A history of criticism and literary taste in Europe, from the earliest texts to the present day. Volume 1 (of 3), Classical and mediæval criticism

Note 478 — Chapter I · BEFORE DANTE.

Reading edition

Commaticus. This word, originally employed of the alternate threnos of personage and chorus in Tragedy, passed, in rhetorical use, to the signification of “short-cut” clauses of prose, and later received a special application to poems (especially hymns) in very short lines.

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