Political verse
iambic verse of 15 syllables; common metric form in Medieval and Modern Greek
Political verse (Greek: politikós stíkhos, πολιτικός στίχος), also known as decapentasyllabic verse (from Greek: dekapentasýllabos, δεκαπεντασύλλαβος, lit. '15-syllable'), is a common metric form in Medieval and Modern Greek poetry. It is an iambic verse of fifteen syllables and has been the main meter of traditional popular and folk poetry since the Byzantine period.
The name is unrelated to the modern English concept of politics and does not imply political content; rather, it derives from the original meaning of the Greek word πολιτικός, civil or civic, meaning that it was originally a form used for secular poetry, the non-religious entertainment of the people of the polis, the city-state.
It is also called "ἡμαξευμένοι στίχοι" (hemakseuménoi stíhoi "like-a-chariot-on-a-paved-road") verse, because the words run freely like a chariot on a good driving surface.
History
The political verse flourished from the 9th or 10th century, until the 19th and 20th centuries. It remains in use today, though, mainly by the type of "traditional" folk songs.
The term "political" has nothing to do with "politics". Πολιτικός also means "civil" or "civic", and at the time it had the meaning "of everyday people". The term appears as early as in the 11th century, and had probably been in use earlier.
“Political verse” enters the record as iambic verse of 15 syllables; common metric form in Medieval and Modern Greek. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Political, verse and iambic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Political verse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.