title: Chantal Akerman

text: Marguiles argues that Akerman's resistance to categorization is in response to the rigidity of cinema's earlier essentialist realism and "indicates an awareness of the project of a transhistorical and transcultural feminist aesthetics of the cinema".


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Akerman works with the feminist motto of the personal being political, complicating it by an investigation of representational links between private and public. In "Jeanne Dielman", her best-known film, the protagonist does not supply a transparent, accurate representation of a fixed social reality. Throughout the film, the housewife and prostitute Jeanne is revealed to be a construct, with multiple historical, social, and cinematic resonances.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Akerman engages with realist representations, a form historically grounded to act as a feminist gesture and simultaneously as an "irritant" to fixed categories of "woman".


title: Chantal Akerman

text: In 1991, Akerman was a member of the jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival. In 2011, she joined the full-time faculty of the MFA Program in Media Arts Production at the City College of New York as a distinguished lecturer and the first Michael & Irene Ross Visiting Professor of Film/Video & Jewish Studies. Akerman was also Professor of Film at The European Graduate School.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Important solo exhibitions of Akerman's work have been held at the Museum for Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium (2012), MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts (2008), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel (2006); Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ (2006); and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2003). Akerman participated in Documenta XI (2002) and the Venice Biennale (2001).


title: Chantal Akerman

text: The 2015 Venice Biennale included her final video installation, "Now", an installation of interspersed parallel screens displaying the landscape-in-motion footage that would appear in "No Home Movie". In 2018, the Manhattan Jewish Museum presented the installation in the exhibition "Scenes from the Collection", and acquired her work for the collection. Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris featured "From the Other Side" (2002) and "Je tu il elle, l'installation" (2007) in early 2022.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Akerman's filming style relies on capturing ordinary life. By encouraging viewers to have patience with a slow pace, her films emphasize the humanity of the everyday. Art curator Kathy Halbreich writes that Akerman "creates a cinema of waiting, of passages, of resolutions deferred".


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Many of Akerman's films portray the movement of people across distances or their absorption with claustrophobic spaces. Curator Jon Davies writes that her domestic interiors "conceal gendered labour and violence, secrecy and shame, where traumas both large and small unfold with few if any witnesses". Akerman addresses the voyeurism that is always present within cinematic discourse by often playing a character within her films, placing herself on both sides of the camera simultaneously. She used the boredom of structuralism to generate a bodily feeling in the viewer, accentuating the passage of time.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Akerman was influenced by European art cinema as well as structuralist film. Structuralist film used formalist experimentation to propose a reciprocal relationship between image and viewer. Akerman cites Michael Snow as a structuralist inspiration, especially his film "Wavelength", which is composed of a single shot of a photograph of a sea on a loft wall, with the camera slowly zooming in. Akerman was drawn to the perceived dullness of structuralism because it rejected the dominant cinema's concern for plot. As a teenager in Brussels, Akerman skipped school to see movies, including films from the experimental festival in Knokke-le-Zoute.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Art historian Terrie Sultan writes that Akerman's "narrative is marked by an almost Proustian attention to detail and visual grace". Similarly, Akerman's visual language resists easy categorization and summarization: she creates narrative through filmic syntax instead of plot development.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: Many directors have cited Akerman's directorial style as an influence on their work. Kelly Reichardt, Gus Van Sant, and Sofia Coppola have noted their exploration of filming in real time as a tribute to Akerman.


title: Chantal Akerman

text: 65-year old Akerman died on 5 October 2015 in Paris; "Le Monde" reported that she died by suicide. Her last film was the documentary "No Home Movie", a series of conversations with her mother shortly before her mother's death; of the film, she said: "I think if I knew I was going to do this, I wouldn't have dared to do it."


title: Chantal Akerman

text: According to Akerman's sister, she had been hospitalized for depression and then returned home to Paris ten days before her death.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé for her third studio album, "I Am... Sasha Fierce" (2008). Included on the "I Am..." disc, it was intended to give a glimpse of Beyoncé's life, stripped of her make-up and celebrity trappings. Columbia Records released the song, the album's fourth single, to mainstream radio in the United States on January 20, 2009, and to international markets from February 20. Inspired by Ray LaMontagne's 2004 song "Shelter", "Halo" was written and composed by Ryan Tedder and Evan Bogart, with additional minor songwriting by Beyoncé. It was originally conceived by Tedder and Bogart specifically for Beyoncé, although there was media speculation that it had been intended for Leona Lewis.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" is a pop and R&B power ballad, the lyrics of which describe a sublime love. It features drum, piano, keyboard, string, synthesizer, and percussion instrumentation. The song faced a controversy when Kelly Clarkson claimed that Tedder had reused the musical arrangement in her own 2009 song "Already Gone". "Halo" received positive reviews from music critics, who made comparisons with Lewis's 2007 song "Bleeding Love". Its production and Beyoncé's vocals also received critical praise. "Halo" was nominated for Record of the Year and won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. It won Best Song at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards. "Halo" topped the singles charts of Brazil, Norway, and Slovakia, and reached the top five on the singles chart of Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The song has received numerous certifications, including a certification from Australia, making it one of the highest-certified songs in the country, certifications from Canada and the US, certifications from Italy and the United Kingdom, and a from Spain.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Philip Andelman directed "Halo"'s accompanying music video, which features American actor Michael Ealy. It portrays a romantic relationship between Beyoncé's and Ealy's characters. Critics complimented Beyoncé's looks in the clip. An alternative music video, which shows Ealy's character being chased by police officers through a forest at night, was posted on the Internet in May 2010. The lyrics to "Halo" were changed for three of Beyoncé's special live performances: a tribute to Michael Jackson following his death, a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and for Kobe and Gianna Bryant's memorial in 2020. The song has been covered by many artists, including Florence and the Machine, Harper Blynn, and Westlife. It was performed on the television show "Glee", and was added to the international soundtrack of the Brazilian soap opera "Caminho das Índias".


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" was initially composed by Ryan Tedder, lead vocalist of OneRepublic, together with Evan "Kidd" Bogart. In an interview for HitQuarters, Kidd narrated the events that led to writing the song. OneRepublic canceled their tour after Tedder had broken his Achilles tendon and had undergone surgery. The following day, the band sent Tedder to Los Angeles. There, he and Kidd were socializing when Tedder expressed his desire to write a song. At first, Kidd was opposed to the idea because Tedder was supposed to be recuperating, but the pair went to Tedder's studio. During the writing sessions, singer Ray LaMontagne was the primary inspiration for "Halo". Kidd suggested they create a song in the style of LaMontagne's "Shelter" for Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z, and proposed the title "Halo" after hearing Tedder play "angelic" chords. They wrote the song in three hours. In 2009, the original demo leaked on the Internet, and its production was similar to the published recording, for which Beyoncé received a writing credit. Tedder explained that she edited vocally the bridge of the song and consequently earned the credit.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: According to Simon Cowell, owner of the music production company Syco Entertainment, Bogart and Tedder intended "Halo" for his client, singer Leona Lewis, who could not record the song because of her tight schedule. Cowell was upset that Beyoncé chose to record the song. David Balls, editor of the British media website Digital Spy, asked Tedder during an interview whether "Halo" had initially been written for Lewis. Tedder answered that he had only tentatively offered the track to Lewis after Beyoncé waited a long time before recording it. He commented:


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: There was this huge scandal that originally "Halo" was meant to go to Leona. That was never the case ... That song was written for Beyoncé. What happened was that Beyoncé waited long enough to record that song ... I thought this would be a brilliant first single for Leona, which it would have ... What I did was foolishly say to Leona's camp, "I have it on hold for another artist and I'm pretty sure they'll take it, but if they don't, I just want to know if you like it enough to consider it". I sent it to them and they flipped on it. They loved it and instantly said they wanted to do it. I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, no, it's not free yet!"


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Tedder and Beyoncé produced "Halo" in 2008 at Los Angeles' Manfield Studios, and at New York City's Germano and Roc The Mic Studios. Tedder did the musical arrangements and played the instruments, while Christian Baker assisted in recording the music. Mark "Spike" Stent mixed the track with assistance from Matt Green, and Jim Caruana recorded Beyoncé's vocals; both these tasks were done at Roc the Mic Studios. "Halo" is present on the "I Am..." disc of the double album "I Am... Sasha Fierce", as it is a ballad that shows Beyoncé's insecurities about love, and the person she is "underneath all the makeup, underneath the lights and underneath all the exciting star drama". Beyoncé has said that she loves singing ballads because, "the music and the emotion in the story is told so much better. It's a better connection because you can hear it and it's not all these other distractions. I really wanted people to hear my voice and hear what I had to say".


