Our _third_ and final aspect of poetic expression is necessitated
by the fact that the imagination of the poet does not merely invest
ideas in words, but does so in the form of the uttered speech; and by
doing so he consequently enters the domain wherein our senses are made
aware of the actual sounds and music of speech. We are thus introduced
to versification. Versified prose may give us verses, but that is
not necessarily poetry. We have a parallel case in the merely poetic
expression of a composition in other respects prosaic with its result
of poetic prose simply. Yet for all that metre or rhyme is an essential
demand of poetry, bringing, as it were, a perfume of its own to the
senses; nay, it is even more essential than a richly imaginative and
so-called beautiful diction.
And in truth the artistic elaboration of this sensuous medium[14]
unfolds to us--it is the very demand of the art itself--another realm,
another field, which we only really enter after having left behind us
the prose of ordinary life, whether viewed as action or as literary
composition. The poet is thereby compelled to move in a literary
atmosphere outside the boundary of everyday speech, and to shape his
compositions with an exclusive regard to the rules and requirements of
Art. It is therefore only a superficial theory which would banish all
versification on the ground that it contradicts natural expression.
It is true that Lessing, in his hostility to the false pathos of the
French Alexandrine metre, attempted, more particularly in tragedy, to
introduce a form of prose speech as most appropriate. Both Schiller and
Goethe have, in the more stormy works of their youth, and under the
natural impulse of compositions carrying a greater surfeit of content,
adopted the same principle. But Lessing himself, in his Nathan,
finally returns once more to the iambic. And in the same way with his
Don Carlos Schiller deserted the old path. Goethe too was so little
satisfied with the earlier prosaic treatment of his Iphigeneia and
Tasso, that he transferred them to art's more proper domain, remoulding
them both from the point of view of expression and prosody in that
purer form, wherein these compositions continue and will continue to
excite our admiration.
No doubt the artificiality of the verse measure or the recurrent echoes
of rhyme has the appearance of an unyielding[15] bond between spiritual
ideas and the sensuous medium, more rigorous indeed than colour in
painting. External objects and the human form are coloured in Nature,
and the colourless is an arbitrary abstraction. The idea, on the
contrary, in association with the sounds of human speech, which are
employed in the wholly capricious symbols of their utterance, possess
only a distant or no ideal thread of connection at all. This being so,
the exacting demand of the prosodical rules will very readily appear
as a fetter to the imagination, in virtue of which it is no longer
possible for the poet to communicate his ideas in the precise form
in which they float upon his phantasy. The inference is natural that
although the stream of rhythm and the music of rhyme exercises upon us
as an unquestionable fascination, it is nevertheless not unfrequently
and too much so the demand of this very charm to our senses that the
finest poetic feeling and idea should be sacrificed. But the objection
for all that will not hold water. In other words it is not true that
versification is simply an obstruction to spontaneous movement. A
genuine artistic talent throughout moves in its sensuous material as in
its native element, which so far from being oppressive or a hindrance
acts as a stimulus and a support. And in fact we find that all really
great poets move with freedom and confidence in the measure, rhythm or
rhyme they have created; and it is only when they are translated that
our artistic sense is frequently pained or shocked at the attempt to
retrace their rhythm and melody. Moreover it is part of the liberality
of the art that the very circumstances of the restraint, involving
much change, concentration or expansion of the ideas expressed, should
suggest to our poet new thoughts, incidents and creations, which, apart
from such difficulties, had never crossed his mind. But in truth quite
apart from this relative advantage this sensuous and determinate form
of being--in the case of poetry the melodious chain of words--is once
for all essential to art. It is absolutely necessary that the result
should not remain in the formless and undefined stream that we have
in the immediate contingency of ordinary conversation. It must appear
in the vital design and elaboration of art. And although this form
no doubt in the music of poetry may sound too as a purely external
instrument, it has nevertheless to be treated as an end on its own
account, and as such as an essentially harmonious self-defined whole.
This attention, which is due to the medium of sense, contributes,
as in Art universally, and in the interest of seriousness,[16] yet
another point of view where we find this very austerity vanishes; both
poet and listener feel it no more. They are lifted into a region of
exhilarating charm and grace.
In painting and sculpture the artist is given the form in its material
and spatial limitations for the portrayal and colouring of human limbs,
rocks, trees, clouds and flowers. In architecture also the requirements
and objects of the buildings proposed dictate more or less the defined
shape given to walls, towers and roofs. In the same-way music already
possesses stable definition in the fundamental laws of harmony. In the
art of poetry, however, the sound of language to our aural sense is,
in the first instance, unbridled;[17] the poet has consequently to
regulate such absence of rule within objective limits, and to outline
a more stable conture, a more definite framework of sound for his
conceptions, their structure and their objective beauty.
Just as in musical declamation the rhythm and melody should accept and
adapt itself to the nature of the content, versification is also a
kind of music, which, at its own distance, is capable of essentially
re-echoing the mysterious, but none the less definite, course and
character of the ideas. Agreeably with this the verse-measure ought to
reflect the general tone and, as it were, the spiritual perfume of an
entire poem, and it is by no means a question of no consequence whether
the external form is one of iambics, trochaics, stanzas, alcaics or any
other metre.
In the heads of discussion we propose to follow of most importance are
_two_ systems, whose distinction from each other we shall endeavour
to explain. The _first_ is _rhythmical_ versification, which depends
upon the actual length or shortness of the verbal syllables, whether we
regard such in the association of varied figures of speech, or under
the relation of their time-movement.
The _second_ is that which is responsible for _tonal quality_ as such,
not merely in the case of isolated letters, consonants or vowels,
but also in that of entire syllables and words, the configuration of
which is in part regulated by the laws of the uniform repetition
of identical or similar sounds, and in part by those of symmetrical
change. It is to this system that we refer the alliteration, assonance
and rhyme.
Both systems stand in intimate connection with the prosody of speech.
This is so whether such systems are rather based throughout on the
actual length or shortness of syllables, or on the accent which the
mind requires,[18] as attached to the obvious importance of such
syllables.
And, _finally_, we have also to _unite_ together this general
rhythmical movement with the music of the independent formal structure
as rhyme.[19] And in this effort, inasmuch as the repeated echo of the
rhyme strikes the ear with a marked emphasis, which asserts itself
predominantly over the purely temporal condition of duration and
advance, the rhythmical aspect will, in such a conjunction, tend to
fall back, and arrest our attention with less force.
(_a_) _Rhythmical Versification._
In discussing the rhythmical system which is without rhyme the
following points are of the most importance:
_First_, we have the firm and fast time-measure of syllables in their
plain distinction of _long_ and _shorty_ as well as their manifold
association with definite conditions and metres of poetry.
_Secondly_, we have the animation of rhythm in accent, caesura and
opposition between the verse accent and that of separate words.
_Thirdly_, there is the aspect of _euphonious sounds_ which, within
this movement, is forthcoming from the sound of the words, without any
further concentration in rhyme.
