RHYTHM

(Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The consonance of measure and time in poetry, prose composition, and music, and by analogy in dancing. Each verse or eacli period may be considered as a whole, within which the poetical rhythm is regular and exact, within certain limited variations, the rhetorical le perfect, and the pleasure derived from it rather matter of taste and experience than of rule. Those parts which receive the ictus or stre of the rhythm are termed arsis (elevation), the remainder form the thesis (depre ion); the former is frequently denoted to the eye by the accent marked ', when in a foreign or unknown word we wish to direct the voice in pronunciation to em ploy the correct emphasis. The smallest rhythmical divi sion is the foot, by which every union of arsis and thesis is understood. A short syllable is an original unit of time; a long syllable contains two units. The number of feet enumerated In cla ical writers on metre amount to twenty eight, including all the varieties which may be formed out of two, three, or four syllables, long and short, and varying from two to eight units of time. Sec Foot, Metre. [s. 1074]