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Gnomic poetry
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Gnomic poetry, aphoristic verse containing short, memorable statements of

traditional wisdom and morality. The Greek word gnomē means “moral aphorism” or
“proverb.” Its form may be either imperative, as in the famous command “know
thyself,” or indicative, as in the English adage “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
Gnomes are found in the literature of many cultures; among the best known
examples are those contained in the biblical book of Proverbs. They are found in
early Greek literature, both poetry and prose, from the time of Homer and Hesiod
onward. Gnomic poetry is most commonly associated with the 6th-century-BC poets
Solon and Simonides and with the elegiac couplets of Theognis and Phocylides.
Their aphorisms were collected into anthologies, called gnomologia, and used in
instructing the young. One of the best known gnomologia was compiled by
Stobaeus in the 5th century AD, and such collections remained popular in the Middle
Ages.

Gnomic poetry

KEY PEOPLE

Phocylides

RELATED TOPICS

Poetry
Aphorism
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Gnomes appear frequently in Old English epic and lyric poetry. In Beowulf they are
often interjected into the narrative, drawing a moral from the hero’s actions with
such phrases as “Thus a man ought to act.” The main collections of Old English
gnomes are to be found in the Exeter Book (q.v.) and the 11th-century Cotton Psalter.

Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man (1733–34) offers a more modern example of the use
of couplets of distilled wisdom interspersed through a long poem.

LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:

poetry: Poetic diction and experience

…no problem?” This species of gnomic, riddling remark may be determinate

for the artistic attitude toward…

Exeter Book

Exeter Book, the largest extant collection of Old English poetry. Copied c. 975,…

Phocylides

Phocylides, Greek gnomic poet (i.e., writer of pithy moral aphorisms) from Miletus, on the
coast of Asia…

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Half rhyme
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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THIS ARTICLE IS A STUB. You can learn more about this topic in the related articles below.

Alternative Titles: near rhyme, oblique rhyme, slant rhyme

Half rhyme, also called near rhyme, slant rhyme, or oblique rhyme, in prosody, two
words that have only their nal consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or
consonant sounds in common (such as stopped and wept, or parable and shell). The
device was common in Welsh, Irish, and Icelandic verse years before it was rst used
in English by Henry Vaughan. It was not used regularly in English until Gerard
Manley Hopkins and William Butler Yeats began to do so.
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RELATED TOPICS

Poetry
Rhyme

LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:

Greek Anthology

Greek Anthology, collection of about 3,700 Greek epigrams, songs, epitaphs, and rhetorical
exercises,…

Rhyme

Rhyme, the correspondence of two or more words with similar-sounding nal syllables
placed so as to…

Poetry

Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of

experience or a speci c emotional…

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