(_a_) For that rhythmical movement which the _time duration_ and the
movement itself makes of first importance rather than the melodic sound
as such and singled in its isolated effect, (_αα_) we find our starting
point in the _natural_ length and shortness of syllables to the obvious
distinctions of which the sound of the actual words, the expression
of their letters, in consonants and vowels, contribute the essential
basis.
Pre-eminently long by nature are the diphthongs ai, oi, ae, and the
rest, for the reason that essentially--whatever our modern schoolmaster
may say to the contrary--they are themselves a twofold, concrete tone,
which combines, much as green does among the colours. The long-sounding
vowels are equally so. As a third principle, which obtains already
in Sanscrit, no less than the Greek and Latin languages, we have
associated with them peculiar conditions of position. In other words,
if two or more consonants are placed between two vowels the relation
constitutes what is unquestionably a difficult transition in speech.
The organ of articulate utterance requires a longer period to pass
over the consonants; this necessitates a pause which, despite of the
presence of the short vowel, makes the syllable sound in its rhythm
long, though it is not actually lengthened. If I speak the words
for example_--mentem nec secus_--the movement from the one vowel to
the other in _mentem_ and _nec_ is neither as simple or easy as in
_secus_. More modern languages do not retain this last distinction with
such stringency, but rather give effect, in the matter of long and
short accent, to other criteria. But for all that syllables which are
treated as short, despite of the position referred to, at least will
not unfrequently create a harsh impression, because they obstruct the
quicker movement our ear demands.
In contradistinction to the long quantity we have in diphthongs, long
vowels and length created by position, we have the vowels which are by
nature _short_, that is, those which are short, or which are not placed
in words, where one of them and another immediately following are
separated by two or more consonants.
(_ββ_) For the reason, then, that words, partly on their own account,
as of several syllables, include a number of long and short beats, and
in part, although of one syllable, are nevertheless associated with
other words, we have thereby to start with a definite, but accidental
interchange of various syllables and words without any stable
measure. To regulate this accidental relation is just the function
of poetry, precisely as it was that of music to define with accuracy
the unregulated duration of particular tones by means of the unity
of time-measure. Poetry therefore establishes specific combinations
of long and short syllables as the law, by virtue of which, under the
aspect of _time-duration,_ it has to arrange the series of syllables.
What we therefore get in the first instance are the different
successions of time. The simplest is the mutual relation of pure
equality, as, for example, we find it in the dactyl and anapaest, in
which the two short syllables may coalesce according to definite rule
in two long syllables (the spondee). Secondly, a long syllable may be
placed next one short; in that case we have a profounder distinction of
derivation, though under its simplest form. Such are the iambus and the
trochee. We find a more complicated combination, when a short syllable
is interposed between two long ones, or one short precedes two long, as
in the cretic and bacchius.
(_γγ_) Such _isolated_ time-relations would, however, open the door
to unregulated contingency if they were permitted to follow one
another anyhow in their motley differences. In fact the entire aim
of such regulation would vanish under such conditions, in other
words the regulated series of long and short syllables. From another
point of view we should wholly fail to secure a definite beginning,
conclusion, and central position, so that the caprice which here
once again asserted itself would entirely contradict that which we
previously established, when considering musical time-measure and
beat, as to the relation in which the percipient ego stood to the
duration of tones. In other words, the ego requires a combination on
its own account,[20] a return out of the continuous forward movement
in time; and only seizes on the same in virtue of definite unities of
time and their, as such, emphasized commencement,[21] regulated in
their entire series and terminations. This is the reason why, in the
_third_ place, poetry also sets out the particular time-relations in a
series of _verse-lines,_[22] which in respect to the type and number
of their feet, no less than in that of their commencement, progress,
and conclusion, are subject to rule. The iambic trimeter, for instance,
consists of six iambic feet, of which any two constitute an iambic
dipody. The hexameter consists of six dactyls, which again, in certain
positions, may coalesce in spondees.
Moreover, as it is no objection to such lines of verse-writing that
they are repeated over and over again in the same or practically
under the same mode, we find in respect to the entire series, on the
one hand, a lack of definition so far as the one final conclusion is
concerned, and on the other a monotony, which creates perceptibly a
sense of deficiency in the ideal aspect of their manifold composition.
In order to mitigate such defects poetry makes a final advance in its
creation of the strophe and its varied organization, more particularly
with a view to lyric expression. As an illustration we have the elegiac
measure of the Greeks; there is also the alcaic and sapphic strophe,
not to mention the modes of lyric art elaborated by Pindar and the
famous Greek dramatists in their choric effusions or interludes.
However much, in their relation to time-measure, music and poetry
partake of similar conditions, we ought not, therefore, to fail to
draw attention to their dissimilarity. The most important feature
of this is that of the _beat._ The question whether there is any
real repetition measurable in time-beats of identical length in the
metre of the ancients has been the subject of strenuous controversy.
Generally speaking I think it may be affirmed that poetry, which uses
language in its words as a mere means of communication, is unable, in
respect to the time-length of its utterances, to subordinate the same
to an absolutely fixed measure of its movement in the abstract form
that is present in the time-beat of music. In music tone is simply
sound, without pause as such, and it essentially requires a stability
such as we find in the time-beat. Human speech does not require such
security, for one reason because it already possesses something fixed
and substantive in the idea, and for another because it is not thus
wholly committed to the objective medium of sound or resonance; rather
this very ideality of conscious life is the medium in which it consists
as art. For this reason poetry in fact discovers the more substantive
means of defining its arrest, continuance, pause or delay immediately
in the ideas and emotions which it clearly enunciates in language.
Music, too, in its recitatives, marks the beginning of a similar
process of separation from the immutable equality of the time-beat.
It follows from this that, if poetical metre were wholly subjugate to
the regularity of the time-beat, the distinction between music and
poetry, in this sphere at least, would vanish altogether, and the
element of time would receive a more predominant significance than is
compatible with the essential characteristics of poetry. Supported by
such a conclusion we may therefore insist that, though a _time-measure_
is of imperative value in poetry, there is no such necessity for the
abstract _time-beat_; meaning and signification[23] of the actual words
must here remain the relatively speaking more controlling force. If we
examine in this respect more closely the particular verse-measures of
the ancients the hexameter will no doubt appear most nearly attached to
a forward movement compatible with the stringency of the time-beat. The
elder Voss in fact assumed this, though, as a matter of fact, such an
assumption is already excluded by the catalexis of the last foot. When
in addition to this Voss proceeded to place the time-measure of the
alcaic and sapphic strophes on a similar basis of abstract equality, we
can only regard such a theory as a wilful caprice which does violence
to the poetry. The contention throughout is apparently due to the habit
of treating our German iambic in identical lengths of syllable measure
and time-measure. As a matter of fact the beauty of the iambic trimeter
of the ancients consisted above all in this, that it was not composed
of six iambic feet of identical lengths of time; but quite the contrary
in order that, in the first position of every dipody, spondees, or, in
their resolution, also dactyls and anapaests were permissible; and, by
reason of this, the monotonous repetition of the same time-measure, and
thereby all that is consistent with the time-beat, vanishes. We may add
that the possibility of change is yet more obvious in lyric strophes,
so that if we wish to establish such a thesis at all it must be on the
_à priori_ principle, that the time-beat is essentially necessary. As a
deduction from the plain facts we see nothing of the kind.
