discussion, to the peculiar self-contained verse which is noticeable in
the early stage of blank-verse writing, and which Shakespeare was one
of the first to break through. In the text of the present volume this
form is called "single-moulded," its characteristics not appearing to
be confined to the end.
ENJAMBMENT.--An Englishing, on simple analogy, of the French technical
term, _enjambement_, for the overlapping, in sense and utterance, of
one verse on another, or of one couplet on another. Enjambment of the
couplet appears in Chaucer and other writers early; was overdone and
abused in the first half of the seventeenth century; was rejected by
the later seventeenth and still more by the eighteenth, but restored to
favour by the Romantic movement.
ENVOI.--The _coda_ of a _ballade_, etc., with the especial purpose of
_addressing_ the poem to its subject.
EPANAPHORA ("referring" or "repetition").--The repetition of the same
word or group of words at the beginning of successive lines. This,
originally a rhetorical figure, becomes, especially with some of the
Elizabethans and with Tennyson, a not unimportant prosodic device; and,
in the hands of the latter, assists powerfully in the construction of
the verse-paragraph.
EPANORTHOSIS ("setting up again," with a sense also of
"correction").--Also a rhetorical figure, and meaning the repetition
of some word, _not_ necessarily at the beginning of clause or line.
This also can be made of considerable prosodic effect; for repetition,
especially if including some slight change, is necessarily associated
with emphasis, and this emphasis colours and weights the line variously.
EPITRITE.--A four-syllabled foot consisting of three long syllables
and one short (̄ ̄ ̄ ̆). The shifting of this latter from place to
place makes four different kinds of epitrite. Like its congeners, it
is not needed in English poetry, though spondaic substitution (in the
trochaic tetrameter, etc.) may sometimes simulate it; and the fact that
few English words have clusters of definitely long syllables makes it
rare even in prose.
EPODE.--The third and last member of the typical choric arrangement in
a regular ode. See STROPHE.
EQUIVALENCE means, prosodically, the quality or faculty which fits one
combination of syllables for substitution in the place of another to
perform the part of foot, as the dactyl and spondee do to each other
in the classical hexameter, and as various feet do to the iamb in the
Greek iambic trimeter and other metres. It is, with its correlative,
Substitution itself, the most important principle in English prosody;
it emerges almost at once, and, though at times frowned upon in theory,
never loses its hold upon practice.
EYE-RHYME.--A practice (most largely resorted to by Spenser, but
to some extent by others) of adjusting the spellings of the final
syllables of words so as to make the rhyme clear to the eye as well
as to the ear. It is sometimes forced, and perhaps never ought to be
necessary; but it is so associated with the beauties of the _Faerie
Queene_ as to become almost a beauty in itself, though hardly to be
recommended for imitation.
* * * * *
FEMININE RHYME--FEMININE ENDING.--Terms applied to the use of words at
the end of a line with the final (now mute) _e_. "Feminine" rhyme is
sometimes extended to double rhyme in general, but this is not strictly
correct.
"FINGERING."--A term used in this book for the single and peculiar turn
and colour given to metre by the individual poet.
FOOT.--The admitted constituent of all classical prosody, and,
according to one system (that adopted preferentially in this book),
of English likewise, though with variations necessitated by the
language. "Foot" (πους, _pes_) is "that upon which the verse runs or
marches." A Greek foot is made of Greek "long" and "short" syllables;
an English foot of English. The possible combinations of these have
Greek names which are convenient, and the fact that the conditions
of "length" and "shortness" are different in the two languages need
cause no misunderstanding whatever. But a comparatively small number
are actually found in English poetry. All, however, are separately
described in this Glossary, and for convenience' sake a tabular view of
them is given on the next page.
It should, moreover, perhaps be added that, at most periods of English
poetry, monosyllabic feet, such as hardly exist in classical prosody,
are undoubtedly present. These can be regarded, if any one pleases, as
made up to dissyllabic value by the addition of a pause or interval.
Nor is there any valid objection to the admission of a "pause foot"
entirely composed of silence. These two kinds of feet, however, are
comparatively rare, and require no specific names.
TABLE OF FEET
----------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------
Feet of Two | | |
Syllables. | Of Three. | Of Four. | Of Five.
----------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------
Iamb, ̆̄ | Amphibrach, ̆̄̆ | Antispast, ̆̄̄̆ | Dochmiac.
Pyrrhic, ̆̆ | Anapæst, ̆̆̄ | Choriamb, ̄̆̆̄ | (See
Spondee, ̄̄ | Anti-Bacchic, ̆̄̄ | Di-iamb, ̆̄̆̄ | under
Trochee, ̄̆ | Bacchic, ̄̄̆ | Dispondee, ̄̄̄̆ | head.)
| Cretic, ̄̆̄ | Ditrochee, ̄̆̄̆ |
(The trochee | Dactyl, ̄̆̆ | { ̆̄̄̄ |
("running foot")| Molossus, ̄̄̄ | Epitrite { ̄̆̄̄ |
was sometimes | Tribrach, ̆̆̆ | (four forms { ̄̄̆̄ |
also called | | { ̄̄̄̆ |
"choree," | (The Cretic was also| Ionic: |
χορειος, or | called amphi_macer_,| _a majore_, ̄̄̆̆ |
χοριος | its arrangement | _a minore_, ̆̆̄̄ |
("dancing | being just the | Pæon { ̄̆̆̆ |
foot"), this | opposite to the | (four { ̆̄̆̆ |
form appears in | amphi_brach_.) | forms) { ̆̆̄̆ |
"_chori_ambic.")| | { ̆̆̆̄ |
| | Proceleusmatic, ̆̆̆̆|
----------------+---------------------+---------------------+----------
FOURTEENER.--A line of seven iambic feet which emerges as almost the
first equivalent of the old long A.S. line in English, as early as
the _Moral Ode_, etc. At first it is oftenest a "_fif_teener," from
the presence of the final _e_; but this drops off. Very largely used
by Robert of Gloucester and others in the late thirteenth century;
varied in _Gamelyn_; much mixed up with the doggerel of the fifteenth;
frequent in the sixteenth, both alone and as "poulter's" measure; and
splendidly used by Chapman in his translation of the _Iliad_. Sometimes
employed to vary heroic couplet by Dryden. A favourite metre ever since
the beginning of the nineteenth century. Splits into "ballad-measure."
* * * * *
GALLIAMBIC.--A classical metre of which the most famous, and only
substantive, example is the magnificent _Atys_ of Catullus, but
which has been imitated in two fine English poems, Tennyson's great
_Boadicea_ and Mr. George Meredith's _Phaethon_. Both of these have
given a rather trochaic-dactylic swing to the metre, which is probably
unavoidable in English. The late Mr. Grant Allen endeavoured to
make out, and attempted in his translation of the _Atys_, an iambic
basis with anapæstic and tribrachic substitution, but unsuccessfully.
Ionic _a minore_ (_v. inf._) is the ancient suggestion; and, with an
accentual liberty not unsuitable to its half-barbaric associations, it
fits Catullus pretty well. But Ionics, as has been said, do not suit
English (_v. inf._ p. 285, _note_).
GEMELL or GEMINEL ("twin").--Terms applied by Drayton to the heroic
couplet.
* * * * *
HEAD-RHYME.--A name sometimes applied--it may be thought unjustifiably,
and beyond all question in a way likely to mislead--to alliteration.
See RHYME.
HENDECASYLLABLE.--An eleven-syllabled line. There is a classical metre
specially so called, executed with particular success by Catullus, and
imitated by Tennyson in the piece describing it:
So fantastical is the dainty metre.
But the term is not infrequently used of the staple Italian line, of
English heroic or decasyllabic lines with redundance, etc.
HEPTAMETER.--It is rather doubtful whether the word is wanted in
English, for if applied to the fourteener it would (see METRE and
DIMETER) be a complete misnomer; and not less so, according to correct
analogy, if applied to the seven-foot anapæst, where it would properly
designate fourteen feet or forty-two possible syllables--a length
which not even Mr. Swinburne has attempted. He himself, however,
by oversight, used it of this line, which is properly a tetrameter
brachycatalectic.
HEROIC.--A word applied, with only indirect propriety, to the
decasyllabic or five-foot couplet, and with hardly any propriety at
all to the single line of the same construction; but occasionally
convenient in each case. The origin of the employment is the use of
this line and couplet in the "heroic" poem and "heroic" play of the
seventeenth century. It has therefore the same sort of justification
as "Alexandrine." There was also an earlier habit, as in Dante's _De
Vulg. Eloq._, of calling it (in its Italian or hendecasyllabic form)
the "noblest" or most dignified line; and this connects itself with the
Greek practice of calling the hexameter--the _Epic_-verse--"heroic."