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" is a contemporary downtempo R&B power ballad that features a pop production. It has elements of gospel and soul music. Instrumentation is provided by a piano, a keyboard, big drums, a synthesizer, strings, and percussion instruments. The cascading piano work is accompanied by percussive beats that alternate between handclaps and foot stomps. "Halo" was composed using common time in the key of A major, with a tempo of 84 beats per minute. It is built on the chord progression , and is written in the common verse–chorus form. Beyoncé's vocals span from C to the head voice note of G, incorporate melisma, and are supported by backing vocals. She ornaments her singing with vibrato yelps and trills—rapid alternations between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart. The arrangement also consists of symphonic "crescendos" and electronic accents.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: In "Halo", Beyoncé professes her fondness to her lover with open-hearted emotion. She said, "['Halo'] is angelic ... like you see [angels'] faces instantly when you hear it. [Its lyrics] are basically saying that I had these walls built up about love; you completely tore them down and when I look at you I see your halo, it's really beautiful". Backed by a piano, claps and step stomps that set a spiritualized atmosphere, Beyoncé opens the song


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: with the lines: "Remember those walls I built? / Well, baby, they're tumbling down". She sings the introduction in a low register, and the power of her voice gradually increases as the song progresses. In the , she chants, "Everywhere I'm looking now, I'm surrounded by your embrace / baby I can see your halo, you know you're my saving grace / you're everything I need and more, it's written all over your face". Beyoncé then echoes the word "halo" in the chorus; the third and final one is preceded by a 1980s drum breakdown, and is complemented by sweeping strings and percussion.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" and "Ego" were initially planned for simultaneous release in the US, following the 2008 dual lead singles "If I Were a Boy" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". But the release of "Ego" was canceled and replaced with "Diva". "Halo" was taken from a different disc of "I Am... Sasha Fierce" to "Diva"; the intention was to demonstrate the concept that Beyoncé has conflicting personalities—the central theme of the album. The motif was demonstrated by placing the album's ballads and uptempo tracks on separate discs. "Halo" was sent by Music World Entertainment and Columbia Records to contemporary hit radio playlists on January 20, 2009, while "Diva" was classified for rhythmic contemporary and urban contemporary radio playlists. A digital extended play (EP) containing a radio edit and four remixes of "Halo" was later released on April 14, 2009.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: On February 20, 2009, "Halo" was released as a two-track digital download, including a remix of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" in Australia and New Zealand. In France, it was released as a stand-alone digital download on March 20, 2009. On the same date, "Halo" was serviced digitally alongside the album version of "Diva" in mainland Europe, including Germany, where it was also made available as a CD single on April 3 and a vinyl single on April 12, 2009. In the United Kingdom, a digital EP containing the album version and three remixes of "Halo" was released on April 13, 2009. The following day, the song was made available on a digital EP, as a maxi single and a vinyl single in Canada.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Soon after composing "Halo", Tedder worked with Kelly Clarkson on her fourth studio album, "All I Ever Wanted" (2009), for which they wrote "Already Gone" together. When the song came out, critics noted a resemblance to Beyoncé's "Halo". Clarkson, however, initially stated that she was unaware of any similarities between the two songs. She eventually realized their resemblance when she listened to both recordings closely; the similarities are most notable in the backing tracks, which in both cases feature a melancholy piano, loud drums, and handclaps. Clarkson tried to prevent "Already Gone" from being included on "All I Ever Wanted", but it was impossible to make last minute changes, as her album was already being printed when "I Am... Sasha Fierce" was released. She accused Tedder of using the same arrangement on both "Already Gone" and "Halo", and complained that people would, incorrectly, assume she was stealing it from Beyoncé.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Clarkson was furious, and confronted Tedder on the phone. In response, Tedder commented that he would never give two artists the same musical arrangement, and that her criticism was "hurtful and absurd". He asserted that the concept, melodies, and lyrics of "Already Gone" and "Halo" are completely different. Calling "Already Gone" one of the best songs he had ever composed, Tedder challenged people to "listen [to the two ballads] and form their own opinions". Clarkson also tried to stop her label, RCA, from releasing "Already Gone" as a single because she wanted to respect Beyoncé, but they went against her will and released it. She said, "It's one of those things I have no control over. I already made my album. At this point, the record company can do whatever they want with it." Clarkson later told James Montgomery of MTV News that it was unfortunate "Already Gone" and "Halo" sound so similar, but noted that at least they have different vocal melodies.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Christian Williams of "Billboard" magazine wrote that the pop sound of "Halo" should take it to the top of the charts. He added that comparisons could be made to Lewis' "Bleeding Love" (2007), but concluded that "Halo" "hangs high on its own merits". Michael Slezak of "Entertainment Weekly" described "Halo" as "an absolutely glorious and perfectly produced track", which had the potential to be as commercially successful as "Crazy in Love" (2003) and "Irreplaceable" (2007). Joey Guerra of the "Houston Chronicle" wrote that it was an immediate standout on "I Am... Sasha Fierce". Praising the "big and wide" melodies of "Halo", Matos Michaelangelo of "The A.V. Club" commented that Beyoncé has "a real flair for grandeur". Jennifer Cady of E! Online wrote that the song could be included on a romantic mixtape, and James Montgomery of MTV News noted that the "tear-jerking power" of "Halo" reveals "sides of Beyoncé we never knew existed". Ryan Dombal of "Pitchfork" wrote that Beyoncé's vocal delivery was "strident and exposed", reminiscent of Céline Dion's style.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: In spite of what he called it a "garden-variety lyrics", James Reed of "The Boston Globe" wrote that "Halo" was "the most evocative power ballad" recorded by Beyoncé, comparing it to the work done by American record producer and songwriter Phil Spector on his Wall of Sound mixing board. Critics highlighted the similarities of "Halo" to Rihanna's "Umbrella" (2007); Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" noted that both have the same "icy synths, drivetime rock dynamic, and a similar repetitive chorus". This view was echoed by Jennifer Vineyard of MTV News and Brent DiCrescenzo of "Timeout", who viewed "Halo" as a "Bette Midler–level hymn from ['Umbrella'], lift[ing its] savior theme". Nick Levine of Digital Spy described "Halo" as a "muscular hybrid" of "Umbrella" and Lewis' "Bleeding Love". David Balls of the same website wrote, "Halo' is a contemporary power ballad in the 'Bleeding Love' mould ... Could Lewis have pulled this off better? Well, that's a matter of opinion of course, but Mrs. Jay-Z doesn't leave much room for improvement."


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" was nominated for Best Single at the 2009 Urban Music Awards, and for Best Love Song at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards. It won the Best Song award at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2009. The ballad was placed at number seven of "Rap-Up"s list of the 25 best songs of 2009. "Halo" was nominated at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in the categories of Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, winning the latter. It also won Best Foreign Song at the 2010 Croatian Porin Awards. The live version of "Halo", featured on "" (2009), was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) recognized "Halo" as one of the most performed songs of 2009 at the 27th ASCAP Pop Music Awards. On the occasion of Beyoncé's thirtieth birthday in 2011, Erika Ramirez and Jason Lipshutz of "Billboard" magazine placed the ballad at number 18 on their list of Beyoncé's 30 biggest "Billboard" hits. On "The Village Voice" year-end Pazz & Jop singles list, "Halo" was ranked at numbers 878 and 124 in 2008 and 2009 respectively. In 2013, John Boone and Jennifer Cady of E! Online placed the song at number three on their list of the ten best Beyoncé's songs, writing that other power ballads "don't come more powerful than this one, which finds Beyoncé belting alongside what sounds to be every instrument in the entire world (including a dope one-second drum solo)". "Consequence of Sound" named "Halo" the 23rd best song of 2009.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" debuted at number 93 in the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart issue dated February 7, 2009. It peaked at number five on the chart issue dated May 23, 2009. "Halo"s US success helped Beyoncé achieve more top 10 singles on the Hot 100 chart than any other female artist during 2001–10. After spending 30 weeks in the top 40 of the Hot 100 chart, "Halo" last charted on the week ending August 29, 2009. It peaked at number two on the US Mainstream Top 40 chart, behind "Boom Boom Pow" by The Black Eyed Peas, at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and at number 16 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. On January 5, 2010, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the single , denoting sales of two million copies.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" debuted at number 40 on the New Zealand Singles Chart on February 2, 2009, and attained a high point of number two three weeks later. The song spent 33 weeks on the chart, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), representing sales of 15,000 copies. On February 15, 2009, it entered the ARIA Singles Chart at number 29. The ballad peaked at number three for four non-consecutive weeks, and spent a total of 36 weeks in the top 50. The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) certified "Halo" twelve-times platinum for selling 840,000 copies. On the Spanish Singles Chart, "Halo" debuted at number 45 on January 25, 2009, but it fell off the chart the following week. However, the song the chart four months later on May 3, 2009, at number 44, and peaked at number five on October 11, 2009. It was certified by the Productores de Música de España (PROMUSICAE), indicating sales of 80,000 copies.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" entered the UK Singles Chart at number 98 for the week ending February 21, 2009; over a period of seven weeks, it climbed to number four on March 29, 2009 (for the week ending April 4, 2009). It spent 49 weeks in the top 100 of UK Singles Chart; 44 weeks after its debut, it was at number 94 on March 4, 2012, before dropping out the following week. As of March 2018, it had sold 1.1 million copies in the UK, including 125 million plays, and is her and most streamed single there. In February 2021, the song was certified by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), denoting 1,800,000 units sold in the UK. It debuted on the Irish Singles Chart at number 32 on January 22, 2009, and peaked at number four for three consecutive weeks. "Halo" topped the Brasil "Billboard" Hot 100 chart for more than 20 consecutive weeks in 2009. It emerged as the most listened to song on radio in Brazil during the same period as it registered 24,734 plays on radio stations throughout the country. "Halo" was also the most downloaded song in Brazil from November 2009 to November 2010, as highlighted by the first edition of the Brazilian Digital Music Awards.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: The accompanying music videos for "Halo" and "Diva" premiered simultaneously on the US iTunes Store on December 23, 2008. Shot in late November 2008 in a SoHo townhouse owned by Beyoncé, the video was directed by Philip Andelman and features actor Michael Ealy as Beyoncé's love interest. Ealy was happy to work with Beyoncé, as he had loved the song immediately after hearing it. This was the second time he was asked to star in a video for a song by Beyoncé; the first was "Irreplaceable", which he had refused because he did not appreciate its theme and concept. He had advised Beyoncé: "Call me when you have a hero role".


