“Meter is an abstract structure by which one phonological feature (or sound-feature) of a language—usually stress, pitch, or length—is reduced from several levels to two, to a binary pattern of marked and unmarked syllables in regular alternation.”[1] Ferber’s definition highlights what is abstract, over-simplifying, and schematic about meter as a cognitive tool for the analysis and interpretation of received language—in the case of ancient Greek and Latin: of phonological surface structure. For most of antiquity’s composers, performers, and listeners, meter is partly noetic, that is, intuitively understood, and requires no further elaboration into formulas and rules in order to compose and perform appropriately, or listen with appreciation. Numerous written elaborations on meter are extant, nonetheless, and appear to have catered primarily to educational needs: aimed, therefore, at students and scholars who dealt with meter as a learnable and teachable aspect of grammar. In Ars Metrica, a reworking of his 2023 dissertation, André Manuel Fischer explores the mnemotechnical and didactic features of ancient treatises on meter, usually as part of works on grammar, in an attempt to show to what extent they succeeded in facilitating and easing the comprehension of meter. Fisher admirably succeeds in accomplishing his own communicative goals, along the way commenting on many aspects of the practice of teaching in Greek and Roman antiquity. With its detailed and accessible discussion of treatises’ choice of words for abstractions, lavishly citing from sources with intelligible translations,[2] Ars Metrica is compulsory reading for all studying meter, and even more so for those teaching it.
The study comprises eleven chapters. Chapters 1-3 present the introductory material: the topic at hand with an elaboration on the teaching of meter in antiquity (1), a short note on the peculiarities of metrical treatises, metrical notation and metrical glossing (especially the scholia to Hephaestion’s Encheiridion) (2), and a sketch of the communicative situation of teaching and learning meter (3). In chapter 3, Fisher distinguishes between the dialogue form (Marius Victorinus, the Ars Palaemonis, Priscian and Augustine’s De Musica), and monologue (Marius Victorinus and other metricians, notably Terentianus Maurus).
Chapters 4-9 discuss the various features provided by treatises and commentaries that, in Fisher’s view, actually facilitate the comprehension of meter, if and when considered as didactic tools. Chapter 4 delves into the use of metaphor and analogy, implicitly comparing metrical technical terms to (parts of) the body and applying words denoting family relations to explain meter in recognizable images. Of course, the semantic range of ‘foot’ and ‘to bring forth’ are well known; Fisher rightly warns against the possibility of their use as catachresis, for want of an alternative. He points out crassitudo and latitudo as metaphors for prosodic qualities on the level of the syllable, but accepts longitudo as actual duration (‘offenbar [ist] die Silbenqualität gemeint’), whereas length may well be a metaphor, too. Chapter 5 again deals with versus, littera, syllaba, pes and metrum, this time illustrated through the metricians’ fanciful etymologies and etiologies. The names of various metrical feet are equally ‘explained’: Iambe is the nymph who made the goddess Ceres laugh despite the loss of Proserpina, the spondee recalls the experience of time passing during a religious ceremony (‘long’), the choriamb acknowledges its origin in the combination of the trochee/choree and the iamb. Chapter 6 zooms in on prosodic specials: correption, lengthening, the syllaba communis, the pronoun cui. Fisher’s exposition shows that the ancient metricians were not in agreement on all these matters: clearly, it made a difference who one would choose as their teacher. The overview of the distinct views of ancient metricians helps the modern student and scholar to better understand where the different approaches and explanations in recent handbooks come from.
In chapter 7, derivation theory is dealt with as a didactic tool. In modern metrical studies, derivation, the notion that all meters are derived from only two metrical phrases, the dactylic hexameter and the iambic trimeter (themselves possibly originating from a single syllabic Ur-vers), is still widely found, often in conjunction with the concept of metrical prototypes (dactyls, ionici, trochees etc. as the building blocks of larger cola) and of epiploke,[3] the possibility to analyze longer metrical phrases as either iambic or trochaic, dactylic or anapestic, choriambic, ionic, or antispastic. Derivation theory, metrical-prototype theory and epiploke are by no means mutually exclusive models to explain the workings of meter. Fisher shows how the ancient metricians made these concepts complementary to each other, consistently trying to make analysis, understanding and memorization easier for their pupils. In the absence of graphics, tables and metrical-specific notation, antiquity’s teachers worked in the tradition that gave priority to metrical feet over rhythmical cola, and to phonological rationalization over phonetic reflection. Hence their dependence on a Greek theorist like Hephaestion rather than, for example, Aristoxenus.
