Sapphic stanza¶
sapphic_stanza · form · validated
Three hendecasyllabic lines followed by a short fifth-syllable line, in a fixed quantitative pattern.
Provenance¶
- Source: Traditional; the stanza of Sappho, 7th century BC
- Attribution:
traditional— classical or folk; no single origin to name - Checkability:
self— decidable from the text and its parameters alone - Attested:
codified— formulated as a rule by a tradition rather than declared by an author
Details¶
- Kind: restrictive
- Languages: en
- Requires:
tokens,stress,syllables.heuristic - Deterministic: yes
- In other languages: Sapphische Strophe (de), Strophe saphique (fr)
Notes¶
Checked as English accentual verse: classical quantity is vowel length, which English does not have, so stress stands in for it, as for dactylic hexameter.
Prompt hint¶
Write three eleven-syllable lines and close on a five-syllable one.
Examples¶
constructed-satisfying-stanza¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
forest morning murmuring silver garden
silver garden beautiful forest morning
garden silver carefully morning forest
wonderful garden
Source: constructed example; no literary English translation of Sappho was found to scan exactly against this fixed accentual pattern, so this case tiles the hendecasyllable and adonic from words of known stress.
prose-of-similar-length¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
the cat sat on the small mat by the door
a dog ran through the park and down the street
a bird flew high above the old grey house
the wind blew softly
Source: constructed counterexample
empty-text-is-not-vacuous¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
Source: constructed counterexample
unknown-word-mid-line¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
flurbish morning murmuring silver garden
silver garden beautiful forest morning
garden silver carefully morning forest
wonderful garden
Source: constructed example; an invented word reaches the stress fallback
gefuegte-strophe¶
de — this text satisfies the procedure.
Wald Oktober Abakus Wald Oktober
Gold Gold Gold Gold Lexikon Gold Gold Gold Gold
Blume Blume Blume Zitrone Blume
Ostermond Garten
Source: constructed example; tiles German words of known stress across the fixed pattern, the way the English case tiles English ones