Structure
It is written in the meter called Political verse, iambic decapentasyllable (15 syllables), an evolution of the ancient Greek iambic trimeter (iambic dodecasyllable). It is not known whether it was actually set to music or it was merely a poem meant to be recited, as it only survives as a text.
Read more about this topic: The Dead Brother's Song
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“When a house is tottering to its fall,
The strain lies heaviest on the weakest part,
One tiny crack throughout the structure spreads,
And its own weight soon brings it toppling down.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)