Latin Verse Scansion
What Is Quantitative Meter? English poetry runs on stress : we tap our feet to the syllables that receive emphasis — SHALL I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY? The positions of stressed and unstressed syllables create the rhythm. Latin poetry works completely differently. It runs on quantity — the length of time it takes to pronounce each syllable. A long syllable (–) takes roughly twice as long to say...