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: The video, which Beyoncé has considered intimate and romantic, begins as she stands against a wall, illuminated by light that passes through a window. In one scene, Beyoncé's character, dressed in a skin-tight leotard, performs a dance sequence while her love interest looks down at her from a balcony. According to Michael Slezak of "Entertainment Weekly", the dance routines pay homage to the 1983 romantic drama film "Flashdance". Beyoncé and Ealy later stare adoringly at each other as they snuggle on a sofa. During the climax of the video, Beyoncé is shown underwater, dressed in white, moving slowly upwards. As the chorus begins, she opens her eyes; after Ealy kisses the back of her neck, the pair come face to face in the final scene, in which Beyoncé lies in bed, with Ealy above her. Jennifer Cady of E! Online wrote that the bright shiny lights in the video "make [Beyoncé] look like an angel". The video was ranked at number 74 on BET's "Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2009" countdown. By April 2020, the video had received over one billion views on YouTube, becoming Beyoncé's first to achieve it.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: An alternative video surfaced online in late May 2010, explaining why Beyoncé's character was remembering her love interest in the original version. It begins with a view of the night sky and many trees, as Beyoncé drives a car and Ealy's character is chased by the police through a forest. As the video progresses, she parks her car on the side of the road and scenes from the original version are shown. Police dogs eventually catch Ealy's character and attack him savagely. An open bag reveals stolen money, which is dispersed by the wind. At the end of the video, in the forest, Beyoncé finds Ealy lying lifelessly on the ground.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Beyoncé's first live performance of "Halo" was at the NAACP Awards on February 12, 2009. She sang the ballad while archival footage from the Civil Rights Movement was shown in the background. Brennan Williams of Entertainment Newswire wrote that Beyoncé's "breathtaking performance" showed why she received the 2009 Outstanding Female Artist award. She also sang "Halo" on the "Late Show with David Letterman" on April 22, 2009, and on "Today" the following day. "Halo" was later added to the set list of her I Am... Tour in , when it was performed during the concert's encore. After Beyoncé finished "Single Ladies", she sang "Halo" initially on stage before descending to shake hands with everybody in the front rows. Deborah McAleese and Lauren Mulvenny of "The Belfast Telegraph" commented that she did it with "great passion". It was included on her CD/DVD live albums "I Am... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas" and "I Am... World Tour" (2010). Beyoncé performed "Halo" live, as the closing song at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: On February 3, 2013, Beyoncé performed the song during the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show. "Halo" was added to the set list of her The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–14) where it was preceded by a short a cappella performance of "I Will Always Love You". In 2014, during the On the Run Tour, Beyoncé's co-headlining venture with Jay-Z, the song was performed during the end of the concert along with "Young Forever". Throughout the performance, home videos of the pair and their daughter Blue Ivy were shown on the screen on the stage. A live rendition during a stop in Paris was broadcast on September 20, 2014 on HBO during a . The following day, a video of the medley was released on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. "Halo" was added to the set list of her The Formation World Tour (2016).


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: Beyoncé has performed "Halo" for several tributes. On June 25, 2009, American singer Michael Jackson died. During some concerts, an image of Jackson was shown on the main screen and she changed the lyrics to "Michael I can see your halo / I pray your music won't fade away". On January 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by an earthquake. A charity telethon called "" took place on January 22, 2010, in which many artists participated. Beyoncé performed an acoustic version of "Halo" with Coldplay's lead vocalist Chris Martin playing the piano. To make the song match the night's purpose, She sang "Haiti, we can see your halo / You know you're my saving grace / You're everything I need and more, it's written all over your face / Haiti, we can see your halo / I pray you won't fade away". The version was included on the 2010 live album "Hope for Haiti Now". Following the death of Whitney Houston earlier that year, Beyoncé performed a tribute during her revue in May 2012, at the Revel resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Beyoncé began the performance of "Halo" singing the first verse of Houston's "I Will Always Love You". Maura Johnston of "The Village Voice" praised the performance noting that "the most basically structured song [...] could be turned into something glorious with the right singer". Kyle Anderson of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that it was "the most attention-grabbing moments of the night". Ben Ratliff of "The New York Times" highlighted the performance. In January 2020, Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash. Beyoncé sang "Halo" during their memorial the following month.


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" was blended with the Katrina and the Waves' 1985 song "Walking on Sunshine", in the "Vitamin D" episode (2009) of the Fox Broadcasting Company television show "Glee". Released as a single, their version peaked at number 4 on the Irish Singles Chart, number 8 on the UK Official Download Chart, number 9 on the UK Singles Chart, number 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart, number 28 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, and number 40 on the Hot 100 chart. It was certified gold by ARIA, denoting shipment of 35,000 copies. The mash-up was included on the set list of the group's debut concert Glee Live! In Concert! (2010–11).


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: In 2009, "Halo" was covered by Florence and the Machine on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge. Elementary school group PS22 Chorus covered "Halo" and "Single Ladies" during the 2009 "Billboard" Women in Music luncheon held at The Pierre in New York City. At the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, American singer Katy Perry performed a mash-up of "Halo" and the other Best Song nominees. American singer Mike Posner also covered the ballad with different lyrics, and included it on his 2009 mixtape "A Matter of Time". According to an MTV writer, Posner's rendition was "a refreshing take on the original". The song was blended with "How to Break a Heart" by the Irish boy band Westlife, on their 2010 Where We Are Tour. On February 5, 2012, the team on the Australian talent show, "Young Talent Time", sang "Halo" as the closing song of that night. On April 17, 2013, Angie Miller, a contestant on the 12th season of "American Idol" covered the song during an episode of the show. Melissa Locker of "Rolling Stone" magazine commented that she was "at her best" and "managed to tap into that power sans piano".


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: "Halo" has been covered by other musicians, including Ailee, ceo, Harper Blynn, Chris Sebastian and the Kingdom Choir. Marc Hogan of Pitchfork Media wrote that no cover has been "quite as inspired or as perversely logical" as the one by ceo. He added that it was built on bumpy beats, and his version makes use of an acoustic guitar, 1980s-era stylized electric guitar, strings, and horns, and ends with a rapped outro. A dancehall cover of "Halo" by Major Lazer, with lead vocals by Elephant Man, was posted on the former's Twitter account the night after Beyoncé won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2011 Grammy Awards. Simon of "Entertainment Weekly" commented that their version "stays fairly close to the original, except with Elephant Man growling instead of Beyoncé belting the verses". A 2012 cover by singer-songwriter LP was described by MTV as "[finding] the perfect balance between making it her own and preserving the integrity of the original melody". In 2013, "Halo" was covered by the Icelandic band Hjaltalín, with their version of "Halo" appearing as the of their single "Crack in a Stone".


title: Halo (Beyoncé song)

text: A version of the song was recorded by Jahméne and was released on his album "Love Never Fails" (2013). Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan covered the ballad during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in late September 2013. A writer of "The Times of India" included the performance of the song as one of the highlights of the concert. In 2013 Ane Brun, accompanied by Linnea Olsson on cello and backing vocals, released a "personal and " version of "Halo" on her album "Rarities". This cover is included on the soundtrack of the 2014 movie "If I Stay". "Halo" was included on the international soundtrack of "Caminho das Índias", an Emmy Award-winning Brazilian soap opera. "Halo" is featured on the British compilation album "Now! 73".


title: Supercell

text: A supercell is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a mesocyclone: a deep, persistently rotating updraft. Due to this, these storms are sometimes referred to as rotating thunderstorms. Of the four classifications of thunderstorms (supercell, squall line, multi-cell, and single-cell), supercells are the overall least common and have the potential to be the most severe. Supercells are often isolated from other thunderstorms, and can dominate the local weather up to away. They tend to last 2–4 hours.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells are often put into three classification types: classic (Normal precipitation level), low-precipitation (LP), and high-precipitation (HP). LP supercells are usually found in climates that are more arid, such as the high plains of the United States, and HP supercells are most often found in moist climates. Supercells can occur anywhere in the world under the right pre-existing weather conditions, but they are most common in the Great Plains of the United States in an area known as Tornado Alley. A high number of supercells are seen in many parts of Europe as well as in the of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells are usually found isolated from other thunderstorms, although they can sometimes be embedded in a squall line. Typically, supercells are found in the warm sector of a low pressure system propagating generally in a north easterly direction in line with the cold front of the low pressure system. Because they can last for hours, they are known as quasi-steady-state storms. Supercells have the capability to deviate from the mean wind. If they track to the right or left of the mean wind (relative to the vertical wind shear), they are said to be "right-movers" or "left-movers," respectively. Supercells can sometimes develop two separate updrafts with opposing rotations, which splits the storm into two supercells: one left-mover and one right-mover.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells can be any size – large or small, low or high topped. They usually produce copious amounts of hail, torrential rainfall, strong winds, and substantial downbursts. Supercells are one of the few types of clouds that typically spawn tornadoes within the mesocyclone, although only 30% or fewer do so.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells can occur anywhere in the world under the right weather conditions. The first storm to be identified as the supercell type was the Wokingham storm over England, which was studied by Keith Browning and Frank Ludlam in 1962. Browning did the initial work that was followed up by Lemon and Doswell to develop the modern conceptual model of the supercell.<ref name="Lemon/Doswell"></ref> To the extent that records are available, supercells are most frequent in the Great Plains of the central United States and southern Canada extending into the southeastern U.S. and northern Mexico; east-central Argentina and adjacent regions of Uruguay; Bangladesh and parts of eastern India; South Africa; and eastern Australia. Supercells occur occasionally in many other mid-latitude regions, including Eastern China and throughout Europe. The areas with highest frequencies of supercells are similar to those with the most occurrences of tornadoes; see tornado climatology and Tornado Alley.