(_β_) With the introduction of the _accent_ and the _caesura_ we
have for the first time the animation of the time-measure; we may
parallel with this that rhythm in music, which we have discussed as the
time-beat.
(_αα_) In short in poetry also every definite time relation has, in
the first instance, its particular accent; in other words, regularly
defined intervals are asserted, which attract others and only in this
way are rounded off in a whole. Owing to this fact much play is given
to the _manifold possibilities_ of the value of syllables. On the one
hand generally long syllables appear emphasized in their contrast to
short, so that now, if the ictus falls upon them, their significance
is doubled as against the shorter, and in fact stand out themselves
as distinct from long syllables not thus accented. On the other hand,
however, it may also happen that shorter syllables receive the ictus or
accent, so that a similar emphasis is created to the one described in
the converse case.
Above all, as already observed, the beginning and termination of the
particular feet ought not with abstract precision to be identical with
the beginning and conclusion of single words. For, in the _first_
place, the reach forward[24] of the essentially exclusive word over
the termination of the foot of the line affects the connection of the
otherwise disparate rhythms. _Secondly_, when the verse accent falls on
the final sound of a word carried forward as above described, we get on
account of this in addition a distinct interval of time, the conclusion
of a word having already come to a pause in something else, so that it
is in fact this pause, which, in virtue of the accent united with it,
is expressly made perceptible as a segment of time in the otherwise
unbroken current. Caesuras of this sort are inevitable with every
kind of verse. For although the distinct accent already confers on
particular feet a more intimate and essential distinction, and thereby
a certain variety, this sort of animation, especially in the case of
verses, in which the same feet repeat each other without a break, as,
for example, in our iambic, remain for all that in a measure entirely
abstract and monotonous, and furthermore allow the particular feet to
fall apart without a common bond. It is this gray monotony which the
caesura checks, introducing a connection and more genuine animation
within what was otherwise, with its undifferentiated regularity, the
halting flow of verse, a life which, by virtue of the various positions
in which the caesura may assert itself, is itself as manifold as is
possible agreeably with the condition that its regulated definition is
held free from any approach to lawless caprice.
A _third_ accent is furthermore attached to the verse accent and
caesura, which the words in other respects and independently possess,
apart from their metrical employment. By this means the mode and
degree in which the particular syllables are emphasized or the reverse
increases in its variety. This verbal accent may, on the one hand,
no doubt appear in conjunction with the accent of the verse and
the caesura; and, if this is the case, the strength of the accents
respectively is increased. But from another point of view it may stand
independently of them on syllables which do not receive any further
emphasis, and which we may say, in so far as they moreover require
an accentuation to bring out their particular significance as verbal
syllables, assert an effect counter to the verse rhythm, an effect
which confers on the whole a novel and unique vitality.
To appreciate the beauty of rhythm in all the above aspects is for our
modern ears a very difficult matter, because in modern languages the
elements which combine to produce. this kind of metrical effect are no
longer in some measure present in the sharp and secure insistence they
possessed for the ancient world; rather we have other means substituted
for them, in order to satisfy other demands of artistic taste.
(_ββ_) But over and above all this, paramount over all valid claims of
syllables and words within their metrical position, there is, secondly,
the worth of that significance we gather from the line or verse as
_poetical idea._ It is in relation to this, which the language implies,
that its other metrical effects are either emphasized or, comparatively
speaking, are restrained as void of significance; and it is by this
means alone that the finest perfume of spiritual vitality is instilled
through the poetry. But notwithstanding this fact, such poetical effect
is not to be carried so far that it directly contradicts in this
respect the rules of metrical rhythm.
(_γγ_) Moreover, a _definite_ type of _content_ corresponds with the
entire character of a particular verse measure, particularly from the
point of view of rhythmical movement, and above all that particular
kind implied in the movement of our feelings. Thus, for example, the
hexameter, in the tranquil wave of its forward stream, is particularly
adapted to the even flow of epic narration. Where, however, it
is more in the nature of the strophe in its association with the
pentameter and its symmetrically consistent caesura, it is, in its
none the less generally simple regularity, fitted to express elegiac
emotion. The iambic again moves forward with rapidity, and as such is
peculiarly suitable to dramatic dialogue. The anapaest indicates the
clear-slipping march of joyful exultation. Other characteristics may
readily be associated with other modes of verse-measure.
(_γ_) _Thirdly_, this province of rhythmical versification is not
confined to the mere configuration and vivication of time-intervals; it
embraces the actual musical sound of syllables and words. In respect
to such sound, however, the classic languages, in which rhythm is
retained, as above described, as an essential feature, offer a real
contrast to other more recent ones more conspicuously adapted to rhyme.
(_αα_) In the Greek and Latin languages, for example, the stem
syllable is modified, by virtue of its modes of inflexion, through
an abundance of variously toned syllables, which of course possess
an independent meaning, but only as a modification of such syllable;
this consequently, it is true, asserts its force as the substantive
significance of that variously expanded sound, but it does not, so
far as its sound is concerned, stand forth as such in pre-eminent and
unique ascendancy. When we hear, for example, the word _amaverunt_,
three syllables are attached to the word, and the accent is already
substantially differentiated throughout the number and extension
of these syllables in direct relation to the stem syllable, even
assuming no naturally long ones had been included, by which means the
_fundamental significance_ and the emphasis of _accent_ are _separated_
from each other. In such a case consequently, and in so far as the
accentuation is not identical with the _main_ syllable, but falls on
another, which merely expresses an _incidental_ significance, the
ear can from this basis at once listen to the sound of the different
syllables and follow their movement, retaining, as it does, perfect
liberty to attend to that prosody peculiar to the word or phrase, and
finding itself then invited to incorporate within its rhythm these
naturally long and short syllables.
(_ββ_) The case of our modern German language is wholly different.
