Retrograde verse is "poetry that is metrically and syntactically viable when read both forwards and backwards, word by word".
It is a difficult verse form. There are examples of retrograde verse in Latin from the classical, late antique and medieval periods. Medieval examples include:
- Centum concito by Oswald the Younger
- Terrigene bene nunc laudent by Oswald the Younger
- Book VI of the Quirinalia of Metellus of Tegernsee
- Tu tibi displiceas
- Me merito censo minimam
- Patribus hec omnibus by John of Garland
- Lebuine confessorum, a 15th-century sequence from the Lebuïnuskerk, Deventer
See also
References
- Leslie Lockett (2016), "Oswald's versus retrogradi: A Forerunner of Post-Conquest Trends in Hexameter Composition", in Rebecca Stephenson and Emily V. Thornbury (eds.), Latinity and Identity in Anglo-Saxon Literature (University of Toronto Press), p. 158.
- ^ Leslie Lockett (2003), "The Composition and Transmission of a Fifteenth-Century Latin Retrograde Sequence Text from Deventer", Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 53(1), p. 118 and n. 67. JSTOR 25047127
- Daniela Mairhofer, "Germany and Austria", in Francesco Stella, Lucie Doležalová and Danuta Shanzer (eds.), Latin Literatures of Medieval and Early Modern Times in Europe and Beyond: A Millennium Heritage (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2024), pp. 82–83.
Further reading
- Flores, Enrico; Polara, Giovanni (1969). "Specimina di analisi applicate a strutture di Versspielerei latina". Rendiconti dell'Accademia di archeologia, lettere, e belle arti di Napoli. 45: 111–136.