{{Short description|Greek prosody rule}}
In the prosody of Greek dactylic hexameter poetry, '''Hermann's bridge''' is the tendency to avoid a word break between the two shorts of the fourth foot.<ref>{{Cite book |last=West |first=Martin |title=Greek Metre |date=1982 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-814018-4 |location=Oxford |pages=38n.18}}</ref><ref name="Schein">{{Cite book |last=Schein |first=Seth |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/11567/chapter/160387235 |title=Homeric Epic and its Reception: Interpretive Essays |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2015 |isbn=9780199589418 |publication-date=2016 |pages=93–116 |chapter=A Cognitive Approach to Greek Metre: Hermann's Bridge in the Homeric Hexameter and the Interpretation of Iliad 24 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589418.003.0008 |language=en}}</ref> It is named for Gottfried Hermann, who first identified the phenomenon in his 1796 work, ''De metris poetarum graecorum et romanorum''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hermann |first=Gottfried |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GdMIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA273 |title=De metris poetarum graecorum et romanorum |language=la |publisher=G. Fleischer |year=1796 |location=Leipzig |pages=273–74}}</ref>
Hermann's bridge is extensively demonstrated throughout both the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', with counts varying from 300 violations to just 44, depending on how strictly Hermann's bridge is defined, and with the vast majority of those violations occurring on an enclitic. These violations can be seen as having rhetorical intent, serving to emphasize part of the poem.<ref name="Schein" />
== Further reading ==
* {{Cite journal |last=Leeuwen |first=J. van |date=1890 |title=Homerica, IV. De caesura quae est post quartum trochaeum |trans-title=Concerning the interruption which is after the fourth trochaic |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4424873 |journal=Mnemosyne |language=la |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=265–299 |jstor=4424873 |issn=0026-7074}}
== References == {{reflist}}
Category:Ancient Greek epic poetry
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