That which in the Greek and Latin languages is expressed, as above
described, by means of the prefix and suffix, and other modifications,
is in more modern languages for the most part resolved in verbs of
the stem syllable; the result of this is that the inflexion syllables
that have been in the former case unfolded in one and the same word,
with collateral meanings of a varied character, are now split up
and isolated in separate words. As illustrations of this we have
the constant employment of many subsidiary words denoting time, the
independent indication of the optative by means of distinct verbs,
the separation of pronouns, and other examples. By such means, on the
one hand, the word --which in the previous case adduced was expanded
in all the variety of tone which attached to its many syllables,
under which every accent of the root, that is the root idea, was
cancelled--persists as a simple totality concentrated in itself,
without appearing as a series of tones, which being, as they are, mere
modifications, do not, by virtue of their specific _sense,_ assert an
influence with such a strength that the ear is unable to attend to
their independent tonal quality and its temporal movement. And, on the
other hand, on account of this concentration the main significance is
moreover of such a force that it attracts the fall of the accent upon
itself exclusively; and just because the emphasis is thus fastened
upon the fundamental sense this very coalescence does not suffer the
quantity of the other syllables, whether long or short ones, to appear;
they are simply overwhelmed. The roots of the majority of words are
unquestionably as a general rule short, compact,[25] of one or two
syllables. If thus, as is for instance pre-eminently the case with our
mother tongue, these root-stems appropriate almost invariably the
accent to themselves, such an accent is to an overwhelming degree one
of the sense, _significance',_ not a definition, however, in which the
medium--that is, the utterance as sound--would be free, or could assert
the relation of the length, shortness, or accentuation of syllables
independently of the intelligible content of the words. Consequently a
rhythmical configuration of time-movement and emphasis liberated from
the stem syllable and its meaning can here no longer be maintained. We
have merely left us, in contradistinction to the former hearing of the
ample sound and duration of such long and short beats in their varied
juxtaposition, a general impression of sound,[26] which is apprehended.
entirely aloof from the accented fundamental syllable with its weight
of significance. And, indeed, apart from this, as we have seen, the
ramification of the stem into syllables as modified into particular
words is also an independent process. Such words receive thereby an
independent worth, and, while preserving their own significance, they
make us at the same time hear the identical coalescence of meaning
and accent, which we have observed in the case of the stem or root
word around which they are ranged. We are therefore forced to restrict
our attention to the sense of every word; and, instead of being
occupied with the natural length and shortness of syllables and their
sensuous[27] accentuation, are only able to hear the accent asserted by
the main and substantive meaning.
(_γγ_) In such modern languages the element of rhythm has little room
for its display, or at least the soul has little freedom left to
expatiate within it, because, as observed, time and the equable stream
of syllabic sound as emitted from its movement is superseded[28] by a
more ideal relation--that is to say, by the sense and meaning of the
words, and thereby the force of the more independent configuration of
rhythm is suppressed. We may in this connection compare the principle
of rhythmical versification with the plastic arts. We find in both that
the ideal significance is not as yet asserted in its independence, nor
does the former expressly define the length and accent of syllables,
but rather the meaning of the words is wholly blended with the sensuous
medium of the inherent time duration and sound, with a result that does
complete justice to the claim of such externality, wholly absorbed in
the ideal form and movement of the same. If, however, such a principle
is renounced, and yet despite of this, but in accordance with the
necessary demand of art, the sensuous medium is permitted to retain a
certain force of resistance as against the exclusive assertion of ideal
content,[29] in order to this end to divert the ear's attention,--in
the case that is, where what we may call the plastic moment of that
more ancient mode of syllabic quantity, as it is on its own account,
and the tonal quality inseparable from the general rhythm rather than
independently asserted --when this, as I say, has been destroyed, then
we have no other means[30] at hand save the express and artistically
configurated sound of articulate speech simply, and retained as
such in its isolation. And this leads us to our second main type of
versification--in other words, _rhyme._
(_b_) _Rhyme_
From an objective standpoint it is possible to seek to explain the
need of a novel treatment of language from the deterioration into
which the classical languages fell through their contact with foreign
relations. Such a development, however, lies in the nature of the
facts themselves. The earliest example of conformity with the ideality
of its content attempted by poetry is to be traced in the length and
shortness of syllables in independence from their significance, for the
mutual relations of which, caesurae and so forth, art elaborates its
rules, rules which it is true generally coincide with the character
of the content in its broad outlines, but which none the less, in
matters of individual detail, do not suffer either the length or
shortness of a syllable, nor its accent, to depend exclusively on the
intelligible significance making such a formal aspect subordinate,
to the point of entire detachment, to the same.[31] The more ideal,
however, and spiritual the represented idea becomes, the more it tends
to detach itself from this objective aspect, which increasingly fails
to present such ideality in plastic guise, and finally reaches a point
of self-concentration in which the, so to speak, corporeal element
of speech is in a measure wholly wiped away, and for the rest merely
asserts that wherein the intelligible significance is reposed as
necessary to its communication; all else is only admitted, by way of
by-play, as insignificant. Now romantic art, in respect to the entire
type of its conception and presentation, effects a similar passage
over to this concentrated synthesis of ideality, when it sets out in
search for the material which corresponds to this subjective content
in audible sound.[32] Following these lines romantic poetry also,
inasmuch as it generally lays most stress on the ideal tones[33] of
feeling, becomes absorbed in its preoccupation[34] with the distinct
and independent ring and tones of letters, syllables, and words;
perfecting such a process to its final satisfaction, as it learns,
either in their association with ideality, or in their connection with
the architectonically intelligible penetration[35] of such music,
to separate such syllabic and other verbal sounds or to relate or
interlace them one with another. From this point of view we may affirm
that it is not simply by way of accident that rhyme is elaborated in
romantic poetry. It is a necessary feature of it. The requirement of
soul-life, to discover itself again, is thereby more fully asserted,
and finds a real source of satisfaction in the identity of the rhyme,
which declares an indifference[36] to the unyielding laws of the
time-measure, and, by virtue of its recurrence of similar sounds, gives
exclusive effect to an effort which conducts the conscious self back
to itself. It is by this means that versification is made to approach
more closely the musical art as such, that is, the vivid tones of
soul-life itself, and is, from this point of view, liberated from the,
relatively speaking, gross material of human speech, in other words
from what we have referred to as the natural measure of quantity.
With regard to points of special interest in this subject, I will
confine myself to the following general observations:
_First_, upon the origin of rhyme.
_Secondly_, upon a few more definite features by which we may
distinguish the sphere of rhyme from that of rhythm in verse.
_Thirdly_, upon the types under which we may classify rhyme generally.
(_α_) We have already seen that rhyme belongs in its form to the art
of romantic poetry, which requires such a more pronounced emphasis of
its configurated syllabic sound posited thus on its own account. And it
is thus effected to the extent that the ideal activity of volition[37]
discovers its own presence by this means in the objective medium
of tone. Where such a need is asserted we have a mode of speech in
part meeting absolutely the conditions of form I outlined above when
discussing the necessity of rhyme; and in addition it makes use of the
old forms of language at hand, the Latin for example, which, though of
other constitution and mainly applicable to rhythmical versification,
it employs agreeably to the character of the new principle, or
reconstructs the same so far into a new language that the element of
rhythm disappears, and rhyme becomes, as in the Italian and French
languages, the matter of all importance.
(_αα_) In this respect we find throughout Christendom that rhyme is
introduced into Latin versification at a very early date with much
insistence, although, as observed, it rested on other principles.