HEXAMETER.--The great staple metre of Greek and Latin epic, in which
the line consists of six feet, dactyls or spondees at choice for the
first four, but normally always a dactyl in the fifth and always
a spondee in the sixth--the latter foot being by special licence
sometimes allowed in the fifth also (in which case the line is called
spondaic), but never a dactyl in the sixth. To this metre, and to
the attempts to imitate it in English, the term should be strictly
confined, and never applied to the Alexandrine or iambic trimeter.
HIATUS.--The juxtaposition of vowels either in the same word, or, more
especially, at the end of one word and the beginning of the next. At
different times, and in different languages, this has been regarded
as a beauty and as a defect; but in English it entirely depends upon
circumstances whether it is one, or the other, or neither. For a
considerable period--roughly from 1650 to 1780, if not 1800--it was
supposed--without a shadow of reason--that English poets ought to elide
one of such concurrents and indicate it only by apostrophe, so that not
merely did "the enormous" become "th' enormous," and "to affect" "t'
affect," but "violet" was crushed into "vi'let," and "diamond" into
"di'mond." But this has been almost entirely abandoned, though there
are still "metrical fictions" on the subject.
* * * * *
IAMBIC.--A foot of two syllables--short, long (̆̄])--the commonest in
almost all prosodies,[157] and (though this is sometimes denied) the
staple foot of English.
INVERTED STRESS.--A term used by accentual or stress prosodists to
designate the substitution of a trochee for an iamb. Unnecessary, if
not erroneous, from the point of view of this book.
IONIC.--A foot of four syllables, consisting of a spondee (̄ ̄) and a
pyrrhic (̆ ̆). With the spondee first it is called "Ionic _a majore_";
with the pyrrhic first, _a minore_. Neither movement is common in
English verse, and, if it were, it would hardly require any joint name.
But when the music is uppermost, as in "Vilikins and his Dinah," it
suggests itself, with the alternative of the third pæon:
Nŏw ăs Dīnā̆h | wăs ă-wālkī̆ng | ĭn thĕ gārdē̆n | sō gāy.[158]
* * * * *
LEONINE VERSE.--A term not strictly applicable to English, but
sometimes found in prosody-books. It means the peculiar mediæval Latin
hexameter with middle and end rhymed, as in
Post cœnam _stabis_: seu passus mille me_abis_.
Browning comes nearest to it in such lines as
On my specked _hide_, not you the _pride_.
LINE.--The larger integer of verse, as the foot is the smaller, and the
stanza or paragraph the largest. It is usually indicated, in printing
or writing, by independent beginning and ending on the page--whence
the name,--but this is accidental and arranged for convenience of the
eye. As a rule, however, it should not be encroached upon lightly,
and, even when enjambment is practised, the individual line should
have a thinkable self-sufficiency. Nor should two lines be separated
when they clamour for union, as in the case of some modern rhymeless
experimenters (Mr. Arnold, Mr. Henley, etc.) and in some of the early
Elizabethans (Grimoald, Googe, and others).
LONG and SHORT are words which, until comparatively recently, have been
taken as the bases of all prosodic analysis. They represent two values
which, though no doubt by no means always identical in themselves,
are invariably, unmistakably, and at once, distinguished by the ear;
and the combining of which, in ordinary mathematical permutation,
constitutes the feet, or lowest integers, of metrical rhythm. This
nomenclature--which presents no initial difficulties, is sufficient for
all practical purposes, and commends itself at once to any unprejudiced
intelligence--seems first to have excited question and suspicion
towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is disagreeable to
both accentual and syllabic prosodists (see chapters devoted to
these), and it appears to disturb some who would not class themselves
with either. It is indeed quite possible to work either system with
"long" and "short," applied uncontentiously to the natural values of
rhythmed speech in English poetry. But a punctilio arises as to the
definition of the words. "Does length," some people ask, "really mean
'duration of time' in pronouncing?" This question, and others, seem
to the present writer unnecessary. We need not decide what _makes_
the difference between "long" and "short"; it is sufficient that this
difference unmistakably _exists_, and is felt at once. Whether it is
due to accent, length of pronunciation, sharpness, loudness, strength,
or anything else, is a question in no way directly affecting verse. The
important things are, once more, that _it exists_; that verse cannot
exist without it; that it is partly, and in English rather largely,
created by the poet, but that this creation is conditioned by certain
conventions of the language, of which accent is one, but only one.
LONG MEASURE ("L.M.").--The octosyllabic quatrain, alternately rhymed.
LYDGATIAN LINE.--An arrangement of extraordinary hideousness, which
occurs rather frequently in Lydgate; and which has been assigned by
the merciful to incompetence or carelessness; by other critics, who
defend it, to what must have been deliberate bad taste. It is a line
of nine syllables only, the missing one being not, as in the Chaucerian
_acephala_, at the first, but occurring somewhere in the middle, and at
the cæsura. An uglier metrical entity probably nowhere exists than such
a line as
If an|y word | in thee | ʌ be | missaid.[160]
* * * * *
MASCULINE RHYME.--A rhyme where the rhyming syllable is single, and
ends in a consonant, without any mute _e_ following. Less correctly, a
monosyllabic rhyme.
METRE.--In the wide sense, collections of rhythm which correspond, both
within the collection, and, if there be such, with one or more other
collections adjoining. In the narrow, collections dominated by a single
foot-rhythm, as "iambic metre," "anapæstic metre," etc.
MOLOSSUS.--A foot of three long syllables (̄ ̄ ̄). Practically
impossible in English _verse_, being too bulky for a rhythm-integer
with us, but admissible as a musical arrangement.
MONOMETER.--A line consisting of one foot only, or one pair of feet.
See DIMETER.
MONOPRESSURE.--A term invented to express a theory that the divisions
of metre are associated with, and determined by, some physical
throat-conditions. Unnecessary and unworkable.
* * * * *
OCTAVE.--A stanza of eight lines.
OCTOMETER.--A term properly applied to eight-foot dactylic metre, such
as Tennyson's _Kapiolani_; improperly to Mr. Swinburne's eight-foot
anapæsts.
ODE.--A name used in English with great laxity, and not perhaps
to be tied down too much without loss. The word itself, in Greek,
means simply a song. But the choric odes of the Greek dramatists,
and the non-dramatic odes of Pindar, being couched in a peculiar
form--irregular at first sight, but exactly correspondent when
examined,--have created a certain tendency to restrict the term ode,
sometimes with the epithet "regular," to things similar in English
(see, in list of poets, Cowley, Congreve, Gray). On the other hand, the
Latins--especially Horace, whose influence has been even wider--extend
the term to pieces in short, obviously regular stanzas identically
repeated, and the majority of English odes are of this kind.
OTTAVA RIMA.--A special form of octave derived from the Italians, and
composed of eight decasyllabic lines rhymed _abababcc_. There are other
decasyllabic octaves, such as that used by Chaucer in the _Monk's
Tale_, and by Spenser after him, with or without that adoption of the
Alexandrine which turns it into the Spenserian.
* * * * *
PÆON.--A foot of four syllables--one long and three short--arranged
in varying order. The commonest English foot in rhythmical prose, but
unnecessary in English verse.
PAUSE.--A break in the line as metrically read or heard, which is
almost always coincident with the end of a word, and which very
frequently, but not always or so often as in the former case, coincides
with a stop in punctuation. It is not necessary that every line
should have a pause; and the place of the pause, when it exists, is
practically _ad libitum_ in most, if not all lines, while there may be
more pauses than one. The attempt to curtail liberty in these three
respects has been the cause of some of the worst mistakes about English
prosody, especially when it takes the form of prescribing that the
pause should always be as near the middle as possible. Variety of pause
is, in fact, next to variety of feet, the great secret of success in
our verse; and it is owing to this that Shakespeare and Milton more
especially stand so high. On the other hand, this variety requires the
most careful adjustment; and if such adjustment is neglected, the lines
will be uglier than continuously middle-paused ones, though not so
monotonous.
PENTAMETER.--See DIMETER. As properly used, a line of five
feet--dactyls or spondees--divided into two batches of two and a half
each. As improperly used, a five-foot iambic line in English.
PINDARIC.--Strictly the regular ode (see STROPHE) of Greek poetry; but
extended by, and still more in imitation of, Cowley to any lyrical
composition in irregularly rhymed stanzas of different line-lengths.
According to Dryden, the Alexandrine line, frequent in Cowley's odes,
was so-called, "but," he most properly adds, "improperly."
POSITION.--In the classical prosodies a short or common vowel before
two consonants (but not every two) was said to be long "by position";
and efforts have been made to determine English quantity in the
same way. No rule of the kind can be laid down; doubled or grouped
consonants after a vowel usually shortening the pronunciation, and
sometimes lengthening the value.