title: Supercell

text: The current conceptual model of a supercell was described in "Severe Thunderstorm Evolution and Mesocyclone Structure as Related to Tornadogenesis" by Leslie R. Lemon and Charles A. Doswell III. (See Lemon technique). Moisture streams in from the side of the precipitation-free base and merges into a line of warm uplift region where the tower of the thundercloud is tipped by high-altitude shear winds. The high shear causes horizontal vorticity which is tilted within the updraft to become vertical vorticity, and the mass of clouds spins as it gains altitude up to the cap, which can be up to – above ground for the largest storms, and trailing anvil.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells derive their rotation through tilting of horizontal vorticity (an invisible horizontal vortex) caused by wind shear. Strong updrafts lift the air turning about a horizontal axis and cause this air to turn about a vertical axis. This forms a deep rotating updraft, the mesocyclone.


title: Supercell

text: A "cap" or capping inversion is usually required to form an updraft of sufficient strength. The moisture-laden air is then cooled enough to precipitate as it is rotated toward the cooler region, represented by the turbulent air of the mammatus clouds where the warm air is spilling over top of the cooler, invading air. The cap is formed where shear winds block further uplift for a time, until a relative weakness allows a breakthrough of the cap (an overshooting top); cooler air to the right in the image may or may not form a shelf cloud, but the precipitation zone will occur where the heat engine of the uplift intermingles with the invading, colder air. The cap puts an inverted (warm-above-cold) layer above a normal (cold-above-warm) boundary layer, and by preventing warm surface air from rising, allows one or both of the following:


title: Supercell

text: As the cooler but drier air circulates into the warm, moisture laden inflow, the cloud base will frequently form a wall, and the cloud base often experiences a lowering, which, in extreme cases, are where tornadoes are formed. This creates a warmer, moister layer below a cooler layer, which is increasingly unstable (because warm air is less dense and tends to rise). When the cap weakens or moves, explosive development follows.


title: Supercell

text: In North America, supercells usually show up on Doppler radar as starting at a point or hook shape on the southwestern side, fanning out to the northeast. The heaviest precipitation is usually on the southwest side, ending abruptly short of the "rain-free updraft base" or "main updraft" (not visible to radar). The "rear flank downdraft", or RFD, carries precipitation counterclockwise around the north and northwest side of the updraft base, producing a "hook echo" that indicates the presence of a mesocyclone.


title: Supercell

text: This "dome" feature appears above the strongest updraft location on the anvil of the storm. It is a result of an updraft powerful enough to break through the upper levels of the troposphere into the lower stratosphere. An observer at ground level and close to the storm may be unable to see the overshooting top because the anvil blocks the sight of this feature. The overshooting is visible from satellite images as a "bubbling" amidst the otherwise smooth upper surface of the anvil cloud.


title: Supercell

text: An anvil forms when the storm's updraft collides with the upper levels of the lowest layer of the atmosphere, or the tropopause, and has nowhere else to go due to the laws of fluid dynamics- specifically pressure, humidity, and density, in simple terms, the packet of air has lost it's buoyancy and cannot rise higher. The anvil is very cold(-30℃) and virtually precipitation-free even though virga can be seen falling from the forward sheared anvil. Since there is so little moisture in the anvil, winds can move freely. The clouds take on their anvil shape when the rising air reaches or more. The anvil's distinguishing feature is that it juts out in front of the storm like a shelf. In some cases, it can even shear backwards, called a backsheared anvil, another sign of a very strong updraft.


title: Supercell

text: This area, typically on the southern side of the storm in North America, is relatively precipitation-free. This is located beneath the main updraft, and is the main area of inflow. While no precipitation may be visible to an observer, large hail may be falling from this area. A region of this area is called the Vault. It is more accurately called the main updraft area.


title: Supercell

text: The wall cloud forms near the downdraft/updraft interface. This "interface" is the area between the "precipitation area" and the "precipitation-free base." Wall clouds form when rain-cooled air from the downdraft is pulled into the updraft. This wet, cold air quickly saturates as it is lifted by the updraft, forming a cloud that seems to "descend" from the precipitation-free base. Wall clouds are common and are not exclusive to supercells; only a small percentage actually produce a tornado, but if a storm does produce a tornado, it usually exhibits wall clouds that persist for more than ten minutes. Wall clouds that seem to move violently up or down, and violent movements of cloud fragments (scud or fractus) near the wall cloud, are indications that a tornado could form.


title: Supercell

text: Mammatus (Mamma, Mammatocumulus) are bulbous or pillow-like cloud formations extending from beneath the anvil of a thunderstorm. These clouds form as cold air in the anvil region of a storm sinks into warmer air beneath it. Mammatus are most apparent when they are lit from one side or below and are therefore at their most impressive near sunset or shortly after sunrise when the sun is low in the sky. Mammatus are not exclusive to supercells and can be associated with developed thunderstorms and cumulonimbus.


title: Supercell

text: This is generally the area of heaviest and most widespread precipitation. For most supercells, the precipitation core is bounded on its leading edge by a shelf cloud that results from rain-cooled air within the precipitation core spreading outward and interacting with warmer, moist air from outside of the cell. Between the precipitation-free base and the FFD, a "vaulted" or "cathedral" feature can be observed. In "high precipitation supercells" an area of heavy precipitation may occur beneath the main updraft area where the vault would alternately be observed with classic supercells.


title: Supercell

text: The Rear Flank Downdraft of a supercell is a very complex and not yet fully understood feature. RFDs mainly occur within classic and HP supercells although RFDs have been observed within LP supercells. The RFD of a supercell is believed to play a large part in tornadogenesis by tightening existing rotation within the surface mesocyclone. RFDs are caused by mid-level steering winds of a supercell colliding with the updraft tower and moving around it in all directions; specifically, the flow that is redirected downward is referred to as the RFD. This downward surge of relatively cool mid-level air, due to interactions between dew points, humidity, and condensation of the converging of air masses, can reach very high speeds and is known to cause widespread wind damage. The radar signature of an RFD is a hook-like structure where sinking air has brought with it precipitation.


title: Supercell

text: A flanking line is a line of smaller cumulonimbi or cumulus that form in the warm rising air pulled in by the main updraft. Due to convergence and lifting along this line, landspouts sometimes occur on the outflow boundary of this region.


title: Supercell

text: Supercell thunderstorms are sometimes classified by meteorologists and storm spotters into three categories; however, not all supercells, being hybrid storms, fit neatly into any one category, and many supercells may fall into different categories during different periods of their lifetimes. The standard definition given above is referred to as the Classic supercell. All types of supercells typically produce severe weather.


title: Supercell

text: LP supercells contain a small and relatively light precipitation (rain/hail) core that is well separated from the updraft. The updraft is intense, and LPs are inflow dominant storms. The updraft tower is typically more strongly tilted and the deviant rightward motion less than for other supercell types. The forward flank downdraft (FFD) is noticeably weaker than for other supercell types, and the rear-flank downdraft (RFD) is much weaker—even visually absent in many cases. Like classic supercells, LP supercells tend to form within stronger mid-to-upper level storm-relative wind shear; however, the atmospheric environment leading to their formation is not well understood. The moisture profile of the atmosphere, particularly the depth of the elevated dry layer, also appears to be important, and the low-to-mid level shear may also be important.


title: Supercell

text: This type of supercell may be easily identifiable with "sculpted" cloud striations in the updraft base or even a "corkscrewed" or "barber pole" appearance on the updraft, and sometimes an almost "anorexic" look compared to classic supercells. This is because they often form within drier moisture profiles (often initiated by dry lines) leaving LPs with little available moisture despite high mid-to-upper level environmental winds. They most often dissipate rather than turning into classic or HP supercells, although it is still not unusual for LPs to do the latter, especially when moving into a much moister air mass. LPs were first formally described by Howard Bluestein in the early 1980s although storm-chasing scientists noticed them throughout the 1970s. Classic supercells may wither yet maintain updraft rotation as they decay, becoming more like the LP type in a process known as "downscale transition" that also applies to LP storms, and this process is thought to be how many LPs dissipate.


title: Supercell

text: LP supercells rarely spawn tornadoes, and those that form tend to be weak, small, and high-based tornadoes, but strong tornadoes have been observed. These storms, although generating lesser precipitation amounts and producing smaller precipitation cores, can generate huge hail. LPs may produce hail larger than baseballs in clear air where no rainfall is visible. LPs are thus hazardous to people and animals caught outside as well as to storm chasers and spotters. Due to the lack of a heavy precipitation core, LP supercells often exhibit relatively weak radar reflectivity without clear evidence of a hook echo, when in fact they are producing a tornado at the time. LP supercells may not even be recognized as supercells in reflectivity data unless one is trained or experienced on their radar characteristics. This is where observations by storm spotter and storm chasers may be of vital importance in addition to Doppler velocity (and polarimetric) radar data. High-based shear funnel clouds sometimes form midway between the base and the top of the storm, descending from the main Cb (cumulonimbus) cloud. Lightning discharges may be less frequent compared to other supercell types, but on occasion LPs are prolific sparkers, and the discharges are more likely to occur as intracloud lightning rather than cloud-to-ground lightning.


title: Supercell

text: In North America, these storms most prominently form in the semi-arid Great Plains during the spring and summer months. Moving east and southeast, they often collide with moist air masses from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the formation of HP supercells in areas just to the west of Interstate 35 before dissipating (or coalescing into squall lines) at variable distances farther east. LP supercells have been observed as far east as Illinois and Indiana, however. LP supercells can occur as far north as Montana, North Dakota, and even in the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada. They have also been observed by storm chasers in Australia and Argentina (the Pampas).


title: Supercell

text: LP supercells are quite sought after by storm chasers because the limited amount of precipitation makes sighting tornadoes at a safe distance much less difficult than with a classic or HP supercell and more so because of the unobscured storm structure unveiled. During spring and early summer, areas in which LP supercells are readily spotted include southwestern Oklahoma and northwestern Texas, among other parts of the western Great Plains.