These principles, however, are rather adapted from the Greek language;
and, so far from testifying to the fact that they originated from the
Latin speech itself, rather prove, under the modified character they
possess, a tendency which itself approaches the romantic type. In
other words, the poetry of Rome, on the one hand and in its earliest
days, discovered its source not in the natural length and shortness of
syllables, but rather measured the value of syllables relatively to
their accent; and in consequence of this it was only through a more
accurate knowledge and imitation of Greek poetry that the prosodical
principle of this was received and followed. And, moreover, the Romans
rendered more obdurate the flexible, joyous sensuousness of Greek
metres, more particularly by their use of more insistent pauses at the
caesura, as we find such not only in the hexameter, but also in the
alcaic and sapphic metres, hardening the effect thus to a structure of
more stringent outline and more severe regularity. And indeed, apart
from this, even in the full bloom of Latin literature, and from their
poets of finest culture, we have already plenty of rhymes. Thus from
Horace, in his _Ars poetica_ (verses 99-100), we get the following:
Non satis est, pulchra esse poemata: dulcia _sunto,_
Et quocunque volent, animum auditoris _agunto._
Though the poet was probably quite unconscious of the fact, it is
none the less a strange coincidence that, in the very passage in
which Horace enforces the obligation that poems should be _dulcia_,
we discover a rhyme. Similar rhymes occur in Ovid with still more
frequency. Even assuming such to be accidental, the fact remains
that they appear to have been not offensive to Roman ears, and might
consequently be permitted, although as isolated exceptions, to slip
into the composition. Yet the profounder significance of romantic
rhyme is absent from such playful exceptions. The former does not
assert the recurrent sound merely as sound, but the ideal content or
meaning implied in it. And it is precisely this which constitutes the
fundamental difference between modern rhyme and the very ancient rhyme
of the Hindoos.
As for the classical languages, it was after the invasion of barbarism,
and on account of the destruction of accentuation and the assertion of
that uniquely personal note of emotion referable to Christianity, that
the rhythmical system of verse passed into that of rhyme. Thus, in his
hymn to the Holy Spirit, Ambrosius entirely regulates the versification
according to the accent of the meaning expressed, and breaks into
rhyme. The first work of St. Augustine against the Donatists is in the
same way a rhymed song; and also the so-called Leonine versicles, as
expressly rhymed hexameters and pentameters, are easily distinguishable
from the accidental exceptions of rhyme previously noticed. These and
other examples like them mark the point of departure of rhyme from the
more ancient rhythmical system.
(_ββ_) Certain writers have no doubt attempted to trace the origin
of the new principle of versification in _Arabian_ literature. The
artistic education, however, of the famous poets of the East is of
later date than the appearance of rhyme in western Christendom; and any
Mohammedan art of a more early time exercised no real influence on the
West. We should, however, add that we find from the first in Arabian
poetry essential affinities with the romantic principle, in which the
knights of Europe, at the time of the crusades, very readily made
themselves at home; and consequently it is not difficult to understand
how, in the affinity of spiritual tendencies[38] which they shared,
and in which the poetry of Eastern Mohammedanism no less than Western
Christianity finds its source, though removed in the world from each
other, we meet for the first time and on its own independent footing a
novel type of verse writing.
(_γγ_) A _third_ source, to which again, independently of either
the influence of the classic languages or the Arabic, we may trace
the origins of rhyme and all that it implies, are the _Germanic_
languages, as we find them in their earliest Scandinavian development.
As illustration of this we have the songs of the ancient Edda, which,
though only in more recent times, collected and edited, unquestionably
date from a former age. In these, as we shall see later on, it is
not, it is true, the genuine rhyme-sound which is elaborated in its
perfection, but rather an effective emphasis upon particular sounds of
language, and a regularity defined by rule, with a definite repetition
of both aspects.
(_β_) Yet more important than the question of origin is the
characteristic _difference_ between the new system and the old. I have
already adverted to the fundamental feature of importance here; it only
remains to establish it more narrowly.
Rhythmical versification attained its most beautiful and richest
development in the field of Hellenic poetry, in which we may discover
the most eminent features of the type wherever it obtains. Briefly they
are as follows:
_First_, the sound, as such, of letters, syllables, or words does
not here constitute its material, but rather the syllabic sound in
its _temporal duration_, so that attention must neither exclusively
be directed to particular syllables or words, nor to the purely
qualitative similarity or identity of their sound. On the contrary, the
sound still remains in inseparable union with the static time-measure
of its specific duration; and in the forward movement of both the ear
has to follow the value of every separate syllable no less than the
principle which obtains in the rhythmical progression of all equally
together. _Secondly_, the measure of long and short syllables, no less
than that of rhythmical rise and fall, and varied animation derived
from more deliberate caesurae and moments of pause, depends upon the
_natural_ element of the language, without permitting any introduction
of that type of accentuation, by virtue of which the actual _meaning_
of the word leaves its impress on a syllable or a word. The
versification asserts itself in its collocation of feet, its verse
accent, its caesurae, and so forth in this respect as fully independent
as the language itself, which also, outside the domain of poetry,
already accepts accentuation from the natural quantity of syllables
and their relations of juxtaposition, and not from the significance of
the root-syllable. On this account, _thirdly_, we have as the vital
emphasis of certain syllables, first, the verse accent and rhythm,
and, secondly, all other accentuation, both of which aspects, in their
twofold contribution to the varied character of the whole, pass in and
out of one another without any mutual derangement or suppression; and
in like manner respectively they satisfy the claim of the poetical
imagination in fully admitting the expressiveness due, by virtue of the
nature of their position and movement, to words which, in respect to
their intelligible meaning, are of a greater importance than others.
(_αα_) The first alteration, then, effected by rhymed verse in
the previous system is this indisputable validity of _natural
quantity_,[39] If, therefore, any time-measure at all is permitted to
remain, it is compelled to seek for a basis for such quantitative pause
or acceleration, which it refuses any longer to find in the natural
quantity, of syllables, in some other province. And this, as we have
seen, can be no other than the intrinsic meaning of syllables and
words. It is this _significance_ which in the final instance determines
the quantitative measure of syllables, so long as such is still
regarded as essential at all, and by doing so transfers the criterium
from the purely objective medium[40] and its natural structure to the
ideal subject-matter.
(_ββ_) A further result follows from this of yet more importance. As
I have already pointed out, this collocation of the emphasis on the
significant stem-syllable dissipates that other independent diffusion
of it in manifold forms of inflexion, which our rhythmical system
is not yet forced to treat as negligible, in contrast to the stem,
because it deduces neither the natural quantity of syllables nor the
accent which it asserts from the intelligible significance. In the
case, however, where such an explication,[41] with its co-ordination
in verse-feet according to the quantity of syllables in their natural
stability, falls away the entire system therewith necessarily
collapses, which reposes on the time-measure and its laws. Of this
type, for example, is French and Italian poetry, the metre and rhythm
of which are absolutely non-existent as understood by the ancients. The
entire question is here merely one of a definite number of syllables.