POULTER'S MEASURE.--A term used by Gascoigne, and said to be derived
from the practice of poulter[er]s in giving twelve to the dozen in
one case and thirteen or fourteen in another. It is applied to the
combination of Alexandrine and fourteener which was such a favourite
with the earlier Tudor poets, and which broke up into the "Short
Measure" of the hymn-books.
PROCELEUSMATIC.--A double pyrrhic, or foot of four short syllables (̆ ̆
̆ ̆). Not needed, if not also impossible, in English.
PYRRHIC.--Foot of two short syllables (̆ ̆). Very doubtfully found in
English; but not impossible.
* * * * *
QUANTITY.--That which fits a syllable for its place as "long" or
"short" in a verse.
QUARTET or QUATRAIN.--A group of four lines usually, indeed with the
rarest exceptions, united in themselves, and separated from others, by
rhyme.
QUINTET.--A similar group of five lines.
* * * * *
REDUNDANCE.--An extra syllable at the end of the line, not strictly
part of its last foot.
REFRAIN.--A line recurring identically, or with very slight alteration,
at the end of every stanza of a poem. Probably one of the oldest of
all poetic features--certainly one of the oldest in English. The
same as "burden." Refrains or burdens are not uncommonly meaningless
collections of musical-sounding words.
RHYME.--The arrangement of two word-endings--identical in vowel and
following consonant or consonants, but not having the same consonant
_before_ the vowel--at the conclusion of two or more lines, or
sometimes within the lines themselves.
RHYME-ROYAL.--The stanza of seven decasyllabic lines, rhymed _ababbcc_,
which occurs in Chaucer's _Troilus_, and which traditionally derives
its name from its use in _The King's Quair_, though its extreme
popularity for a long period is perhaps the real reason.
RHYTHM.--An orderly arrangement, but not necessarily a correspondent
succession, of sounds.
RIDING RHYME.--An old name for the decasyllabic couplet, obviously
derived from its appearance in Chaucer's Tales of Pilgrims "riding" to
Canterbury.
RIME COUÉE or TAILED RHYME.--Translations in French and English of the
Latin _versus caudatus_, and not very happy from the English point
of view, though justified by origin (see Origin-List). The verse to
which they refer is the sixain of two eights, a six, two more eights,
and another six. Two tails are not common in English _fauna_; and one
might prefer to call the verse "waisted and tailed." It is, however,
in the old Romances (where it is common, and from its commonness in
which it is better called the "Romance-six") often found in multiples
of three other than six; and it is at the batch of three that the title
looks--the couplet of eights constituting the body, and the odd six the
tail.
ROMANCE-SIX.--See RIME COUÉE.
RONDEAU--RONDEL.--French (and English) forms in which lines are
repeated at regular intervals. (See pp. 125-6.)
* * * * *
SAPPHIC.--A classical metre consisting of three longer lines and one
shorter (called an Adonic) arranged in the following scheme:--
̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
It has been frequently tried in English, both as burlesque and
seriously. For the former use (as in Canning's immortal "Needy
Knife-Grinder") it is, like most classical metres, well suited, though
the true Greek and even Latin rhythm is generally (_v. sup._ p. 124)
violated. In serious verse Mr. Swinburne has produced exquisite and
others (as Watts and Cowper) respectable examples; but even the best is
a _tour de force_ only.
SECTION.--A term not useless in its general sense as denoting verse
divisions larger than a foot; but now prejudicially preoccupied by
Guest (_v. sup._ p. 254, _note_) and others.
SEPTENAR.--A word applied (very undesirably) by most German and a few
English writers to the fourteener or seven-foot iambic.
SEPTET.--A verse or stanza of seven lines.
SESTET, also SIXAIN.--A verse or stanza of six lines.
SESTINE, SESTINA.--A very elaborate measure invented by the Provençal
poet Arnaut Daniel, imitated by Dante and other Italians, tried
inexactly by Spenser, and sometimes recently attempted in English.
SHORT MEASURE ("S.M.").--The split-up poulter's measure or quartet of
6, 6, 8, 6.
SINGLE-MOULDED.--The term used in this book to describe the early
blank-verse line, which appears to be constructed complete in itself,
without any expectation of, or preparation for, continuance. See
END-STOPPED.
SKELTONIC.---The peculiar kind of (generally short) line used by
Skelton. Its commonest form is an anapæstic monometer (_i.e._ two
feet), often much further cut down by dissyllabic and monosyllabic
substitution or by catalexis, but sometimes extended. It is always
rhymed; sometimes on the same rhyme for several lines together. Though
usually called "doggerel," it does not quite deserve that name as
defined above. See also note p. 297.
SLUR.--See ELISION.
SONNET.--A word sometimes, in former days, loosely applied to any
short poem, especially of an amatory nature; often nowadays almost
as improperly limited to a special Italian form of the true sonnet.
This latter is a poem of fourteen lines, of the same length generally
and (except by exception) decasyllables (originally, of course,
_hen_decasyllables) arranged in varying rhyme-schemes. Its exact origin
is unknown; but it is first found in Italian-Sicilian poets of the
thirteenth century, and it became enormously popular in Italy very
soon. It did not spread northward for a considerable time, the first
French sonnets occurring not very early in the sixteenth century;
the first English, not till near its middle. A great sonnet outburst
took place at the end of that century with us; but the form fell into
disuse in the seventeenth, though championed by Milton; and it was not
till the extreme end of the eighteenth century that it became, and
has since remained, something of a staple. Partly the absence of the
Italian plethora of similar endings, and partly something else, made
the earliest English practitioners select an arrangement with final
rhymed couplet, the twelve remaining lines being usually arranged in
rhymed, but not rhyme-linked, quatrains: and this form, immortalised
by Shakespeare, is probably the best suited to English. It is, at any
rate, absolutely genuine and orthodox there. But Milton, Wordsworth,
and especially Dante and Christina Rossetti, have given examples of the
sonnets which, divided mostly into octave and sestet, have this latter
arranged in intertwisted rhymes. This form is susceptible of great
beauty, but has no prerogative, still less any primogeniture, in our
poetry.
SPENSERIAN.--See Origin-List.
SPONDEE.--A foot of two long syllables (̄ ̄). Its presence in English
has been denied, but most strangely; its condition is, in fact, exactly
opposite to that of the dactyl. In single and separate words its
representatives are chiefly compounds like "moonshine," "humdrum," etc.
But, as formed out of different words, it is frequent.
STANZA or STAVE.--A collection of lines arranged in an ordered batch
and generally on some definite rhyme-scheme. Also designated by one of
the loose senses of "verse."
STRESS.--Generally, though not universally, used as synonymous with
accent, but somewhat differently applied, "accent" being regarded as
something more or less permanent in the word, "stress" something added
specially in the verse. By extension of this, numerous arbitrary and
fanciful systems of prosody have been recently devised.
STRESS-UNIT.--A recent instance, and one of the worst, of the new terms
invented to avoid the use of "foot." For, almost more than any other,
it ignores the importance of non-stressed syllables.
STROPHE.--The stanza-unit of Greek odic or choric arrangement. The
system is triple--strophe, antistrophe, and epode--and will be found
fully illustrated and scanned from Gray (_v. sup._ pp. 89-91).
SUBSTITUTION.--See EQUIVALENCE.
SYNALŒPHA.} SYNCOPE. }--See ELISION. SYNIZESIS. }
SYZYGY.--A term of classical prosody which has a perfectly strict
meaning--the yoking of two feet into a metrical batch (see DIMETER).
It has, in some recent cases, been rather unfortunately extended to
other forms of combining syllables, sounds, etc. As thus used it is not
needed, and is likely to cause confusion.
* * * * *
TAILED SONNET.--An Italian lengthening of the sonnet to eighteen or
twenty lines, sometimes practised in English, the best known example
being Milton's; but not very admirable in our language, and not at all
necessary. Even in Italian the use is largely burlesque.
TERCET.--A group of three lines like TRIPLET, but specially limited to
that used in TERZA RIMA.
TERZA RIMA.--A verse-arrangement by which, in a group of three lines,
the first and third rhyme together, while the middle is left to rhyme
with the first and third of the next batch. This arrangement, very
effective in Italian, and undoubtedly one of the chief elements of
the magnificence of Dante's prosody, has never been really successful
in English. Some of the best examples are Shelley's; the earliest,
after some fragments in Chaucer, are Wyatt's; the largest continuous
employment is in Canon Dixon's _Mano_.
TETRAMETER.--A term improperly applied to the octosyllable; properly to
divers long lines of eight iambs, anapæsts, or trochees.
THESIS.--See ARSIS.
TIME.--A "word of fear" in prosody, as it is almost always a "voice
prophesying war." Used merely in the sense of "rhythm," it is quite
innocuous; and construed generally, as when Southey says that "two
short syllables take up only the time of one," there need be no harm
in it. But when absolute "duration" is insisted on, and people discuss
whether this can be given by that or the other means, great and
unnecessary mischief is likely to be done.
