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Poetry Guide: Glyconic


Glyconic, (from Glycon, a Greek lyric poet), a form of verse, best known in Catullus and Horace (usually in the catalectic variety a), with three feet, a spondee and two dactyls; or four, three trochees and a dactyl, or a dactyl and three chorees. Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb pointed out that the last form might be varied by placing the dactyl second or third, and according to its place this verse was called a First, Second or Third Glyconic.

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.