(_γγ_) For such a loss there is only one possible compensation--that
of _rhyme._ In other words, if--this is one aspect--it is no longer
time-duration which receives objective expression, by means of which
the sound of syllables flows on freely in the even movement that
intrinsically belongs to them; if, furthermore, the intelligible
significance dominates over the stem-syllables, and coalesces with
the same without further organic expatiation into a determinate
unity, we have no sensuous medium, such as is able to maintain itself
independently of the time-measure, no less than this accentuation of
the stem-syllables, finally left to us other than just this syllabic
sound.
Such a sound, however, if it is to secure an independent attention,
must, in the _first_ place, be of a far more insistent kind than the
interchange of different tones, such as we met with in the older verse
metres; and its assertion must be of a far more overwhelming character
than the stress of syllables can lay claim to in ordinary speech.
What we now require has not only to compensate us for the loss of the
articulate time-measure, but it further undertakes to reassert the
sensuous medium in its opposition to that unqualified predominance of
the accentuated significance. For when once the conceptive content
has essentially attained the ideality and penetration of mind,[42]
for which the sensuous aspect of speech is of no importance, the
verbal sound must enforce itself still more positively and coarsely as
distinct from this ideality in order to arrest our attention at all.
In contrast, therefore, to the gentle movements of rhythmical euphony,
rhyme is a crude expedient,[43] which requires an ear by no means
either so trained or sensitive as that presupposed by Greek verse.
_Secondly,_ though it is true that rhyme does not here assert itself
so much as distinct from the meaning of the stem-syllables simply as
it does from the entire ideal content, yet it does at the same time
so far assist the natural verbal sound as to win for it a relatively
secure stability. But this object can only be attained if the
sound[44] of particular words affirms itself in exclusive distinction
from the resonance of other words, and thus secures an independent
existence, by virtue of which _isolation_ it satisfies the claims of
the formative aspect of the verbal medium in forceful beats of sound.
Rhyme is therefore, at least in its contrast to the evenly transfused
movement of rhythmic euphony, a detached exhibition of exclusive
tonal expression. _Thirdly,_ we found that it was the ideality of
the conscious self which, by virtue of its effort of ideal synthesis,
came into its own, and discovered its personal satisfaction in such
recurrences of sound. If, then, the means used in the older type of
versification, with its copious variety of structure, disappear, there
only remains, if we look at poetry, under the aspect of its _medium,_
to support this principle of self-recovery, the more formal repetition
of wholly identical or similar sounds, whereby again we are able to
unite under an intelligible scheme[45] the assertion and relation of
closely associated meanings in the rhyme-sounds of expressive words.
The metre of rhythmical verse we may regard as a variously articulate
interrelation of manifold syllabic quantities. Rhyme, on the contrary,
is from one point of view more material;[46] yet, on the other hand,
is itself more abstractly placed within this medium. In other words,
it is the mere recollection of mind and the ear of the recurrence of
identical or related sounds and significations--a recurrence in which
the poet is conscious of his own activity, recognizes, and is pleased
to recognize, himself therein as both agent and participant.
(_γ_) Finally, on the question of the particular _types_ under which we
may classify this more modern system of romantic poetry, I only propose
to advert briefly to what appears to me of most importance in respect
to alliteration, assonance, and ordinary rhyme.
(_αα_) The first, or at least the most thorough, example of
_alliteration_ is that we find elaborated in the earliest Scandinavian
poetry, where it supplies the fundamental basis, whereas assonance
and the terminal rhyme, albeit these two aspects play a by no means
unimportant part, are, however, only present in certain particular
kinds of such poetry. The principle of alliterative rhyme, letter
rhyme, is rhyme in its most incomplete form, because it does not
require the recurrence of the entire syllable, but only that of one
identical letter, and primarily the initial letter only. Owing to
the weakness of this type of recurrent sound it is, in the first
place, therefore necessary that only such words should be used in
its service, which already independently possess an express accent on
their first syllable; and, secondly, these words must not be remote
from one another, if the identity of their commencement is to make a
real impression on the ear. For the rest, alliterative letters may be a
vowel, no less than a double or single consonant; but it is primarily
consonants which are of most importance in the scheme. Based on such
conditions, we find in Icelandic poetry[47] the fundamental rule that
all alliterative rhymes require accentuated[48] syllables, whose
initial letters must not in the same lines occur in other substantives
which have the accent on the first syllable; and, along with this, of
the three words, the initial letters of which constitute the rhyme,
two must be found in the first line, and the third, which supplies the
dominant alliteration, must be placed at the commencement of the second
line. We may add further that, in virtue of the abstract character
of this identical sound of initial letters, words are generally made
alliterative proportionally to the importance of their signification.
We find, therefore, that here, too, the relation of accented sound to
the meaning of words is not entirely absent. I cannot, however, pursue
this subject into more detail.
(_ββ_) _Secondly_, _assonance_ has nothing to do with initial letters,
but makes a nearer approach to rhyme in so far as it is a recurrence
in identical sound of the same letters in the middle or at the
termination of different words. It is not necessary, of course, that
these assonant words should in all cases come at the conclusion of
a line; they may fall into other places. Mainly, however, it is the
concluding syllables of lines which come into this mutual relation of
assonance, as contrasted with alliteration which is effective rather at
the line's commencement. In its richest elaboration we may associate
this assonance of language with the Romance nations, more especially
the Spanish, whose full-toned language is peculiarly adapted to this
recurrence of the same vowels. As a rule, no doubt assonance is here
restricted to vowels. But the language further permits of other variety
of assonance, not only that of vowels, but also that of identical
consonants and consonants in association with one vowel.
(_γγ_) That which, as above described, alliteration and assonance are
only able to establish with incompleteness is abundantly fulfilled by
_rhyme._ In it, and expressly to the exclusion of initial letters, we
have asserted the wholly equable sound of entire verb stems,[49] which
are, by virtue of this equability, brought into an express relation
with their tonal utterance. We have no mere question now of the number
of the syllables. Words of one syllable, no less than others of two or
more, may be rhymed. By this means we not only get the masculine rhyme,
which is restricted to words of one syllable, but also the feminine
rhyme, which embraces words of two syllables, as also the so-called
gliding rhyme, which reaches to three or even more syllables. It is
in particular the languages of Northern Europe which incline to the
first type, Southern languages to the second, such as the Italian and
Spanish. The German and French languages would appear to lie between
these two extremes. Rhymes of more than three syllables are rarely to
be met with in any language.