title: Supercell

text: The HP supercell has a much heavier precipitation core that can wrap all the way around the mesocyclone. These are especially dangerous storms, since the mesocyclone is wrapped with rain and can hide a tornado (if present) from view. These storms also cause flooding due to heavy rain, damaging downbursts, and weak tornadoes, although they are also known to produce strong to violent tornadoes. They have a lower potential for damaging hail than Classic and LP supercells, although damaging hail is possible. It has been observed by some spotters that they tend to produce more cloud-to-ground and intracloud lightning than the other types. Also, unlike the LP and Classic types, severe events usually occur at the front (southeast) of the storm. The HP supercell is the most common type of supercell in the United States east of Interstate 35, in the southern parts of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada, in France, Germany and the Po Valley in north Italy and in the central portions of Argentina and Uruguay.


title: Supercell

text: Whereas classic, HP, and LP refer to different precipitation regimes and mesoscale frontal structures, another variation was identified in the early 1990s by Jon Davies. These smaller storms were initially called mini-supercells but are now commonly referred to as low-topped supercells. These are also subdivided into Classic, HP and LP types.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells can produce hailstones averaging as large as in diameter, winds over , tornadoes of as strong as EF3 to EF5 intensity (if wind shear and atmospheric instability are able to support the development of stronger tornadoes), flooding, frequent-to-continuous lightning, and very heavy rain. Many tornado outbreaks come from clusters of supercells. Large supercells may spawn multiple long-tracked and deadly tornadoes, with notable examples in the 2011 Super Outbreak.


title: Supercell

text: Severe events associated with a supercell almost always occur in the area of the updraft/downdraft interface. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is most often the rear flank (southwest side) of the precipitation area in LP and classic supercells, but sometimes the leading edge (southeast side) of HP supercells.


title: Supercell

text: Some reports suggest that the deluge on 26 July 2005 in Mumbai, India was caused by a supercell when there was a cloud formation high over the city. On this day of rain fell over the city, of which fell in just four hours. The rainfall coincided with a high tide, which exacerbated conditions.


title: Supercell

text: Supercells occur commonly from March to May in Bangladesh, West Bengal, and the bordering northeastern Indian states including Tripura. Supercells that produce very high winds with hail and occasional tornadoes are observed in these regions. They also occur along the Northern Plains of India and Pakistan. On March 23, 2013, a massive tornado ripped through Brahmanbaria district in Bangladesh, killing 20 and injuring 200.


title: Supercell

text: On New Year's Day 1947 a supercell hit Sydney. The classic type Supercell formed over the Blue Mountains, mid-morning hitting the lower CBD and eastern suburbs by mid-afternoon with the hail similar in size to a cricket ball. At the time, it was the most severe storm to strike the city since recorded observations began in 1792.


title: Supercell

text: On April 14, 1999, a severe storm later classified as a supercell hit the east coast of New South Wales. It is estimated that the storm dropped worth of hailstones during its course. At the time it was the most costly disaster in Australia's insurance history, causing an approximated A$2.3 billion worth of damage, of which A$1.7 billion was covered by insurance.


title: Supercell

text: On February 27, 2007, a supercell hit Canberra, dumping nearly of ice in Civic. The ice was so heavy that a newly built shopping center's roof collapsed, birds were killed in the hail produced from the supercell, and people were stranded. The following day many homes in Canberra were subjected to flash flooding, caused either by the city's infrastructure's inability to cope with storm water or through mud slides from cleared land.


title: Supercell

text: On 6 March 2010, supercell storms hit Melbourne. The storms caused flash flooding in the center of the city and tennis ball-sized () hailstones hit cars and buildings, causing more than $220 million worth of damage and sparking 40,000-plus insurance claims. In just 18 minutes, of rain fell, causing havoc as streets were flooded and trains, planes, and cars were brought to a standstill.


title: Supercell

text: That same month, on March 22, 2010 a supercell hit Perth. This storm was one of the worst in the city's history, causing hail stones of in size and torrential rain. The city had its average March rainfall in just seven minutes during the storm. Hail stones caused severe property damage, from dented cars to smashed windows. The storm itself caused more than 100 million dollars in damage.


title: Supercell

text: On November 27, 2014 a supercell hit the inner city suburbs including the CBD of Brisbane. Hailstones up to softball size cut power to 71,000 properties, injuring 39 people, and causing a damage bill of $1 billion AUD. A wind gust of 141 km/h was recorded at Archerfield Airport


title: Supercell

text: An area in South America known as the is considered to be the second most frequent location for severe weather, after Tornado Alley in the United States. The region, which covers portions of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil during the spring and summer, often experiences strong thunderstorms which may include tornadoes. One of the first known South American supercell thunderstorms to include tornadoes occurred on September 16, 1816, and destroyed the town of Rojas ( west of the city of Buenos Aires).


title: Supercell

text: On September 20, 1926, an EF4 tornado struck the city of Encarnación (Paraguay), killing over 300 people and making it the second deadliest tornado in South America. On 21 April 1970, the town of Fray Marcos in the Department of Florida, Uruguay experienced an F4 tornado that killed 11, the strongest in the history of the nation. January 10, 1973 saw the most severe tornado in the history of South America: The San Justo tornado, 105 km north of the city of (Argentina), was rated EF5, making it the strongest tornado ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, with winds exceeding 400 km/h. On April 13, 1993, in less than 24 hours in the province of Buenos Aires was given the largest tornado outbreak in the history of South America. There were more than 300 tornadoes recorded, with intensities between F1 and F3. The most affected towns were Henderson (EF3), Urdampilleta (EF3) and Mar del Plata (EF2). In December 2000, a series of twelve tornadoes (only registered) affected the Greater Buenos Aires and the province of Buenos Aires, causing serious damage. One of them struck the town of Guernica, and, just two weeks later, in January 2001, an EF3 again devastated Guernica, killing 2 people.


title: Supercell

text: The December 26, 2003 Tornado F3 happened in Cordoba, with winds exceeding 300 km/h, which hit Córdoba Capital, just 6 km from the city center, in the area known as CPC Route 20, especially neighborhoods of San Roque and Villa Fabric, killing 5 people and injuring hundreds. The tornado that hit the State of São Paulo in 2004 was one of the most destructive in the state, destroying several industrial buildings, 400 houses, killing one and wounding 11. The tornado was rated EF3, but many claim it was a tornado EF4. In November 2009, four tornadoes, rated F1 and F2 reached the town of Posadas (capital of the province of Misiones, Argentina), generating serious damage in the city. Three of the tornadoes affected the airport area, causing damage in Barrio Belén. On April 4, 2012, the Gran Buenos Aires was hit by the storm Buenos Aires, with intensities F1 and F2, which left nearly 30 dead in various locations.


title: Supercell

text: On February 21, 2014, in Berazategui (province of Buenos Aires), a tornado of intensity F1 caused material damage including a car was, with two occupants inside, which was elevated a few feet off the ground and flipped over asphalt, both the driver and his passenger were slightly injured. The tornado caused no fatalities. The severe weather that occurred on Tuesday 8/11 had features rarely seen in such magnitude in Argentina. In many towns of La Pampa, San Luis, Buenos Aires and Cordoba, intense hail stones fell up to 6 cm in diameter. On Sunday December 8, 2013, severe storms took place in the center and the coast. The most affected province was Córdoba, storms and supercells type "bow echos" also developed in Santa Fe and San Luis.


title: Supercell

text: Europe has its own hotspots for tornadoes and severe weather. Especially in the summer months damaging supercells occur frequently and parts of France, Germany and north Italy are experiencing a number of strong and violent tornadoes every decade.


title: Supercell

text: During the evening of August 3, 2008, a supercell formed over northern France. It spawned an F4 tornado in the Val de Sambre area, about 90 kilometers east of Lille, which impacted nearby cities such as Maubeuge and Hautmont. This same supercell later went on to generate other tornadoes in the Netherlands and Germany.


title: Supercell

text: In 2009, on the night of Monday May 25, a supercell formed over Belgium. It was described by Belgian meteorologist Frank Deboosere as "one of the worst storms in recent years" and caused much damage in Belgium - mainly in the provinces of East Flanders (around Ghent), Flemish Brabant (around Brussels) and Antwerp. The storm occurred between about 1:00am and 4:00am local time. An incredible 30,000 lightning flashes were recorded in 2 hours - including 10,000 cloud-to-ground strikes. Hailstones up to across were observed in some places and wind gusts over ; in Melle near Ghent a gust of was reported. Trees were uprooted and blown onto several motorways. In Lillo (east of Antwerp) a loaded goods train was blown from the rail tracks.


title: Supercell

text: On August 18, 2011, the rock festival Pukkelpop in Kiewit, Hasselt (Belgium) may have been impacted by a supercell with mesocyclone around 18:15. Tornado-like winds were reported, trees of over diameter were felled and tents came down. Severe hail scourged the campus. Five people reportedly died and over 140 people were injured. One more died a week later. The event was suspended. Buses and trains were mobilised to bring people home.


title: Supercell

text: On June 28, 2012, three supercells affected England. Two of them formed over the Midlands, producing hailstones reported to be larger than golf balls, with conglomerate stones up to 10 cm across. Burbage in Leicestershire saw some of the most severe hail. Another supercell produced a tornado near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire.


title: Supercell

text: A third supercell affected the North East region of England. The storm struck the Tyneside area directly and without warning during evening rush hour causing widespread damage and travel chaos, with people abandoning cars and being trapped due to lack of public transport. Flooded shopping malls were evacuated, Newcastle station was shut, as was the Tyne & Wear Metro, and main road routes were flooded leading to massive tailbacks. 999 land line services were knocked out in some areas and the damage ran to huge amounts only visible the next day after water cleared. Many parts of County Durham and Northumberland were also affected, with thousands of homes across the North East left without power due to lightning strikes. Lightning was seen to hit the Tyne Bridge (Newcastle).


