A monometer is a style of poem typical of classical Greek and Latin times that also appears in Anglo-Saxon poetry, although not the most common format. It is a word that is often confused with "manometer" or "monomer", without having anything to do with it.
A monometer is a type of poem or literary composition versed in a single meter, foot, measure, or syllable. It should be remembered that a "meter" is the number of syllables per verse that a poem has, while a "verse" is made up of sentences or short phrases that are written on each line. Thus, when a work is written in verses, it is called a poem (otherwise it would be poetic prose).
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Characteristics and types
Graphically, a poem of these characteristics (also called "monometric") gains in height and almost nothing in the width of the page.
In relation to this, it is associated with a dactyl, which is another Greco-Roman metric that takes the figure of the finger, since it has a long syllable and is followed by two short syllables (figured in the phalanges of the index finger). In this case, there is also the dactyl monometer, whose base schema is “–uu: –uu”.
The anapestic monometer (the anapesto in Greco-Roman metric is a foot made up of three syllables) corresponds exactly to the first metron of the diameter (in classical poetry, a verse made up of two meters or feet).
Normally, in Seneca a series of diameters is closed, or rarer still, in alternation with the diameters. In this case, the schema is "uu - uu -".
Evolution
In Roman times, some authors like Mesomede and Sinesio composed entire poems in anapestic monometers. For its part, in the English poetry meter, there are four fundamental or basic rhythms.
One of them is the «iambic meter», organized by an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable. These iambs can be grouped into monometers, whose scheme in this case is «–u – u».
If a poem contains verses with more than eight syllables, it is considered "major art" (it generally deals with important or more serious subjects). Meanwhile, if it had a smaller quantity, it was classified as "minor art." The "monometer" would enter this item.
At present, poetry in monometers is practically nil and it is difficult to find books that dedicate their pages to works of this type. The examples that can be found on the web referring to classic poems of this type are not abundant either.
Frequent confusion
The word "monometer" should not be confused with a "manometer", which also comes from the Greek and is composed of "manós", "rare" or "scarce", and "meter".
This is an instrument that measures the pressure in fluids and gases within closed circuits (such as the pressure that a car tire can have, for example).
What a manometer mainly does is compare the external atmospheric pressure with that of the interior of the evaluated object. That is why it is indicated that these instruments measure the relative pressure, the result of which is the «gauge pressure».
Another word that is misleading is "monomer", which is used in chemistry and refers to the simple molecule that forms the basis for polymers, which can be of natural or synthetic origin. These are made up of straight or branched chains of two or more units.
References
- Ramón Joaquín Domínguez. (1846). "Universal French-Spanish Dictionary". Recovered from: books.google.it
- Lucio Cecarelli. (1999). "Prosody and meter of classical Latin: with an introduction to the Greek meter". Recovered from: books.google.it
- Meter. (2018). Fandom Virtual Library. Recovered from: virtual-library.fandom.com
- Poems: stanza, verse and rhyme. Educational portal. Recovered from: portaleducativo.net