TRIBRACH.--A foot of three short syllables (̆ ̆ ̆). Very frequent in
later English, perhaps less so in earlier.
TRIOLET.--A short French form of the rondeau, in the most common
variety of which the first of eight lines is repeated in the fourth and
seventh, the second being also repeated in the eighth, so that there
are only _five_ lines of independent sense. (See example, p. 125.)
TRIPLE.--See DUPLE.
TRIPLET.--A group of three lines; most commonly used of three which
rhyme together. See TERCET.
TROCHEE.--A foot of two syllables--long, short (̄ ̆). The
complement-contrast of the iamb; an invaluable variant upon it; the
best introducer (by admitting it as a substitute) of the dactyl in
English; and very effective by itself when properly managed.
TRUNCATION.--The lopping off of a syllable at beginning or end of line.
This in the latter case equals what is here called CATALEXIS (_q.v._),
and in the former is often better accounted for by a monosyllabic foot.
But there are cases, as in Chaucer's "acephalous" lines, where it is
not inapplicable.
TUMBLING VERSE.--A phrase of King James the Sixth (First) in his
prosodic treatise, which has caused, or at least been connected with,
difficulties (see CADENCE). He seems to have meant by it nothing more
than the loose half-doggerel anapæsts which were so common in the first
two-thirds of the sixteenth century.
TURN OF WORDS.--A phrase specially used in the seventeenth century for
the repetition, identically or with little change, of the same words at
the end of a line and the beginning of the next.
* * * * *
VERSE.--A word used with unfortunate, though perhaps unavoidable,
ambiguity. It is employed first (and best) of writing in general as
opposed to prose; secondly, of a single line of poetry; thirdly, of a
batch of lines; while there is even a fourth use, now obsolete, but
common in the Elizabethans, by which it applied to classical unrhymed
metres in English. This last, one may hope, will never be revived. Of
the others, the first and third are indispensable and can cause no real
confusion. But, though a fairly strong case can be made out for "verse"
in the sense of "line," the inconvenience and confusion of this use
should be held to prohibit it.
VERSE PARAGRAPH.--A very important development of blank verse, ensuring
to it almost all the advantages of stanza in some ways, and more
than all in others. First reached by Shakespeare in drama, and by
Milton in non-dramatic verse, it consists in so knitting a batch of
blank-verse lines together by variation of pause, alternate use of stop
and enjambment, and close connection of sense, that neither eye nor
voice is disposed to make serious halt till the close of the paragraph
is reached. Thus an effect of concerted music is produced through
the whole of it. No one has ever been a great master of blank verse
without being a master of this device; but perhaps the most special and
elaborate command of it has been Tennyson's.
VOWEL-MUSIC.--In a certain sense vowel-music may be said to be,
and always to have been, a main, if not the main, source of the
pleasure given to the ear by poetry. Nor, it may also be said, can
any accomplished poet ever have been indifferent to it. Deliberate
attention to it, however, has varied much at different times of English
poetry, and was perhaps at its lowest in the eighteenth, at its highest
in the nineteenth, century.
* * * * *
WEAK ENDING.--A technical term used by not a few prosodists, but not
adopted in this book, for redundance. As a matter of fact a line is
often much stronger for the extra syllable.
WRENCHED ACCENT.--A term applied, by accentual prosodists, sometimes to
signify removal of accent on a word from the usual place; sometimes to
the presence of an unaccented syllable where they expect an accented,
or the reverse. In the first sense it is unobjectionable; in the
second, always unnecessary, and often suggestive of misdescription of
the results of ordinary substitution.[161]
FOOTNOTES:
[154] Webster's _Dictionary_.
[155] NOTE ON MUSICAL AND RHETORICAL ARRANGEMENTS OF VERSE
It has been said above (Book I. Chap. V. Rule 41, p. 35) that certain
additional arrangements of verse may be made for musical or rhetorical
purposes. This no doubt requires explanation and example, the latter
especially. It shall now have them.
Tennyson's
The watch|er on | the col|umn to | the end,
and Mr. Swinburne's
The thun|der of | the trum|pets of | the night,
are both regular and unexceptionable "heroics," "five-foot iambics,"
"decasyllabic lines," etc. But in reading them the voice will not
improbably be tempted (and need not resist the temptation) to arrange
them as
The watcher | on the column | to the end
and
The thunder | of the trumpets | of the night
respectively, while in the case of the latter line other dispositions
are possible. In blank-verse paragraphs especially, the poet is likely
to suggest a great deal of such scansion. No doubt there are in this
arrangement four-syllable divisions and three-syllable ones like
amphibrachs, etc.; but that does not matter, because the line has
already passed the regular prosodic tests. And no doubt the sections,
or whatever they are to be called, are not strictly substitutable; but
then on this scheme, which is not positively prosodic and applies to
the individual line only, they need not be. So, too, there is no harm
in dividing Hood's famous piece, for musical purposes, into ditrochees:
I remember | I remember,
How my little | lovers came,
or even in making what are practically eight feet out of
All ¦ peo¦ple ¦ that ¦ on ¦ earth ¦ do ¦ dwell,
in order to get an impressive musical effect. Here also the lines
have passed the prosodic preliminary or matriculation; as in the one
case trochaic tetrameters catalectic split in half; in the other, as
ordinary "long measure."
Now it is this necessary preliminary which the plain- and fancy-stress
prosodists neglect; putting their stress divisions not on the top, but
in the place of it. And the probable result would be, if the proceeding
were widely followed--as, indeed, it has been already to some small
extent,--the creation of a new chaos like that of fifteenth-century
South-English verse generally, or of blank verse and heroic couplet in
the mid-seventeenth.
[156] See the larger _History_ for fuller discussion of this. Such
lines will often scan trochaically (or in some other way) so as to take
in the outside syllable; but the question then arises _whether such
scansion will suit the context_.
[157] Professor Hardie reminds me of Quintilian's assertion (_Inst.
Orat._ IX. iv. 136) that even in Latin, iambs "omnibus pedibus
insurgunt."
[158] NOTE ON IONIC _A MINORE_ AS APPLICABLE TO THE EPILOGUE OF
BROWNING'S _ASOLANDO_
It has been proposed to scan the beautiful last words of Robert
Browning--
At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free--
Will they pass to where, by death, fools think, imprisoned
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
--Pity me?
as an example of English Ionic _a minore_;[159] not (as it is taken by
the present writer) as trochaic--
Ăt thĕ mīdnĭght | ĭn thĕ sīlĕnce | ŏf thĕ slēep-tī̆me;
not
Āt thĕ | midnī̆ght | īn thĕ | sīlĕnce | ōf thĕ | slēep-tī̆me.
Perhaps those who propose this have been a little bribed by conscious
or unconscious desire to prevent "accenting" _in_ and _of_; but no
more need be said on this point. The trochees, or their sufficient
equivalents, will run very well without any violent INN or OVV. But
when the piece is examined by ear of body and ear of mind (for the
mind's ear is as important as the mind's eye) it will be found that
Ionic scansion is unsatisfactory. It is perhaps not utterly fatal
to the first line (though it gives an unpleasantly "rocking-horsy"
movement), and perhaps still less to the second, where the catalexis
itself saves this effect to some extent. But the junction and severance
of sense which it suggests in the third--
Wĭll thĕy pāss tō | whĕre, by̆ dēath, fōols | thĭnk, ĭmprīsōned,
is very ugly. And this same junction or severance becomes impossible in
the short lines concluding the stanzas. To suit the Ionic measure these
must run--
Pĭty̆ mē
Bĕĭng--whō?
Slĕep tŏ wāke
Thĕre ăs hēre,
a set of jumpy anapæsts which upsets the whole pathos and dignity of
the composition when compared with "Pīty̆ | mē"; "Slēep tŏ | wāke"; and
"Thēre ăs | hēre"; while it makes
Bēĭng|--whō?
into a mere burlesque, and flies in the face of Browning's specially
indicated pause.
[159] ̆ ̆ ̄ ̄. Third pæon (̆ ̆ ̄ ̆) has also been suggested, but the
same counter-arguments apply to it.
[160] It would become tolerable as a four-foot anapæst, and perhaps
partly suggested such a line; also as an octosyllable with substitution.
[161] _Note (Second Edition) on "Skeltonic," v. sup._ p. 293.--Attempts
have been made to trace it to the very short lines used by Martial
d'Auvergne (_c._ 1420-1508) and, perhaps, other French poets. But, as
in some similar cases, these attempts ignore radical differences, such
as the presence of the anapæst in English and its absence from French,
and others still.