title: Supercell

text: Throughout June 2014, an outbreak of severe supercells occurred in western Europe, producing a lot of damaging hail especially in France. In the Paris area, some hailstones reached 8 cm of diameter but the biggest was found in the Loiret department with an exceptional diameter of 12 cm.


title: Supercell

text: On 25 July 2019 a supercell thunderstorm affected northern England and parts of Northumberland. Large hail, frequent lightning and rotation were reported by many people. On 24 September 2020 a similar event affected parts of West Yorkshire.


title: Supercell

text: On the morning of June 19, 2021, a MCS developed over the French Atlantic coast. While progressing to the north, the system gained supercellular aspects and spawned a F2 tornado 60 kilometers west of Tours. It reached Paris and its surroundings in the late afternoon, causing flash floods in the area due to heavy rainfalls. The system continued its path towards the Belgian frontier, reaching peak intensity: in the way, one of the peripheral supercells evolved into HP status just before entering the city of Reims. The main mesocyclone suddenly expanded and turned into a massive shelf cloud, a typical structure of the Tornado Alley. It produced strong gust winds, rainfalls and hail and inflicted a lot of damage over the nearby areas.


title: Supercell

text: Only 5 days after that on June 24, 2021, a supercell produced an F4 tornado in south Moravia, Czech Republic. This tornado caused 6 deaths and left more than 200 people injured. With roughly $700 million of damage it was one of the costliest tornadoes to occur outside of the United States.


title: Supercell

text: In Europe, the mini-supercell, or low-topped supercell, is very common, especially when showers and thunderstorms develop in cooler polar air masses with a strong jet stream above, especially in the left exit-region of a jetstreak.


title: Supercell

text: The Tornado Alley is a region of the central United States where severe weather is common, particularly tornadoes. Supercell thunderstorms can affect this region at any time of the year, but they are most common in the spring. Tornado watches and warnings are frequently necessary in the spring and summer. Most places from the Great Plains to the East Coast of the United States and north as far as the Canadian Prairies, the Great Lakes region, and the St. Lawrence River will experience one or more supercells each year.


title: Supercell

text: Gainesville, Georgia was the site of the fifth deadliest tornado in U.S. history in 1936, where Gainesville was devastated and 203 people were killed.


title: Supercell

text: The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak affected the city of Grand Island, Nebraska on June 3, 1980. Seven tornadoes touched down in or near the city that night, killing 5 and injuring 200.


title: Supercell

text: The Elie, Manitoba tornado was an F5 that struck the town of Elie, Manitoba on June 22, 2007. While several houses were leveled, no one was injured or killed by the tornado.


title: Supercell

text: A massive tornado outbreak on May 3, 1999, spawned an F5 tornado in the area of Oklahoma City that had the highest recorded winds on Earth. This outbreak spawned over 66 tornadoes in Oklahoma alone. On this day throughout the area of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, over 141 tornadoes were produced. This outbreak resulted in 50 fatalities and 895 injuries.


title: Supercell

text: A series of tornadoes, which occurred in May 2013, caused severe devastation to Oklahoma City in general. The first tornado outbreaks occurred on May 18 to May 21 when a series of tornadoes hit. From one of the storms developed a tornado which was later rated EF5, which traveled across parts of the Oklahoma City area, causing a severe amount of damage. This tornado was first spotted in Newcastle. It touched the ground for 39 minutes, crossing through a heavily populated section of Moore. Winds with this tornado peaked at . Twenty-three fatalities and 377 injuries were caused by the tornado. Sixty-one other tornadoes were confirmed during the storm period. Later on in the same month, on the night of May 31, 2013, another eight deaths were confirmed from what became the widest tornado on record which hit El Reno, Oklahoma, one of a series of tornadoes and funnel clouds which hit nearby areas.


title: Supercell

text: South Africa witnesses several supercell thunderstorms each year with the inclusion of isolated tornadoes. On most occasions these tornadoes occur in open farmlands and rarely cause damage to property, as such many of the tornadoes which do occur in South Africa are not reported. The majority of supercells develop in the central, northern, and north eastern parts of the country. The Free State, Gauteng, and Kwazulu Natal are typically the provinces where these storms are most commonly experienced, though supercell activity is not limited to these provinces. On occasion, hail reaches sizes in excess of golf balls, and tornadoes, though rare, also occur.


title: Supercell

text: On 6 May 2009, a well-defined hook echo was noticed on local South African radars, along with satellite imagery this supported the presence of a strong supercell storm. Reports from the area indicated heavy rains, winds and large hail.


title: Supercell

text: On October 2, 2011, two devastating tornadoes tore through two separate parts of South Africa on the same day, hours apart from each other. The first, classified as an EF2 hit Meqheleng, the informal settlement outside Ficksburg, Free State which devastated shacks and homes, uprooted trees, and killed one small child. The second, which hit the informal settlement of Duduza, Nigel in the Gauteng province, also classified as EF2 hit hours apart from the one that struck Ficksburg. This tornado completely devastated parts of the informal settlement and killed two children, destroying shacks and RDP homes.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: The NBA high school draftees are players who have been drafted to the National Basketball Association (NBA) straight out of high school. The process of jumping directly from high school to the professional level is also known as going prep-to-pro. Since 2006, the practice of drafting high school players has been prohibited by the new collective bargaining agreement, which requires that players who enter the draft be 19 years of age or older and at least one year removed from high school.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: The NBA has long had a preference for players who played college basketball; the vast majority of players to play in the NBA attended college beforehand.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: In the early years of the NBA draft, a player had to finish his four-year college eligibility to be eligible for selection. Reggie Harding, who had graduated from high school but did not enroll in a college, became the first player drafted out of high school when the Detroit Pistons selected him in the fourth round of the 1962 draft. However, the NBA rules at that time prohibited a high school player to play in the league until one year after his high school class graduated. Thus, he spent a year playing in a minor league before he was re-drafted in the 1963 draft by the Pistons. He finally entered the league in the 1963–64 season and played four seasons in the NBA and American Basketball Association (ABA).


title: NBA high school draftees

text: In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court decision "Haywood v. National Basketball Association" ruled against the NBA's requirement that a player must wait four years after high school graduation (which in most cases was spent playing in college) before turning professional. This ruling allowed players to enter the NBA draft without waiting four years, provided they could give evidence of hardship to the NBA office. The NBA's rival, the ABA, had already instituted a hardship exemption in 1969.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: Moses Malone was the first to play professionally directly out of high school in 1974, though with an ABA team before the merger of that association with the NBA. Two high school players, Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby, applied for hardship and were declared eligible for the 1975 draft. They had applied and gave evidence of financial hardship to the league, which granted them the right to start earning a living by starting their professional careers earlier. Dawkins was selected 5th by the Philadelphia 76ers while Willoughby was selected 19th by the Atlanta Hawks. Dawkins played 14 seasons and averaged 12 points and 6 rebounds per game. Willoughby played 8 seasons with 6 different teams and averaged only 6 points per game. Neither player reached the level of success that was expected. It is argued that they could have been better players if they had college basketball experience before entering the NBA.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: After Dawkins and Willoughby, no high schoolers were drafted for 14 years, though several players entered the league without playing college basketball. One player, Shawn Kemp, enrolled in college but never played any games due to personal problems. In 1989, a year after his high school graduation, he was drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics. He played 14 seasons in the NBA and was selected to 6 All-Star Games and 3 All-NBA Teams.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: In 1995, Kevin Garnett, "USA Today"'s high school basketball player of the year, announced his intentions to forgo college, and declared himself eligible for the 1995 NBA draft. The move was highly controversial; the conventional wisdom at the time was that high-schoolers were neither emotionally nor physically mature enough for the rigors of the NBA game. On draft day, Garnett was selected with the #5 pick in the first round by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Garnett led the Timberwolves to eight consecutive playoff berths and was a multiple All-Star during his time with the team. In 2004, the Wolves advanced to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Lakers; Garnett was named Most Valuable Player that year. After a trade in the 2007 offseason to the Boston Celtics, he was a core player in the Celtics' first NBA title in over 20 years.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: In 1996, two notable players made the jump from high school to the NBA. The first was Kobe Bryant, selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th pick of the NBA draft, but traded almost immediately to the Los Angeles Lakers. The second was Jermaine O'Neal, selected by the Trail Blazers with the 17th pick. O'Neal was traded in 2000 to the Indiana Pacers (and later to the Miami Heat). In 1997, another All-Star caliber player, Tracy McGrady, was selected by the Toronto Raptors. In 1998, three high-schoolers were drafted with Al Harrington and Rashard Lewis experiencing the most success. Darius Miles became the highest high school player selected with the third pick in the 2000 NBA Draft, until the following year.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: Beginning 2005, both the NBA and the players' union started to discuss the possibility of implementing a new age requirement. The league lobbied for an age minimum of 20 while the union was against an age requirement. Finally in July 2005, both sides compromised in the new collective bargaining agreement, requiring that the minimum age for entry into the NBA be 19 and that entrants be at least one year removed from high school.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: Some players support the new age limit. Gerald Green called it "a smart move", saying that "[not everybody is] LeBron James ... He came in ready and he dominated the league. There's a lot of players that have to get developed. Me, I've got to get developed. But I guess that age limit, that one year of college experience, can get you more developed and I think that's pretty good." Others, however, strongly criticize the rule. Andrew Bynum said "That's something I'll never understand. Because in no other business can the owner, or a stock trader, or a CEO of a company try to protect themselves by putting rules like that." Former Florida Gators and current Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan believed that the rule made high schoolers feel like they were being punished. Spencer Haywood, the plaintiff in the "Haywood v. National Basketball Association" decision, supported an age limit of 20, allowing players time to mature. He left college after his sophomore season to play in the ABA.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: There have been 41 high school draftees in the NBA draft. Three draftees were selected first overall; Kwame Brown in 2001 NBA draft, LeBron James in 2003, and Dwight Howard in 2004 NBA draft. Two draftees went on to win the Rookie of the Year Award in their first season: LeBron James and 2002 draftee Amar'e Stoudemire. Three draftees went on to win the Most Valuable Player Award: Kevin Garnett in , Kobe Bryant in , and LeBron James in , , , and . Ten draftees have been selected to the All-Star Game and ten draftees have been selected to the All-NBA Team.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: Despite the success of some high school players drafted, the entry of high school players into the NBA remains controversial. Critics say that high school players are not mentally and physically mature or prepared enough to handle the pressure of professional play. Thus, they are more likely to fail. Instead, they believe that colleges are useful at filtering out players who can dominate against weak competition in high school, but cannot succeed at a higher level of play. They also think that the influx of high schoolers bypassing colleges in favor of the NBA has caused collegiate game to deteriorate. Universities are wary of spending time recruiting, as many players are financially motivated to turn pro fresh out of high school.