The position of the rhyme is at the conclusion of the lines, in
which the rhyming word, although there is certainly no reason that
it should ever concentrate in itself the ideal expressiveness of the
significance, nevertheless does attract attention to itself so far as
the verbal sound is concerned; and, furthermore, it makes the different
verses or stanzas follow one another either in accordance with the
principle of a wholly abstract recurrence of the same rhyme, or by
uniting, separating, and mutually relating them in a more elaborate
mode of regulated change, and variously symmetrical interweaving of
different rhymes with correspondent relations, sometimes more near,
at others more remote, of every degree of complexity. In such a
process the particular rhymes will at one point stare us in the face
at once, or they will appear to have a game of hide-and seek; so that
in this way our ear, as it listens, will at one time receive instant
satisfaction, at another it will only find it after considerable delay,
wherein the expectation will, as it were, be coquetted with, deceived,
and kept on the stretch, until the assured end from point to point of
artistically arranged recurrence is reached, and with it the hearer's
approval.
Among the various types of the poetic art it is pre-eminently _lyric_
poetry, which, by virtue of its ideality and personal quality of
expression, most readily avails itself of rhyme, and thereby converts
language itself into a music of emotion and melodic symmetry, a
symmetry not merely of time-measure and rhythmical movement, but of
the kind of resonance which finds a responsive echo in the inner life
itself. To promote this, therefore, the art elaborates in its use
of rhyme a more simple or complex system of strophes, every one of
which is part of one organic whole. Examples of such an interplay of
melodic sound, whether steeped in emotion or rich in ingenuity, are the
sonnet, canzonet, triolet, and madrigal. Epic poetry, on the contrary,
so long as it does not mingle lyrical subject-matter with its more
native character, preserves a more equable advance in its construction,
which does not easily adapt itself to the strophe. We have an obvious
illustration of this in the triplet stanzas of Dante's "Divine Comedy,"
as contrasted with the lyrical canzonets and sonnets of the same poet.
However, I must not permit myself to go further into detail.
(_c_) Now that we have in the above investigation separated rhythmical
versification from rhyme, and _contrasted_ the same, we may now
proceed, _thirdly_, to ask ourselves whether a _combination_ of the
two is not also intelligible, and, indeed, actually employed. The
existence of certain more recent languages will render exceptional and
important aid to the solution; in other words, we cannot deny to these
either a partial reassertion of our former rhythmical system, or, in
certain respects, an association of the same with rhyme. We will, for
example, confine our attention to our mother tongue, and, in reference
to the first-mentioned aspect, it will be sufficient to recall
Klopstock, who would have as little of rhyme as possible; who not
merely in epic, but also in lyrical poetry, set himself to imitate the
ancients with the greatest enthusiasm and persistency. Voss and others
have followed in his steps, ever striving to enforce with increased
strictness principles upon which to base this rhythmical treatment of
our language. Goethe, on the contrary, never felt quite himself in his
classical syllabic measures. He asks himself, not without reason:
Stehn uns diese weiten Falten
Zu Gesichte, wie den Alten?[50]
(_α_) I will in this connection merely reiterate what I already
have observed upon the distinction which exists between ancient and
more modern languages. Rhythmical versification is based upon the
_natural_ quantity of syllables, possessing therein an essentially
stable criterion, which the ideal expression can neither limit,
alter, or weaken. Such a natural measure is, however, abhorrent to
more recent languages; in these it is only the _verbal_ accent of the
ideal significance, which makes one syllable long in its contrast to
others, which are defective in such significance. Such a principle
of accentuation, however, does not supply any audible compensation
for the absence of the natural quantity, or rather it adds to the
actual uncertainty of such a measure. For the more strongly emphasized
significance of a word can at the same time make another short, despite
the fact that, taken by itself, it possesses a verbal accent, so that
the criterion accepted is wholly one of mutual relation. _Du liebst,_
can, for instance, according to the stress of the emphasis which is
thrown, according to the sense intended, either on both words, or one
or the other, be a spondee, iambus or trochee. No doubt the attempt has
been made, even in our own tongue, to return to the _natural_ quantity
of syllables, and to create rules with this intent; but in the presence
of the overwhelming importance that the intelligible significance and
the accent it asserts has secured such a reference to theory is quite
impracticable. And in truth this agrees with the state of the facts.
If the natural measure is really to constitute the essential basis,
the language ought not as yet to have become such an instrument of
soul expression as it is of necessity in our own times. Once allow,
however, that it has already in its course of development thus secured
such a mastery of the intelligible purport over the sensuous or native
material, and it follows that the fundamental test for the value of
syllables is not to be deduced from the objective quantity itself, but
rather from that whereof words are themselves indicative as means. The
emotional impulse of a free intelligence refuses to allow the temporal
activity of language, as such, to establish itself in the independent
form of its native and objective reality.
(_β_) Such a conclusion, however, does not necessarily imply that we
are forced to oust altogether from our German language the rhymeless
rhythmical treatment of the syllabic measure; it merely in essential
respects points to this, that it is not possible, conformably with the
character of the structure of our modern speech, to retain the plastic
consistency of the metrical medium as it was secured by the ancient
world. We must consequently seek for and elaborate some further element
in poetical composition by way of compensation, which on its own
independent account is of a more ideal[51] character than the stable
natural quantity of syllables. Such an element is the accent of the
verse, no less than the caesura, which as now constituted, instead of
moving independently of the verbal accent, coalesce with the same, and
thereby receive a more significant, albeit a more abstract assertion,
in virtue of the fact that the variety of that previous threefold
accentuation, which we discovered in the rhythmical type of classical
poetry, on account of this very coalescence necessarily disappears.
It, however, equally follows as a result that we only retain the power
with conspicuous success to imitate the rhythmic movement of such
poetry where its impression on our ear is most emphatic. We no longer
possess, that is to say, the stable quantitative basis for its more
subtle distinctions and manifold connections, and the more crude mode
of accentuation, which we do possess in its place, to emphasize our
measure, is intrinsically no sufficient substitute.
(_γ_) To state, then, finally, what this actual _association_ of the
rhythmical mode of verse with rhyme is, we may go so far as to affirm
that it is the absorption, although to a limited extent, by the more
modern form of versification of the more ancient one.
(_αα_) The predominant distinction of the natural syllabic quantity
by means of the verbal accent is in fact not an entirely satisfactory
principle of the _mere medium._ It does not arrest the ear's attention,
even on the side of sense simply, so far as to make it appear,
absolutely and everywhere unnecessary, where the ideal aspect of the
poetical content is paramount, to summon the complementary assistance
of the sound and response of syllables and words.
(_ββ_) It is, however, at the same time necessary in the interest
of metre that an equally strong contrasting force should be set up
to that of the rhyme sound. In so far, however, as it is _not_ the
distinction of syllables in their natural quantity and _its variety_,
which has to be co-ordinated and made predominant, we have, in respect,
to this temporal relation, no other expedient left but the _identical
repetition_ of the same time-measure; in this the element of accented
_beat_ will tend to assert itself in a far more emphatic degree, than
is compatible with the rhythmical system. As an illustration we have
our German rhymed iambics and trochaics, in the recitation of which
far more beat stress is admitted than is proper to the scansion of the
unrhymed iambics of the ancients, although the caesura pause is capable
of bringing into emphatic relief isolated words whose accent is mainly
referable to their meaning, and is capable of further making all that
remains dependent upon them a resisting effect to the abstract equality
of the verse, and by so doing introduces a varied animation. And as
in such a particular case, so we may assert generally, the time-beat
cannot be of actual service in poetry with the force that is required
of it in most musical compositions.