The metricians’ preferences become particularly evident as didactically motivated in the creation of verses (chapter 8) and the use of playful, nonsensical or guessing-game verse (chapter 9) as examples to illustrate both the definition of metrical phrases and the phrases themselves. Creation ranges from slight modification of models (non ebur neque aurum [GL 6, 168, 27], cf. non ebur neque aureum [Hor. Carm. 2, 18, 1]), via incorporation of additional words (admota labris tuba terribilem sonitum dedit aere canoro [GL 6, 125, 16], cf. at tuba terribilem sonitum procul aere canoro [Verg. Aen. 9, 503]) to what appear to be inventions (iambicus hexameter fit cum iambo terminatur et fit talis [GL 1, 517, 15]; Bacche Bacche Bacche Bacche Bacche Bacche Bacche [GL 6, 92, 16; 255, 6]). Such creation may exemplify the hexametric use of the lyric adoneus (arma virumque cano Troiae qui terruit urbem (GL 6, 161, 27-32; 267, 13-15; 297, 16-19), the versatility of verse-initial (Hor. Ep. 2, 1) beatus ille (beatus ille qui vacans mente vivit integra [GL 6, 102, 33]), or the way to parody literature (arma virumque cano qui procumbente Priapo [GL 1, 512, 27-28]). Parodic reworking of Vergil and Ovid is not uncommon in early imperial epigram (pp. 236-238), but with regard to the sexual innuendo Fisher does not comment on its didactic suitability or purpose. Metrical palindromes, alphabet lines (χαλινοί), and guessing games (γρῖφοι) complete the teachers’ toolkit.
Chapters 10-11 offer a general conclusion and the bibliography. As an addendum to his conclusion (‘Ausblick’), Fisher repeats the limits to his claims: it remains uncertain whether all the features presented were indeed meant to be didactic tools. Derivation, for example, may equally reflect contemporary theoretical debate. The same holds true for the papyrus fragments and the playful verses: these could have served other purposes than metrical education in elementary schooling. With regard to the choice of materials, Fisher already selected those that evidence a certain didactic character; from the metrical treatises of antiquity he picks the passages that appeal to the talent and the motivation of the learner. A next step in the study of the influence of metrical doctrine on the practice of versification, he suggests, would be further analysis of metrical ‘experiments’ like the polymetric cantica of Senecan tragedy. To facilitate the use of Fisher’s study to such ends, Ars Metrica would have benefitted from an index rerum and an index locorum.
Since it discusses the teaching of meter, and carefully distinguishes between meter and rhythm, one would expect Ars Metrica to engage with the current debate on meter-rhythm interface issues like, for example, affective prosody—at least, I would. Fisher, however, informs the reader in the introduction that his approach will be based on the writings that do not—justifiably or not—play a major role in the hermeneutics of modern trends in the study of prosody. The primary text editions cited prove as much: many are from more than a century ago, now available for consultation in reprints. The bibliography of secondary literature on these understudied primary sources is nonetheless up to date. Do not expect to find titles referencing studies on the details of the greater metrical handbooks from antiquity, as these handbooks are dealt with only in as far as quotations from them are deemed overtly didactic.
Ars Metrica makes a convincing case, and does so in a readable and well-structured manner. Its explanation of selected primary texts as didactic features presents an approach, and poses questions, that deserve a follow-up in future study. As it stands, Ars Metrica is itself the message it conveys: it facilitates and eases the understanding and memorization of the workings of meter—not in the least due to a very clear and practically fault-free presentation. In doing so, it suggests its own readership: Ars Metrica should be read by students and scholars who want to familiarize themselves with the teachability and learnability of meter in antiquity, and by those who think about improving their own understanding or lecturing. The latter group should, however, not forget to carefully consider the place of this study’s contribution within the scholarly field of prosody studies today.
Notes
[1] M. Ferber, Poetry and Language: The Linguistics of Verse, Cambridge 2019, p. 35.
[2] Ars Metrica thus adds to the materials, equally mandatory, presented in G. Luque Moreno, ‘De Pedibus, De Metris: Las unidades de medida en la rítmica y en la métrica antiquas. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 1995, 239-306 and in Conspectus Metrorum: guía práctica de los versos latinos. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2018, pp. 34-178 (reviewed BMCR 2020.05.18).
[3] Apthonius 1. 18 (GL 6, 63 f.] and schol. B in Heph. 3 (ed. Consbruch 257); A. M. Dale, The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968, p. 41, n. 1. First exhaustive treatment in T. Cole, Epiploke: Rhythmical Continuity and Poetic Structure in Greek Lyric. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.