The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205–184 BC.
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Roman poetry in the context of Ennius
Quintus Ennius (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkᶣiːnt̪ʊs̺ ˈɛnːiʊs̺]; c. 239 – c. 169 BCE) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce (ancient Calabria, today Salento), a town founded by the Messapians, and could speak Greek as well as Latin and Oscan (his native language). Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models.
Roman poetry in the context of Elegiac couplet
The elegiac couplet or elegiac distich is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets, particularly Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, adopted the same form in Latin many years later. As with the English heroic couplet, each pair of lines usually makes sense on its own, while forming part of a larger work.
Each couplet consists of a dactylic hexameter verse followed by a dactylic pentameter verse. The following is a graphic representation of its scansion:
Roman poetry in the context of Hemistich
A hemistich (/ˈhɛmɪstɪk/; via Latin from Greek ἡμιστίχιον, from ἡμι- "half" and στίχος "verse") is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit. In Latin and Greek poetry, the hemistich is generally confined to drama. In Greek tragedy, characters exchanging clipped dialogue to suggest rapidity and drama would speak in hemistichs (in hemistichomythia). The Roman poet Virgil employed hemistichs in the Aeneid to indicate great duress in his characters, where they were incapable of forming complete lines due to emotional or physical pain.
In neo-classicism, the hemistich was frowned upon (e.g. by John Dryden), but Germanic alliterative verse employed the hemistich as a basic component of verse. In Old English and Old Norse poetry, each line of alliterative verse was divided into an "a-verse" and "b-verse" hemistich with a strong caesura between. In Beowulf, there are only five basic types of hemistich, with some used only as initial hemistichs and some only as secondary hemistichs. Furthermore, Middle English poetry also employed the hemistich as a coherent unit of verse, with both the Pearl Poet and Layamon using a regularized set of principles for which metrical (as well as alliterative) forms were allowed in which hemistich position.