(_γγ_) Although, however, we may affirm it as a general rule that
rhyme should be associated merely with such verse metres, which, by
virtue of their simple changes of the syllabic quantity and their
continuous recurrence of similar verse feet, do not on their own
independent account give sufficiently effective modality to the element
of sensuous medium in modern languages which admit at all of rhythmical
treatment, yet the application of rhyme to the more profuse syllabic
metres imitated from classical models, as, for instance, to borrow
one example only, the alcaic and sapphic strophe, will not merely
appear superfluous, but even an unresolved contradiction. Both systems
repose on opposed principles, and the attempt to unite them in the way
suggested, can only involve us in a like opposition, which can produce
nothing but a contradiction we are unable to mediate, and which is
therefore untenable. It follows, therefore, that we ought only to make
use of rhyme in cases where the principle of the older versification
merely makes itself effective in more remote implication, and through a
transitional process essentially deducible from the system of rhyme.
The above, then, are the points which we have sought to establish as,
in a broad sense, of most vital concern to poetical expression in its
contradistinction from prose.
[Footnote 1: _Bildlich,_ here not so much creative as simply plastic or
constructive.]
[Footnote 2: _Vorliebe._ His interest must be already centred in it.]
[Footnote 3: _Bildlichkeit_, _i.e._, their claims as images of something
else.]
[Footnote 4: _Vertauscht._ I have translated "exchanged," but Hegel may
mean "mistaken for."]
[Footnote 5: It is not very clear what Hegel means by the word
_Bezeichnungen._ "Turns of expression," which first occurred to me,
appears to be covered by _Flexionsformen_ lower down.]
[Footnote 6: _Gedrungenen._ The idea is suppression into a compact
mass--a cloud unable to burst save in occasional flashes.]
[Footnote 7: I presume Hegel refers here to the synthetic arrangement
of genuine paragraphs rather than phrases, composition generally.]
[Footnote 8: _Das eigentliche Wort_. The word, that is, which expresses
the fact in its immediacy.]
[Footnote 9: More literally, "being remoulded with the life and wealth
of Spirit."]
[Footnote 10: _Besonnenheit_, _i.e.,_ real thought-fullness.]
[Footnote 11: _Der künstlerischen Ruhe._ The personal predilection of
Hegel for classic art here once more asserts itself.]
[Footnote 12: The German word is _Sinnen_, but I think, though the
emotional sense is partly implied, the main emphasis is on a presiding
mind--or rather a wide-visioned genius.]
[Footnote 13: _Eine sprudelnde Anschauung._ A view of things that
bubbles forth like a fountain.]
[Footnote 14: That is, the medium of literary form.]
[Footnote 15: _Ein hartes Band._ The idea is not so much difficult as
unyielding, unmalleable.]
[Footnote 16: _Zum Ernste des Inhalts_. That is, the earnestness of
a product of mind as such. Hegel seems to contrast with this the
spontaneity of an art which, as inspired by genius, comes to us with
the freshness of Nature herself, take Shakespeare's songs for example.]
[Footnote 17: _Ungebunden._ That is, it is contingent.]
[Footnote 18: Hegel calls this the _Verstandesaccent_, and speaks of
this importance (_Bedeutsamkeit_) as a product of the syllables.]
[Footnote 19: I presume the words _das für sich gestaltete Klingen_
refer to rhyme.]
[Footnote 20: _Eine Sammlung in sich_, that is, an independent
collection or aggregate.]
[Footnote 21: _Anheben_ may possibly mean appearance in the defined
series generally.]
[Footnote 22: By _Versen_ Hegel means rather lines than a number of
them.]
[Footnote 23: The dative appears to be a misprint. The passage should
be read _der_ and _die,_ instead of _dem_ and _der_.]
[Footnote 24: I am not quite sure what Hegel refers to in what he
describes as _das Hinübergreifen des Wortes._ I presume he means what
are known as weak endings to a line.]
[Footnote 25: _Gedrungen._ I suppose this is the meaning. The entire
passage is a difficult one to follow.]
[Footnote 26: _Ein allgemeines Hören._]
[Footnote 27: That is, the accent of the syllables as a mere medium of
uttered speech.]
[Footnote 28: Lit., has its flank turned, _überflügelt._]
[Footnote 29: _Die blosse Vergeistigung._]
[Footnote 30: No other means to divert the ears attention. The sentence
is rather involved, and I have not seen my way to simplify it.]
[Footnote 31: _Abstract unterworfen._ Hegel apparently means abstract
as detached from the natural medium of language--becoming thereby the
abstract symbol of idea exclusively.]
[Footnote 32: As in musical art.]
[Footnote 33: _Seelen-tonen_, _i.e.,_ the wave and flow of the
emotional life itself.]
[Footnote 34: _In das Spielen_. Hegel repeats his use of the expression
above, _beiher Spielen_, lit., the playing with not as a toy but as
something serious.]
[Footnote 35: I suppose this is the meaning here of _Sharfsinn,_ but
"subtlety" may be included.]
[Footnote 36: Indifferent, that is, as asserting the creative freedom
of the poet, he can select his own rhymes as he wills. Hegel, however,
seems rather to miss the essential spontaneity of really good blank
verse.]
[Footnote 37: So I translate _die innere Subjectivität_, but it may
refer perhaps to the entire creative personality.]
[Footnote 38: That is, I presume, their relation to romantic art.]
[Footnote 39: That is, the primary feature changed is that of the
validity of natural quantity.]
[Footnote 40: _Dem Äusseren Daseyn._ That is, of language.]
[Footnote 41: _Entfaltung._ Such an explication of rhythmical euphony
as the previous system discloses.]
[Footnote 42: _Geistes._ All that pertains to conscious life.]
[Footnote 43: Lit., a blunt or coarse sound, _ein plumpes Klingen._]
[Footnote 44: _Tonen_ implies sound no less than accent. I have
rendered it in various ways.]
[Footnote 45: _Von Seiten des Geistes._ Perhaps rather "as aspects of
the poet's intelligence"--that is, with reference to the self-assertion
above explained.]
[Footnote 46: More nearly related to the natural medium of language.]
[Footnote 47: _Die Verslehre der Isländer v. Rask, verd. von Mohnike_,
Berlin, 1830, pp. 14-17.]
[Footnote 48:_Betonte_, see above note on _Tonen._]
[Footnote 49: _Stämme_, the stem of verbs, rather than the root of
substantives, which would be more correctly _stammwort._]
[Footnote 50: "Do we moderns face broad reaches such as these, as
did the ancients?" _Falten_, folds, expatiation of subject-matter.
I presume, though I do not recall the context, that the allusion is
mainly to elegiacs.]
[Footnote 51: _I.e._, more related to active intelligence.]