanzas of decasyllabic verses also with the same rhymes throughout; the envoi having five lines.
The heroic decasyllabic lines have invariably five trochees, with the fixed caesura after the second foot; and almost every line is in itself a complete sentence.
Professional bards went from one village to another, chanting in an easy decasyllabic verse the exploits of Serbian heroes and Haidooks (knight-brigands), who were the only check upon the Turkish atrocities.
These translations will serve to give to English readers some idea of the form of the national decasyllabic verse from which the matter of the greater part of this book is taken.
The form of verse is not ballad-like, but a series of laisses of decasyllabic lines, each laisse presenting one assonance, not rhyme.
The sonnet must consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines.
Most lines of English decasyllabic verse can be read--with reference to the distribution of accents and pauses--in more than one way.
The whole structure of the decasyllabic line before the middle of the seventeenth century was ill calculated for the perfecting of the couplet.
This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic couplet) and unrimed (blank verse).
The importance of this matter in the history of English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two.
But it is worth while to emphasize the fact that the genius of English verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation.
The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France in the fourteenth century (being called "vers commun" according to Stengel); but in the form of the couplet it was not.
The context of many of these lines shows that they were intended to be read as four-stress rather than five-stress; but such examples serve to make clear how easily English rhythm would fall into the decasyllabic line.
In general, the early experiments in blank verse suggest--what they must often have seemed to their writers--the mere use of the decasyllabic couplet deprived of its rime.
In his hands the irregular measure showed a tendency to reduce itself to regular ten-syllable lines, like the first two of the present specimen, which, by themselves, might easily be read as decasyllabic iambics.
This is in decasyllabic verse, arranged in stanzas of seven lines each.
Editors usually omit the first 'most good,' to get their favourite decasyllabic verse, heedless of the loss of force.
I must not omit to observe that editors have done injury to many passages, by the decasyllabic superstition which I have already noticed.
More than half the volume is taken up with epistles and meditative pieces (Drayton would have called them Elegies and Ben Jonson Epigrams) in the regular five-stressed ordecasyllabic couplet.
The remaining and much the chief portion of the book consists of half a dozen poems in the rhymed decasyllabic couplet.
In versification Hunt's aim was to bring back into use the earlier form of the rhymed English decasyllabic or 'heroic' couplet.
It is evident, therefore, that Chaucer had a distinct conception of the heroic or decasyllabic verse, but he did not consider that the mechanical construction of his verse was essential to the free spirit of his fancy.
The decasyllabic line was an old measure; so was the seven-line stanza, both in Provencal and French.
His best piece, Nanine, a dramatisation of Pamela, or at least suggested by it, is chiefly remarkable for being written in decasyllabic verse.
The octosyllabic verse, hitherto sacred to drama, is exchanged in Cleopatre for a mixture of the decasyllabic and the Alexandrine, some scenes being written in the one, others in the other.
This poem is written in decasyllabic assonanced verse, each stanza being terminated by a short line.
There is also a decasyllabic variety of the Alcaic metre.
This is in the ordinary form of the older, but not oldest, chansons de geste, decasyllabic rhymed tirades.
It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages.
This is no less true of the decasyllabic verse, when compared with the full sonority of Lycidas, than of the shorter measures.
The 'roundel' that follows, a song inserted in the midst of decasyllabic stanzas, is composed of alternate lines sung by the two competitors.
The whole ten eclogues did not find a translator till 1656, when Thomas Harvey published a version in decasyllabic couplets.
Wyatt's primary deed was his gradual rediscovery of the iambic decasyllabic line duly accented--the line that had been first discovered by Chaucer for England; and next came its building into sonnet and stanza.
If so, he must have been one of the first of English poets to adopt the very loose enjambed decasyllabic couplet in which his work, like that of Marmion and still more Chamberlayne, is written.
They dropped naturally into the decasyllabic couplet, and made free use of the pun; but in neither case did they become mechanical or strained.
They, too, have favoured, in the main, the decasyllabic couplet and the pun, bringing both of them to all the comic perfection of which they were capable.
Before adverting to other characters and peculiarities of English Versification generally, a very few words may be said in reference to those measures that exceed the decasyllabic in length.
The decasyllabic verse, however, will allow more fully of the illustration of the subjects of Accent and Pause.
The strong effect of these lines arises from the accent being thrown on syllables usually short or unaccented in the decasyllabic verse.
It is by varying the fall of the cæsura that the best writers of blank decasyllabic verse contrive to divest it of monotony.
The decasyllabic line of England is of a more dignified caste, while, at the same time, capable of serving far more numerous and varied purposes.
In reading thedecasyllabic line, a pause must somewhere be made, whether or not the sense be divided by points of any kind.
In the majority of them the decasyllabicmetre will be found to range from six or eight syllables to twelve or fourteen!
Those decasyllabic quatrains are a decided departure from Mrs. Renshaw's usual style, which explains the slight lack of fluency.
The second stanza will pass as it is, but the entire remainder of the poem requires alteration, since but two of the lines are of normal decasyllabic length.
Perhaps it is intentional, but we wish the line were of normal decasyllabic length.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "decasyllabic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