title: NBA high school draftees

text: On the other hand, proponents argue that there is no valid reason to exclude high school players. Michael McCann, writer of law article "Illegal Defense: The Irrational Economics of Banning High School Players from the NBA Draft", contends that players drafted straight out of high school can do as well as any other players in the NBA. The article finds that "on average, these [high school] players perform better in every major statistical category than does the average NBA player". Others instead believe that the problem was due to the lack of established farm system in basketball until recently. In other major sports, such as baseball and hockey, it is common for young players to develop in their minor league systems.


title: Rifleman's Creed

text: The Rifleman's Creed (also known as My Rifle and The Creed of the United States Marine) is a part of basic United States Marine Corps doctrine. Major General William H. Rupertus wrote it during World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor between late 1941 and early 1942, but its first publication was in San Diego in the "Marine Corps Chevron" on March 14, 1942. His reasoning for writing the Creed is believed to be that he felt that his men had to understand the concept "that the only weapon which stands between them and Death is the rifle…they must understand that their rifle is their life…" In the past, all enlisted Marines would learn the Creed at recruit training. However, in recent years the Creed has been relegated to the back pages of the standard recruit training guide book, and its memorization is no longer considered required for recruits, but its significance is passed through drill instructors to their recruits throughout each cycle. Different, more concise versions of the Creed have developed since its early days, but those closest to the original version remain the most widely accepted.


title: Rifleman's Creed

text: The Rifleman's Creed continues to stand as a pillar concerning the ethos of the Marine Corps. In recruit training for enlisted Marines and Officer Candidates School for commissioned officers the Rifleman's Creed is inescapable. Whilst its continued recitation varies from company to company, platoon to platoon, its presence is assured during the period of recruit training. The Rifleman's Creed is one of the keystones of the United States Marine Corps doctrine and helps designate that every Marine is, first and foremost, a Rifleman regardless of Military Occupational Specialty (or MOS) designation. Even now, in the United States Marine Corps rifle training data book, given to recruits when undertaking Table 1 of rifle qualification, the Rifleman's Creed is printed within the data book to ensure that prior to picking up a weapon a Marine understands what their rifle means to them and their Corps. The last page of the data book reinforces this ideology with the quote from General Alfred M. Gray Jr., the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps: "Every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman. All other conditions are secondary." The Creed itself utilizes a sense of anthropomorphism in order to coerce Marines into seeing their rifle as more than a simple tool of war. This sense of almost familial attachment that a Marine feels towards their rifle is paramount, as a Marine would never leave a man behind, they would also not leave their rifle.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, u for a short, and u u for a position that may be a long or two shorts):


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Thus there are six feet, each of which is either a dactyl (– u u) or a spondee (– –). The first four feet can either be dactyls, spondees, or a mix. The fifth foot can also sometimes be a spondee, but this is rare, as it most often is a dactyl. The last foot is a spondee.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The hexameter is traditionally associated with classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin and was consequently considered to be "the" grand style of Western classical poetry. Some well known examples of its use are Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", Apollonius of Rhodes's "Argonautica", Virgil's "Aeneid", Ovid's "Metamorphoses", Lucan's "Pharsalia" (an epic on the Civil War), Valerius Flaccus's "Argonautica", and Statius's "Thebaid".


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: However, hexameters had a wide use outside of epic. Greek works in hexameters include Hesiod's "Works and Days" and "Theogony", Theocritus's "Idylls", and Callimachus's hymns. In Latin famous works include Lucretius's philosophical , Virgil's "Eclogues" and "Georgics", book 10 of Columella's manual on agriculture, as well as Latin satirical poems by the poets Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. The hexameter continued to be used in Christian times, for example in the of the 5th-century Irish poet Sedulius and Bernard of Cluny's 12th-century satire among many others.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Hexameters also form part of elegiac poetry in both languages, the elegiac couplet being a dactylic hexameter line paired with a dactylic pentameter line. This form of verse was used for love poetry by Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid, for Ovid's letters from exile, and for many of the epigrams of Martial.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Ancient Greek and Latin poetry is made up of long and short syllables arranged in various patterns. In Greek, a long syllable is () and a short syllable is (). In Latin the terms are and . The process of deciding which syllables are long and which are short is known as scansion.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: A syllable is long if it contains a long vowel or a diphthong: , . It is also long (with certain exceptions) if it has a short vowel followed by two consonants, even if these are in different words: , , . In this case a syllable like "et" is said to be long by position.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: There are some exceptions to the above rules, however. For example, "tr", "cr", "pr", "gr", and "pl" (and other combinations of a consonant with "r" or "l") can count as a single consonant, so that the word could be pronounced either with the first syllable short or with the first syllable long. Also the letter "h" is ignored in scansion, so that in the phrase the syllable "et" remains short. "qu" counts as a single consonant, so that in the word "water" the first syllable is short, not like the Italian .


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In certain words like , , , , and , "i" is a consonant, pronounced like the English "y," so has three syllables and "he threw" has two. But in , the name of Aeneas's son, "I" is a vowel and forms a separate syllable. "Trojan" has three syllables, but "of Troy" has two.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In some editions of Latin texts the consonant "v" is written as "u", in which case "u" is also often consonantal. This can sometimes cause ambiguity; e.g., in the word (= ) "he rolls" the second "u" is a consonant, but in (= ) "he wanted" the second "u" is a vowel.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: A hexameter line can be divided into six feet (Greek ἕξ "hex" = "six"). In strict dactylic hexameter, each foot would be a dactyl (a long and two short syllables, i.e. – u u), but classical meter allows for the substitution of a spondee (two long syllables, i.e. – –) in place of a dactyl in most positions. Specifically, the first four feet can either be dactyls or spondees more or less freely. The fifth foot is usually a dactyl (around 95% of the lines in Homer).


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The sixth foot can be filled by either a trochee (a long then short syllable) or a spondee. Thus the dactylic line most normally is scanned as follows:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The scansion is generally marked as follows, by placing long and short marks above the central vowel of each syllable:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In dactylic verse, short syllables always come in pairs, so words such as "soldiers" or "more easily" cannot be used in a hexameter.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In Latin, when a word ends in a vowel or -m and is followed by a word starting with a vowel, the last vowel is usually elided (i.e. removed or pronounced quickly enough not to add to the length of the syllable), for example, . Again, "h" is ignored and does not prevent elision: .


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In Greek, short vowels elide freely, and the elision is shown by an apostrophe, for example in line 2 of the "Iliad": () "which caused countless sufferings for the Achaeans". However, a long vowel is not elided: (). This feature is sometimes imitated in Latin for special effect, for example, "with womanly wailing" ("Aen". 9.477).


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: When a vowel is elided, it does not count in the scansion; so for the purposes of scansion, has four syllables.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Almost every hexameter has a word break, known as a caesura , in the middle of the 3rd foot, sometimes (but not always) coinciding with a break in sense. In most cases (85% of lines in Virgil) this comes after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as in in the above example. This is known as a strong or masculine caesura.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: When the 3rd foot is a dactyl, the caesura can come after the second syllable of the 3rd foot; this is known as a weak or feminine caesura. It is more common in Greek than in Latin. An example is the first line of Homer's "Odyssey":


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In Latin (but not in Greek, as the above example shows), whenever a feminine caesura is used in the 3rd foot, it is usually accompanied by masculine caesuras in the 2nd and 4th feet also:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Sometimes a line is found without a 3rd foot caesura, such as the following. In this case the 2nd and 4th foot caesuras are obligatory:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The hexameter was first used by early Greek poets of the oral tradition, and the most complete extant examples of their works are the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", which influenced the authors of all later classical epics that survive today. Early epic poetry was also accompanied by music, and pitch changes associated with the accented Greek must have highlighted the melody, though the exact mechanism is still a topic of discussion.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: This line also includes a masculine caesura after , a break that separates the line into two parts. Homer employs a feminine caesura more commonly than later writers. An example occurs in "Iliad" 1.5:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Homer’s hexameters contain a higher proportion of dactyls than later hexameter poetry. They are also characterised by a laxer following of verse principles than later epicists almost invariably adhered to. For example, Homer allows spondaic fifth feet (albeit not often), whereas many later authors do not.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Homer also altered the forms of words to allow them to fit the hexameter, typically by using a dialectal form: "ptolis" is an epic form used instead of the Attic "polis" as necessary for the meter. Proper names sometimes take forms to fit the meter, for example "Pouludamas" instead of the metrically unviable "Poludamas".