CHAPTER II
REASONED LIST OF POETS WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO THEIR PROSODIC QUALITY
AND INFLUENCE
ARNOLD, MATTHEW (1822-1888).--Made various attempts (outside of his
classical drama _Merope_) at rhymeless metres in English. Countenanced
the English hexameter. Also made, but abandoned, experiments in the
enjambed couplet, which anticipated William Morris.
* * * * *
BARHAM, RICHARD H. ("Thomas Ingoldsby") (1788-1845).--Showed the
greatest proficiency in light, loose metres of the anapæstic
division, and exercised much influence by them, owing to the wide and
long-sustained popularity of the _Ingoldsby Legends_ (1840, but earlier
in magazines).
BEAUMONT, SIR JOHN (1583-1623).--One of the earliest (before 1625)
practitioners, and perhaps the very earliest champion in verse itself,
of the stopped couplet exactly arranged.
BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827).--Although Blake's immediate and direct
influence must have been small, there is hardly any poet who exhibits
the tendency of his time in metre more variously and vehemently. In
his unhesitating and brilliantly successful use of substitution in
octosyllabic couplet, ballad measure, and lyrical adjustments of
various kinds, as well as in _media_ varying from actual verse to the
rhythmed prose of his "Prophetic" books, Blake struck definitely away
from the monotonous and select metres of the eighteenth century, and
anticipated the liberty, multiplicity, and variety of the nineteenth.
And he differed, almost equally, from all but one or two of his older
contemporaries, and from most of his younger for many years, in the
colour and "fingering" of his verse.
BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE (1762-1850).--A generally mediocre poet, who,
however, deserves a place of honour here for the sonnets which he
published in 1789, and which had an immense influence on Coleridge,
Southey, and others of his juniors, not merely in restoring that great
form to popularity, but by inculcating description and study of nature
in connection with the thoughts and passions of men.
BROWNE, WILLIAM (1591-1643).--A Jacobean poet of the loosely named
Spenserian school--effective in various metres, but a special and early
exponent of the enjambed couplet.
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (1806-1861).--Remarkable here for her
adoption of the nineteenth-century principle of the widest possible
metrical experiment and variety. In actual _metre_ effective, though
sometimes a little slipshod. In rhyme a portent and a warning. Perhaps
the worst rhymester in the English language--perpetrating, and
attempting to defend on a mistaken view of assonance, cacophonies so
hideous that they need not sully this page.
BROWNING, ROBERT (1812-1889).--Often described as a loose and rugged
metrist, and a licentious, if not criminal, rhymester. Nothing of the
sort. Extraordinarily bold in both capacities, and sometimes, perhaps,
as usually happens in these cases, a little too bold; but in metre
practically never, in rhyme very seldom (and then only for purposes
of designed contrast, like the farce in tragedy), overstepping actual
bounds. A great master of broken metres, internal rhyme, heavily
equivalenced lines, and all the _tours de force_ of English prosody.
BURNS, ROBERT (1759-1796).--Of the very greatest importance in
historical prosody, because of the shock which his fresh dialect
administered to the conventional poetic diction of the eighteenth
century, and his unusual and broken measures (especially the famous
Burns-metre) to its notions of metric. An admirable performer on the
strings that he tried; a master of musical "fingering" of verse; and to
some extent a pioneer of the revival of substitution.
BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD (1788-1824).--Usually much undervalued as
a prosodist, even by those who admire him as a poet. Really of great
importance in this respect, owing to the variety, and in some cases
the novelty, of his accomplishment, and to its immense popularity. His
Spenserians in _Childe Harold_ not of the highest class, but the light
octaves of _Beppo_ and _Don Juan_ the very best examples of the metre
in English. Some fine but rhetorical blank verse, and a great deal of
fluent octosyllabic couplet imitated from Scott. But his lyrics of most
importance, combining popular appeal with great variety, and sometimes
positive novelty, of adjustment and cadence. Diction is his weakest
point.
* * * * *
CAMPBELL, THOMAS (1777-1844).--Not prosodically remarkable in his
longer poems, but very much so in some of his shorter, especially "The
Battle of the Baltic," where the bold shortening of the last line,
effective in itself, has proved suggestive to others of even better
things, such as the half-humorous, half-plaintive measure of Holmes's
"The Last Leaf" and Locker's "Grandmamma."
CAMPION, THOMAS (?-1619).--Equally remarkable for the sweetness and
variety of his rhymed lyrics in various ordinary measures, and as the
advocate and practitioner of a system of rhymeless verse, different
from the usual hexametrical attempts of his contemporaries, but still
adjusted to classical patterns.
CANNING, GEORGE (1770-1827).--Influential, in the general breaking-up
of the conventional metres and diction of the eighteenth century,
by his parodies of Darwin and his light lyrical pieces in the
_Anti-Jacobin_.
CHAMBERLAYNE, WILLIAM (1619-1689).--Remarkable as, in _Pharonnida_, one
of the chief exponents of the beauties, but still more of the dangers,
of the enjambed heroic couplet; in his _England's Jubile_ as a rather
early, and by no means unaccomplished, practitioner of the rival form.
To be carefully distinguished from his contemporary, Robert Chamberlain
(_fl. c._ 1640), a very poor poetaster who wrote a few English
hexameters.
CHATTERTON, THOMAS (1752-1770).--Of some interest here because his
manufactured diction was a protest against the conventional language
of eighteenth-century poetry. Of more, because he ventured upon
equivalence in octosyllabic couplet, and wrote ballad and other lyrical
stanzas, entirely different in form and cadence from those of most of
his contemporaries, and less artificial even than those of Collins and
Gray.
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY (1340?-1400).--The reducer of the first stage of
English prosody to complete form and order; the greatest master of
prosodic harmony in our language before the later sixteenth century,
and one of the greatest (with value for capacity in language) of all
time; the introducer of the decasyllabic couplet--if not absolutely,
yet systematically and on a large scale--and of the seven-lined
"rhyme-royal" stanza; and, finally, a poet whose command of the utmost
prosodic possibilities of English, at the time of his writing, almost
necessitated a temporary prosodic disorder, when those who followed
attempted to imitate him with a changed pronunciation, orthography, and
word-store.
CLEVELAND, JOHN (1613-1658).--Of no great importance as a poet, but
holding a certain position as a comparatively early experimenter with
apparently anapæstic measures in his "Mark Antony" and other pieces.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR (1772-1834).--In the _Ancient Mariner_ and
_Christabel_, the great instaurator of equivalence and substitution; a
master of many other kinds of metre; and an experimenter in classical
versing.
COLLINS, WILLIAM (1721-1759)--Famous in prosody for his attempt at
odes less definitely "regular" than Gray's, but a vast improvement on
the loose Pindaric which had preceded; and for a remarkable attempt at
rhymeless verse in that "To Evening." In diction retained a good deal
of artificiality.
CONGREVE, WILLIAM (1670-1729).--Regularised Cowley's loose Pindaric.
COWLEY, ABRAHAM (1618-1667).--The most popular poet of the
mid-seventeenth century; important to prosody for a wide, various, and
easy, though never quite consummate command of lyric, as well as for a
vigorous and effective couplet (with occasional Alexandrines) of a kind
midway between that of the early seventeenth century and Dryden's; but
chiefly for his introduction of the so-called Pindaric.
COWPER, WILLIAM (1731-1800).--One of the first to protest, definitely
and by name, against the "mechanic art" of Pope's couplet. He himself
returned to Dryden for that metre; but practised very largely in blank
verse, and wrote lyrics with great sweetness, a fairly varied command
of metre, and, in "Boadicea," "The Castaway," and some of his hymns, no
small intensity of tone and cry. His chief shortcoming, a preference of
elision to substitution.
* * * * *
DONNE, JOHN (1573-1631).--Famous for the beauty of his lyrical poetry,
the "metaphysical" strangeness of his sentiment and diction throughout,
and the roughness of his couplets. This last made Jonson, who thought
him "the first poet in the world for some things," declare that he
nevertheless "deserved hanging for not keeping accent," and has induced
others to suppose a (probably imaginary) revolt against Spenserian
smoothness, and an attempt at a new prosody.
DRAYTON, MICHAEL (1563-1631).--A very important poet prosodically,
representing the later Elizabethan school as it passes into the
Jacobean, and even the Caroline. Expresses and exemplifies the demand
for the couplet (which he calls "gemell" or "geminel"), but is an adept
in stanzas. In the _Polyolbion_ produced the only long English poem in
continuous Alexandrines before Browning's _Fifine at the Fair_ (which
is very much shorter). A very considerable sonneteer, and the deviser
of varied and beautiful lyrical stanzas in short rhythms, the most
famous being the "Ballad of Agincourt."
DRYDEN, JOHN (1630-1700).--The establisher and master of the stopped
heroic couplet with variations of triplets and Alexandrines; the
last great writer of dramatic blank verse, after he had given up the
couplet for that use; master also of any other metre--the stopped
heroic quatrain, lyrics of various form, etc.--that he chose to try.
