Poetomachia

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A battle or rivalry between poets, often involving disputes over style or literary superiority
2. A conflict involving poets, marked by competition or opposition in literary expression
3. An antagonistic struggle among poets characterized by contests or clashes in poetry

Etymology: Thomas Dekker, the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwright and pamphleteer, is credited with coining this word, a compound of "poet" and the Greek "mákhē," meaning "battle." It names a quarrel between poets, a rivalry that the writers of the period would have recognised all too well, since poetic feuds were a lively part of London literary life. The second element is the more interesting one for the English reader. "Mákhē" gave English a whole family of battle words, such as "-machy" in the sense of a fight or contest, and many coinings of this type were made by writers who enjoyed building learned names for their own disputes. The word is therefore a deliberate piece of classical coinage in English rather than an inherited term, and its form shows exactly how it was built: a familiar English noun joined to a Greek combining element.

Synonyms: poetic conflict, poetic battle