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Here the word ("epos") was originally ("wepos") in Ionian; the digamma, later lost, lengthened the last syllable of the preceding ("eipas") and removed the apparent defect in the meter. A digamma also saved the hiatus in the third foot. This example demonstrates the oral tradition of the Homeric epics that flourished before they were written down sometime in the 7th century BC.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Most of the later rules of hexameter composition have their origins in the methods and practices of Homer.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The hexameter came into Latin as an adaptation from Greek long after the practice of singing the epics had faded. Consequentially, the properties of the meter were learned as specific rules rather than as a natural result of musical expression. Also, because the Latin language generally has a higher proportion of long syllables than Greek, it is by nature more spondaic. Thus the Latin hexameter took on characteristics of its own.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The earliest example of hexameter in Latin poetry is the "Annales" of Ennius (now mostly lost except for about 600 lines), which established it as the standard for later Latin epics; it was written towards the end of Ennius's life about 172 BC. Ennius experimented with different kinds of lines, for example, lines with five dactyls:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: However, most of these features were abandoned by later writers or used only occasionally for special effect.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Later Republican writers, such as Lucretius, Catullus, and even Cicero, wrote hexameter compositions, and it was at this time that the principles of Latin hexameter were firmly established and followed by later writers such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, and Juvenal. Virgil's opening line for the "Aeneid" is a classic example:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In Latin, lines were arranged so that the metrically long syllables—those occurring at the beginning of a foot—often avoided the natural stress of a word. In the earlier feet of a line, meter and stress were expected to clash, while in the last two feet they were expected to coincide, as in above. The coincidence of word accent and meter in the last two feet could be achieved by restricting the last word to one of two or three syllables.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Most lines (about 85% in Virgil) have a caesura or word division after the first syllable of the 3rd foot, as above . This is known as a strong or masculine caesura. Because of the penultimate accent in Latin, this ensures that the word accent and meter will not coincide in the 3rd foot. But in those lines with a feminine or weak caesura, such as the following, there is inevitably a coincidence of meter and accent in the 3rd foot:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: To offset this, whenever there was a feminine caesura in the 3rd foot, there was usually also a masculine caesura in the 2nd and 4th feet, to ensure that in those feet at least, the word accent and meter did not coincide.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: By the age of Augustus, poets like Virgil closely followed the rules of the meter and approached it in a highly rhetorical way, looking for effects that can be exploited in skilled recitation. For example, the following line from the "Aeneid" (8.596) describes the movement and sound of galloping horses:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: This line is made up of five dactyls and a closing spondee, an unusual rhythmic arrangement that imitates the described action. A different effect is found in 8.452, where Virgil describes how the blacksmith sons of Vulcan forged Aeneas' shield. The five spondees and the word accents cutting across the verse rhythm give an impression of huge effort:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: A slightly different effect is found in the following line (3.658), describing the terrifying one-eyed giant Polyphemus, blinded by Ulysses. Here again there are five spondees but there are also three elisions, which cause the word accent of all the words but to coincide with the beginning of each foot:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: A succession of long syllables in some lines indicates slow movement, as in the following example where Aeneas and his companion the Sibyl (a priestess of Apollo) were entering the darkness of the world of the dead:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The following example ("Aeneid" 2.9) describes how Aeneas is reluctant to begin his narrative, since it is already past midnight. The feminine caesura after without a following 4th-foot caesura ensures that all the last four feet have word accent at the beginning, which is unusual. The monotonous effect is reinforced by the assonance of "dent ... dent" and the alliteration of S ... S:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Dactyls are associated with sleep again in the following unusual line, which describes the activity of a priestess who is feeding a magic serpent ("Aen." 4.486). In this line, there are five dactyls, and every one is accented on the first syllable:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: A different technique, at 1.105, is used when describing a ship at sea during a storm. Here Virgil places a single-syllable word at the end of the line. This produces a jarring rhythm that echoes the crash of a large wave against the side of the ship:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The Roman poet Horace uses a similar trick to highlight the comedic irony in this famous line from his "Ars Poetica" (line 139):


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Usually in Latin the 5th foot of a hexameter is a dactyl. However, in his poem 63, Catullus several times uses a 5th foot spondee, which gives a Greek flavour to his verse, as in this line describing the forested Vale of Tempe in northern Greece:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Here there is a break in sense after a 4th-foot dactyl, a feature known as a bucolic diaeresis, because it is frequently used in Greek pastoral poetry. In fact it is common in Homer too (as in the first line of the "Odyssey" quoted above), but rare in Latin epic.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Certain stylistic features are characteristic of epic hexameter poetry, especially as written by Virgil.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Hexameters are frequently enjambed—the meaning runs over from one line to the next, without terminal punctuation—which helps to create the long, flowing narrative of epic. Sentences can also end in different places in the line, for example, after the first foot. In this, classical epic differs from medieval Latin, where the lines are often composed individually, with a break in sense at the end of each one.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Often in poetry ordinary words are replaced by poetic ones, for example or for water, for sea, for ship, for river, and so on.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: It is common in poetry for adjectives to be widely separated from their nouns, and quite often one adjective–noun pair is interleaved with another. This feature is known as hyperbaton "stepping over". An example is the opening line of Lucan's epic on the Civil War:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Another example is the opening of Ovid's mythological poem Metamorphoses where the word "new" is in a different line from "bodies" which it describes:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: One particular arrangement of words that seems to have been particularly admired is the golden line, a line which contains two adjectives, a verb, and two nouns, with the first adjective corresponding to the first noun such as:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Catullus was the first to use this kind of line, as in the above example. Later authors used it rarely (1% of lines in Ovid), but in silver Latin it became increasingly popular.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Virgil in particular used alliteration and assonance frequently, although it is much less common in Ovid. Often more than one consonant was alliterated and not necessarily at the beginning of words, for example:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Rhetorical devices such as anaphora, antithesis, and rhetorical questions are frequently used in epic poetry. Tricolon is also common:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The poems of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid often vary their narrative with speeches. Well known examples are the speech of Queen Dido cursing Aeneas in book 4 of the "Aeneid", the lament of the nymph Juturna when she is unable to save her brother Turnus in book 12 of the "Aeneid", and the quarrel between Ajax and Ulysses over the arms of Achilles in book 13 of Ovid's "Metamorphoses". Some speeches are themselves narratives, as when Aeneas tells Queen Dido about the fall of Troy and his voyage to Africa in books 2 and 3 of the "Aeneid". Other styles of writing include vivid descriptions, such as Virgil's description of the god Charon in "Aeneid" 6, or Ovid's description of Daedalus's labyrinth in book 8 of the "Metamorphoses"; similes, such as Virgil's comparison of the souls of the dead to autumn leaves or clouds of migrating birds in "Aeneid" 6; and lists of names, such as when Ovid names 36 of the dogs who tore their master Actaeon to pieces in book 3 of the "Metamorphoses".


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Raven divides the various styles of the hexameter in classical Latin into three types: the early stage (Ennius), the fully developed type (Cicero, Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, with Lucretius about midway between Ennius and Cicero), and the conversational type, especially Horace, but also to an extent Persius and Juvenal. One feature which marks these off is their often irregular line endings (for example, words of one syllable) and also the very conversational, un-epic style. Horace in fact called his satires ("conversations"). The word order and vocabulary is much as might be expected in prose. An example is the opening of the 9th satire of book 1:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: The verse innovations of the Augustan writers were carefully imitated by their successors in the Silver Age of Latin literature. The verse form itself then was little changed as the quality of a poet's hexameter was judged against the standard set by Virgil and the other Augustan poets, a respect for literary precedent encompassed by the Latin word '. Deviations were generally regarded as idiosyncrasies or hallmarks of personal style and were not imitated by later poets. Juvenal, for example, was fond of occasionally creating verses that placed a sense break between the fourth and fifth foot (instead of in the usual caesura positions), but this technique—known as the bucolic diaeresis—did not catch on with other poets.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In the late empire, writers experimented again by adding unusual restrictions to the standard hexameter. The rhopalic verse of Ausonius is a good example; besides following the standard hexameter pattern, each word in the line is one syllable longer than the previous, e.g.:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Also notable is the tendency among late grammarians to thoroughly dissect the hexameters of Virgil and earlier poets. A treatise on poetry by Diomedes Grammaticus is a good example, as this work categorizes dactylic hexameter verses in ways that were later interpreted under the golden line rubric. Independently, these two trends show the form becoming highly artificial—more like a puzzle to solve than a medium for personal poetic expression.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: By the Middle Ages, some writers adopted more relaxed versions of the meter. Bernard of Cluny, in the 12th century, for example, employs it in his "De Contemptu Mundi", but ignores classical conventions in favor of accentual effects and predictable rhyme both within and between verses, e.g.:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: Not all medieval writers are so at odds with the Virgilian standard, and with the rediscovery of classical literature, later Medieval and Renaissance writers are far more orthodox, but by then the form had become an academic exercise. Petrarch, for example, devoted much time to his "Africa", a dactylic hexameter epic on Scipio Africanus, completed in 1341, but this work was unappreciated in his time and remains little read today. It begins as follows:


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: In contrast, Dante decided to write his epic, the "Divine Comedy" in Italian—a choice that defied the traditional epic choice of Latin dactylic hexameters—and produced a masterpiece beloved both then and now.


title: Dactylic hexameter

text: With the New Latin period, the language itself came to be regarded as a medium only for serious and learned expression, a view that left little room for Latin poetry. The emergence of Recent Latin in the 20th century restored classical orthodoxy among Latinists and sparked a general (if still academic) interest in the beauty of Latin poetry. Today, the modern Latin poets who use the dactylic hexameter are generally as faithful to Virgil as Rome's Silver Age poets.