A deliberate student of prosody, on which he had intended to leave a
treatise, but did not.
DIXON, RICHARD WATSON (1833-1900).--The only English poet who has
attempted, and (as far perhaps as the thing is possible) successfully
carried out, a long poem (_Mano_) in _terza rima_. Possessed also
of great lyrical gift in various metres, especially in irregular or
Pindaric arrangements.
DUNBAR, WILLIAM (1450?-1513? or -1530?).--The most accomplished and
various master of metre in Middle Scots, including both alliterative
and strictly metrical forms. If he wrote "The Friars of Berwick," the
chief master of decasyllabic couplet between Chaucer and Spenser.
DYER, JOHN (1700?-1758?).--Derives his prosodic importance from
_Grongar Hill_, a poem in octosyllabic couplet, studied, with
independence, from Milton, and helping to keep alive in that couplet
the variety of iambic and trochaic cadence derived from catalexis, or
alternation of eight- and seven-syllabled lines.
* * * * *
FAIRFAX, EDWARD (d. 1635).--Very influential in the formation of the
stopped antithetic couplet by his use of it at the close of the octaves
of his translation of Tasso.
FITZGERALD, EDWARD (1809-1883).--Like Fairfax, famous for the prosodic
feature of his translation of the _Rubáiyát_ of Omar Khayyám. This is
written in decasyllabic quatrains, the first, second, and fourth lines
rhymed together, the third left blank.
FLETCHER, GILES (1588-1623), and PHINEAS (1582-1650).--Both attempted
alterations of the Spenserian by leaving out first one and then two
lines. Phineas also a great experimenter in other directions.
FLETCHER, JOHN (1579-1625).--The dramatist. Prosodically noticeable for
his extreme leaning to redundance in dramatic blank verse. A master of
lyric also.
FRERE, JOHN HOOKHAM (1769-1846).--Reintroduced the octave for comic
purposes in the _Monks and the Giants_ (1817), and taught it to
Byron. Showed himself a master of varied metre in his translations
of Aristophanes. Also dabbled in English hexameters, holding that
extra-metrical syllables were permissible there.
* * * * *
GASCOIGNE, GEORGE (1525?-1577).--Not unremarkable as a prosodist, from
having tried various lyrical measures with distinct success, and as
having given the first considerable piece of non-dramatic blank verse
("The Steel Glass") after Surrey. But chiefly to be mentioned for his
remarkable _Notes of Instruction_ on English verse, the first treatise
on English prosody and a very shrewd one, despite some slips due to the
time.
GLOVER, RICHARD (1712-1785).--A very dull poet, but noteworthy for two
points connected with prosody--his exaggeration of the Thomsonian heavy
stop in the middle of blank-verse lines, and the unrhymed choruses of
his _Medea_.
GODRIC, SAINT (?-1170).--The first named and known author of definitely
English (that is Middle English) lyric, if not of definitely English
(that is Middle English) verse altogether.
GOWER, JOHN (1325?-1408).--The most productive, and perhaps the best,
older master of the fluent octosyllable, rarely though sometimes varied
in syllabic length, and approximating most directly to the French model.
HAMPOLE, RICHARD ROLLE OF, most commonly called by the place-name
(1290?-1347).--Noteworthy for the occasional occurrence of complete
decasyllabic couplets in the octosyllables of the _Prick of
Conscience_. Possibly the author of poems in varied lyrical measures,
some of great accomplishment.
HAWES, STEPHEN (d. 1523?).--Notable for the contrast between the
occasional poetry of his _Pastime of Pleasure_ and its sometimes
extraordinarily bad rhyme-royal--which latter is shown without any
relief in his other long poem, the _Example of Virtue_. The chief late
example of fifteenth-century degradation in this respect.
HERRICK, ROBERT (1591-1674).--The best known (though not in his own or
immediately succeeding times) of the "Caroline" poets. A great master
of variegated metre, and a still greater one of sweet and various grace
in diction.
HUNT, J. H. LEIGH (1784-1859).--Chiefly remarkable prosodically for his
revival of the enjambed decasyllabic couplet; but a wide student, and
a catholic appreciator and practitioner, of English metre generally.
Probably influenced Keats much at first.
JONSON, BENJAMIN, always called BEN (1573?-1637).--A great practical
prosodist, and apparently (like his successor, and in some respects
analogue, Dryden) only by accident not a teacher of the study. Has left
a few remarks, as it is, eulogising, but in rather equivocal terms, the
decasyllabic couplet, objecting to Donne's "not keeping of accent," to
Spenser's metre for what exact reason we know not, and to the English
hexameter apparently. His practice much plainer sailing. A fine though
rather hard master of blank verse; excellent at the couplet itself; but
in lyric, as far as form goes, near perfection in the simpler and more
classical adjustments, as well as in pure ballad measure.
KEATS, JOHN (1795-1821).--One of the chief examples, among the
greater English poets, of sedulous and successful study of prosody;
in this contrasting remarkably with his contemporary, and in some
sort analogue, Shelley. Began by much reading of Spenser and of late
sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century poets, in following whose
enjambed couplet he was also, to some extent, a disciple of Leigh
Hunt. Exemplified the dangers as well as the beauties of this in
_Endymion_, and corrected it by stanza-practice in _Isabella_, the _Eve
of St. Agnes_, and his great Odes, as well as by a study of Dryden
which produced the stricter but more splendid couplet of _Lamia_.
Strongly Miltonic, but with much originality also, in the blank verse
of _Hyperion_; and a great master of the freer sonnet, which he had
studied in the Elizabethans. Modified the ballad measure in _La Belle
Dame sans Merci_ with astonishing effect, and in the _Eve of St. Mark_
recovered (perhaps from Gower) a handling of the octosyllable which
remained undeveloped till Mr. William Morris took it up.
KINGSLEY, CHARLES (1819-1875).--A poet very notable, in proportion
to the quantity of his work, for variety and freshness of metrical
command in lyric. But chiefly so for the verse of _Andromeda_,
which, aiming at accentual dactylic hexameter, converts itself into
a five-foot anapæstic line with anacrusis and hypercatalexis, and in
so doing entirely shakes off the ungainly and slovenly shamble of the
_Evangeline_ type.
* * * * *
LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE (1775-1864).--A great master of form in all
metres, but, in his longer poems and more regular measures, a
little formal in the less favourable sense. In his smaller lyrics
(epigrammatic in the Greek rather than the modern use) hardly second
to Ben Jonson, whom he resembles not a little. His phrase of singular
majesty and grace.
LANGLAND, WILLIAM (fourteenth century).--The probable name of the
pretty certainly single author of the remarkable alliterative poem
called _The Vision of Piers Plowman_. Develops the alliterative metre
itself in a masterly fashion through the successive versions of his
poem, but also exhibits most notably the tendency of the line to
fall into definitely metrical shapes--decasyllabic, Alexandrine, and
fourteener,--with not infrequent anapæstic correspondences.
LAYAMON (late twelfth and early thirteenth century).--Exhibits in
the _Brut_, after a fashion hardly to be paralleled elsewhere, the
passing of one metrical system into another. May have intended to write
unrhymed alliteratives, but constantly passes into complete rhymed
octosyllabic couplet, and generally provides something between the two.
A later version, made most probably, if not certainly, after his death,
accentuates the transfer.
LEWIS, MATTHEW GREGORY (1775-1818).--A very minor poet, and hardly
a major man of letters in any other way than that of prosody. Here,
however, in consequence partly of an early visit to Germany, he
acquired love for, and command of, the anapæstic measures, which he
taught to greater poets than himself from Scott downwards, and which
had not a little to do with the progress of the Romantic Revival.
LOCKER (latterly LOCKER-LAMPSON) FREDERICK (1821-1895).--An author
of "verse of society" who brought out the serio-comic power of much
variegated and indented metre with remarkable skill.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (1807-1882).--An extremely competent
American practitioner of almost every metre that he tried, except
perhaps the unrhymed _terza rima_, which is difficult and may be
impossible in English. Established the popularity of the loose
accentual hexameter in _Evangeline_, and did surprisingly well with
unvaried trochaic dimeter in _Hiawatha_. His lyrical metres not of the
first distinction, but always musical and craftsmanlike.
LYDGATE, JOHN (1370-1450?).--The most industrious and productive of
the followers of Chaucer, writing indifferently rhyme-royal, "riding
rhyme," and octosyllabic couplet, but especially the first and last, as
well as _ballades_ and probably other lyrical work. Lydgate seems to
have made an effort to accommodate the breaking-down pronunciation of
the time--especially as regarded final _e_'s--to these measures; but as
a rule he had very little success. One of his varieties of decasyllabic
is elsewhere stigmatised. He is least abroad in the octosyllable, but
not very effective even there.
* * * * *
MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON (1800-1859).--Best known prosodically by his
spirited and well beaten-out ballad measure in the _Lays of Ancient
Rome_. Sometimes, as in "The Last Buccaneer," tried less commonplace
movements with strange success.
MAGINN, WILLIAM (1793-1842).--Deserves to be mentioned with Barham as a
chief initiator of the earlier middle nineteenth century in the ringing
and swinging comic measures which have done so much to supple English
verse, and to accustom the general ear to its possibilities.
MARLOWE, CHRISTOPHER (1664-1693).--The greatest master, among
præ-Shakespearian writers, of the blank-verse line for splendour and
might, as Peele was for sweetness and brilliant colour. Seldom, though
sometimes, got beyond the "single-moulded" form; but availed himself
to the very utmost of the majesty to which that form rather specially
lends itself. Very great also in couplet (which he freely "enjambed")
and in miscellaneous measure when he tried it.
MILTON, JOHN (1608-1674).--The last of the four chief masters of
English prosody. Began by various experiments in metre, both in
and out of lyric stanza--reaching, in the "Nativity" hymn, almost
the maximum of majesty in concerted measures. In _L'Allegro_, _Il
Penseroso_, and the _Arcades_ passed to a variety of the octosyllabic
couplet, which had been much practised by Shakespeare and others,
but developed its variety and grace yet further, though he did not
attempt the full Spenserian or _Christabel_ variation. In _Comus_
continued this, partly, with lyrical extensions, but wrote the major
part in blank verse--not irreminiscent of the single-moulded form,
but largely studied off Shakespeare and Fletcher, and with his own
peculiar turns already given to it. In _Lycidas_ employed irregularly
rhymed paragraphs of mostly decasyllabic lines. Wrote some score of
fine sonnets, adjusted more closely to the usual Italian models than
those of most of his predecessors. After an interval, produced, in
_Paradise Lost_, the first long poem in blank verse, and the greatest
non-dramatic example of the measure ever seen--admitting the fullest
variation and substitution of foot and syllable, and constructing
verse-paragraphs of almost stanzaic effect by varied pause and
contrasted stoppage and overrunning. Repeated this, with perhaps some
slight modifications, in _Paradise Regained_. Finally, in _Samson
Agonistes_, employed blank-verse dialogue with choric interludes rhymed
elaborately--though in an afterthought note to _Paradise Lost_ he had
denounced rhyme--and arranged on metrical schemes sometimes unexampled
in English.
MOORE, THOMAS (1779-1852).--A very voluminous poet in the most various
metres, and a competent master of all. But especially noticeable as
a trained and practising musician, who wrote a very large proportion
of his lyrics directly to music, and composed or adapted settings for
many of them. The double process has resulted in great variety and
sweetness, but occasionally also in laxity which, from the prosodic
point of view, is somewhat excessive.
MORRIS, WILLIAM (1834-1896).--One of the best and most variously gifted
of recent prosodists. In his early work, _The Defence of Guenevere_,
achieved a great number of metres, on the most varied schemes, with
surprising effect; in his longer productions, _Jason_ and _The Earthly
Paradise_, handled enjambed couplets, octosyllabic and decasyllabic,
with an extraordinary compound of freedom and precision. In _Love
is Enough_ tried alliterative and irregular rhythm with unequal but
sometimes beautiful results; and in _Sigurd the Volsung_ fingered the
old fourteener into a sweeping narrative verse of splendid quality and
no small range.
* * * * *
ORM.--A monk of the twelfth to the thirteenth century, who composed
a long versification of the Calendar Gospels in unrhymed, strictly
syllabic, fifteen-syllabled verse, lending itself to regular division
in eights and sevens. A very important evidence as to the experimenting
tendency of the time and to the strivings for a new English prosody.
O'SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR W. E. (1844-1881).--A lyrist of great
originality, and with a fingering peculiar to himself, though most
nearly resembling that of Edgar Poe.
* * * * *
PEELE, GEORGE (1558?-1597?).--Remarkable for softening the early
"decasyllabon" as Marlowe sublimed it.
PERCY, THOMAS (1729-1811).--As an original verse-maker, of very
small value, and as a meddler with older verse to patch and piece
it, somewhat mischievous; but as the editor of the _Reliques_, to be
hallowed and canonised for that his deed, in every history of English
prosody and poetry.
POE, EDGAR (1809-1849).--The greatest master of original prosodic
effect that the United States have produced, and an instinctively and
generally right (though, in detail, hasty, ill-informed, and crude)
essayist on points of prosodic doctrine. Produced little, and that
little not always equal; but at his best an unsurpassable master of
music in verse and phrase.
POPE, ALEXANDER (1688-1744).--Practically devoted himself to one
metre, and one form of it--the stopped heroic couplet,--subjected as
much as possible to a rigid absence of licence; dropping (though he
sometimes used them) the triplets and Alexandrines, which even Dryden
had admitted; adhering to an almost mathematically centrical pause;
employing, by preference, short, sharp rhymes with little echo in them;
and but very rarely, though with at least one odd exception, allowing
even the possibility of a trisyllabic foot. An extraordinary artist on
this practically single string, but gave himself few chances on others.
PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH (1802-1839)--An early nineteenth-century
Prior. Not incapable of serious verse, and hardly surpassed in
laughter. His greatest triumph, the adaptation of the three-foot
anapæst, alternately hypercatalectic and acatalectic or exact, which
had been a ballad-burlesque metre as early as Gay, had been partly
ensouled by Byron in one piece, but was made his own by Praed, and
handed down by him to Mr. Swinburne to be yet further sublimated.
PRIOR, MATTHEW (1664-1721).--Of special prosodic importance for his
exercises in anapæstic metres and in octosyllabic couplet, both of
which forms he practically established in the security of popular
favour, when the stopped heroic couplet was threatening monopoly. His
phrase equally suitable to the _vers de société_ of which he was our
first great master.
* * * * *
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER (_fl. c._ 1280).--_Nomen clarum_ in prosody, as
being apparently the first copious and individual producer of the great
fourteener metre, which, with the octosyllabic couplet, is the source,
or at least the oldest, of all modern English forms.
ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA GEORGINA (1830-1894) and DANTE GABRIEL
(1828-1882).--A brother and sister who rank extraordinarily high in
our flock. Of mainly Italian blood, though thoroughly Anglicised, and
indeed partly English by blood itself, they produced the greatest
English sonnets on the commoner Italian model, and displayed almost
infinite capacity in other metres. Miss Rossetti had the greater
tendency to metrical experiment, and perhaps the more strictly
lyrical gift of the song kind; her brother, the severer command of
sculpturesque but richly coloured form in poetry.
* * * * *
SACKVILLE, THOMAS (1536-1608).--One of the last and best practitioners
of the old rhyme-royal of Chaucer, and one of the first experimenters
in dramatic blank verse.
SANDYS, GEORGE (1578-1644).--Has traditional place after Fairfax and
with Waller (Sir John Beaumont, who ought to rank perhaps before these,
being generally omitted) as a practitioner of stopped heroic couplet.
Also used _In Memoriam_ quatrain.
SAYERS, FRANK (1763-1817).--An apostle, both in practice and preaching,
of the unrhymed verse--noteworthy at the close of the eighteenth
century--which gives him his place in the story.
SCOTT, SIR WALTER (1771-1832).--The facts of his prosodic influence and
performance hardly deniable, but its nature and value often strangely
misrepresented. Was probably influenced by Lewis in adopting (from the
German) anapæstic measures; and certainly and most avowedly influenced
by Coleridge (whose _Christabel_ he heard read or recited long before
publication) in adopting equivalenced octosyllabic couplet and ballad
metres in narrative verse. But probably derived as much from the old
ballads and romances themselves, which he knew as no one else then did,
and as few have known them since. Applied the method largely in his
verse-romances, but was also a master of varied forms of lyric, no mean
proficient in the Spenserian and in fragments, at least, of blank verse.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (1564-1616).--The _catholicos_ or universal
master, as of English poetry so of English prosody. In the blank verse
of his plays, and in the songs interspersed in them, as well as in
his immature narrative poems and more mature sonnets, every principle
of English versification can be found exemplified, less deliberately
"machined," it may be, than in Milton or Tennyson, but in absolutely
genuine and often not earlier-found form.
SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE (1792-1822).--The great modern example of
prosodic inspiration, as Keats, Tennyson, and Mr. Swinburne are of
prosodic study. Shelley's early verse is as unimportant in this way
as in others; but from _Queen Mab_ to some extent, from _Alastor_
unquestionably, onwards, he displayed totally different quality, and
every metre that he touched (even if possibly suggested to some extent
by others) bears the marks of his own personality.
SHENSTONE, WILLIAM (1714-1763).--Not quite unimportant as poet, in
breaking away from the couplet; but of much more weight for the
few prosodic remarks in his _Essays_, in which he directly pleads
for trisyllabic (as he awkwardly calls them "dactylic") feet, for
long-echoing rhymes, and for other things adverse to the "mechanic tune
by heart" of the popular prosody.
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP (1554-1586).--A great experimenter in Elizabethan
classical forms; but much more happy as an accomplished and very
influential master of the sonnet, and a lyric poet of great sweetness
and variety.
SOUTHEY, ROBERT (1774-1843).--A very deft and learned practitioner
of many kinds of verse, his tendency to experiment leading him into
rhymelessness (_Thalaba_) and hexameters (_The Vision of Judgment_);
but quite sound on general principles, and the first of his school
and time to champion the use of trisyllabic feet in principle, and to
appeal to old practice in their favour.
SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599).--The second founder of English prosody in
his whole work; the restorer of regular form not destitute of music;
the preserver of equivalence in octosyllabic couplet; and the inventor
of the great Spenserian stanza, the greatest in every sense of all
assemblages of lines, possessing individual beauty and capable of
indefinite repetition.
SURREY, EARL OF, the courtesy title of HENRY HOWARD (1517-1547).--Our
second English sonneteer, our second author of reformed literary
lyric after the fifteenth-century break-down, and our first clearly
intentional writer of blank verse.
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909).--Of all English poets the
one who has applied the widest scholarship and study, assisted by
great original prosodic gift, to the varying and accomplishing of
English metre. Impeccable in all kinds; in lyric nearly supreme. To
some extent early, and, still more, later, experimented in very long
lines, never unharmonious, but sometimes rather compounds than genuine
integers. Achieved many triumphs with special metres, especially by
the shortening of the last line of the Praed-stanza into the form of
"Dolores," which greatly raises its passion and power.
* * * * *
TENNYSON, ALFRED (1809-1892).--A poet who very nearly, if not quite,
deserves the position accorded here to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare,
and Milton. Coming sufficiently late after the great Romantic poets
of the earlier school to generalise their results, he started with
an apparent freedom (perfectly orderly, in fact) which puzzled even
Coleridge. Very soon, too, he produced a practically new form of
blank verse, in which the qualities of the Miltonic and Shakespearian
kinds were blended, and a fresh metrical touch given. All poets
since--sometimes while denying or belittling him--have felt his
prosodic influence; and it is still, even after Mr. Swinburne's fifty
years of extended practice of it, the pattern of modern English prosody.
THOMSON, JAMES (1700-1748).--The first really important practitioner
of blank verse after Milton, and a real, though rather _mannerised_,
master of it. Displayed an equally real, and more surprising, though
much more unequal, command of the Spenserian in _The Castle of
Indolence_.
TUSSER, THOMAS (1524?-1580).--A very minor poet--in fact, little more
than a doggerelist; but important because, at the very time when
men like Gascoigne were doubting whether English had any foot but
the iambic, he produced lolloping but perfectly metrical continuous
anapæsts, and mixed measures of various kinds.
* * * * *
WALLER, EDMUND (1606-1687).--A good mixed prosodist of the Caroline
period, whose chief traditional importance is in connection with the
popularising of the stopped couplet. His actual precedence in this
is rather doubtful; but his influence was early acknowledged, and
therefore is an indisputable fact. He was also early as a literary user
of anapæstic measures, and tried various experiments.
WATTS, ISAAC (1674-1741).--By no means unnoteworthy as a prosodist.
Followed Milton in blank verse, early popularised triple-time measures
by his religious pieces, evidently felt the monotony of the couplet,
and even attempted English Sapphics.
WHITMAN, WALT[ER] (1819-1892).--An American poet who has pushed farther
than any one before him, and with more success than any one after him,
the substitution, for regular metre, of irregular rhythmed prose,
arranged in versicles something like those of the English Bible, but
with a much wider range of length and rhythm, the latter going from
sheer prose cadence into definite verse.
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770-1850).--Less important as a prosodist than as
a poet; but prosodically remarkable both for his blank verse, for his
sonnets, and for the "Pindaric" of his greatest Ode.
WYATT, SIR THOMAS (1503?-1542).--Our first English sonneteer and
our first reformer, into regular literary verse, of lyric after the
fifteenth-century disorder. An experimenter with _terza_, and in other
ways prosodically eminent.
CHAPTER III
ORIGINS OF LINES AND STANZAS
(It has seemed desirable to give some account (to an extent which
would in most cases be disproportionate for the Glossary) of the
ascertained, probable, or supposed origin of the principal lines
and line-combinations in English poetry. The arrangement is logical
rather than alphabetical. Slight repetition, on some points, of matter
previously given is unavoidable.)
A. LINES
I. ALLITERATIVE.--Enough has probably been said above of the old
alliterative line and its generic character; while the later
variations, which came upon it after its revival, have also been
noticed and exemplified. Its origin is quite unknown; but the
presence of closely allied forms, in the different Scandinavian and
Teutonic languages, assures, beyond doubt, a natural rise from some
speech-rhythm or tune-rhythm proper to the race and tongue. It is also
probable that the remarkable difference of lengths--short, normal,
and extended--which is observable in O.E. poetry is of the highest
antiquity. It has at any rate persevered to the present day in the
metrical successors of this line; and there is probably no other poetry
which has--at a majority of its periods, if not throughout--indulged
in such variety of line-length as English. Nor, perhaps, is there any
which contains, even in its oldest and roughest forms, a metrical or
quasi-metrical arrangement more close to the naturally increased, but
not denaturalised, emphasis of impassioned utterance, more thoroughly
born from the primeval oak and rock.
II. "SHORT" LINES.--Despite the tendency to variation of lines above
noted, A.S. poetry did not favour _very_ short ones; and its faithful
disciple and champion, Guest, accordingly condemns them in modern
English poetry. This is quite wrong. In the "bobs" and other examples
in Middle English we find the line shortened almost, if not actually,
to the monosyllable, and this liberty has persisted through all the
best periods of English verse since, though frequently frowned upon
by pedantry. Its origin is, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be traced
to French and Provençal influence, especially to that of the short
refrain; but it is so congenial to the general tendency noted above
that very little suggestion must have been needed. It must, however,
be said that very short lines, in combination with long ones, almost
necessitate rhyme to punctuate and illumine the divisions of symphonic
effect; and, consequently, it was not till rhyme came in that they
could be safely and successfully used. But when this was mastered
there was no further difficulty. In all the best periods of English
lyric writing--in that of _Alison_ and its fellows, in the carols of
the fifteenth century, in late Elizabethan and Caroline lyric, and in
nineteenth-century poetry--the admixture of very short lines has been
a main secret of lyrical success; and in most cases it has probably
been hardly at all a matter of deliberate imitation, but due to an
instinctive sense of the beauty and convenience of the adjustment.
III. OCTOSYLLABLE.--The historical origin of the octosyllabic (or, as
the accentual people call it, the four-beat or four-stress line) is one
of the most typical in the whole range of prosody, though the lesson of
the type may be differently interpreted. Taking it altogether, there
is perhaps no metre in which so large a body of modern, including
mediæval, poetry has been composed. But, although it is simply dimeter
iambic, acatalectic or catalectic as the case may be, it is quite vain
to try to discover frequent and continuous patterns of origin for it
in strictly classical prosody.[162] Odd lines, rarely exact, in choric
odes prove nothing, and the really tempting
Αμμων Ολυμπου δεσποτα
of Pindar is an uncompleted fragment which might have gone off into any
varieties of Pindaric. There are a few fragments of Alcman--
Ὡρας δ' εσηκε τρεις, θερος
and of the genuine Anacreon--
Μηδ' ὡστε κυμα ποντιον,
in the metre, while the spurious verse of the "Anacreontea," a
catalectic form with trisyllabic equivalence, seems to have been
actually practised by the real poet. _Alternately_ used, it is, of
course, frequent in the epodes of Horace, in Martial, etc. But the fact
remains that, as has been said, it is not a classical metre to any but
a very small extent, though those who attach no value to anything but
the "beats" may find it in bulk in the _anapæstic_ dimeter of Greek
and Latin choruses. It is in the Latin hymns--that is to say, in Latin
after it had undergone a distinct foreign admixture--that the metre
first appears firmly and distinctly established. In the fourth century,
St. Ambrose without rhyme, and Hilary with it, employ the iambic
dimeter, and it soon becomes almost the staple, though Prudentius,
contemporary with both of them and more of a regular poet, while he
does use it, seems to prefer other metres. By the time, however,
when the modern prosodies began to take form, it was thoroughly well
settled; and every Christian nation in Europe knew examples of it by
heart.
It still, however, remains a problem exactly why this particular metre
should, as a matter of direct literary imitation, have commended itself
so widely to the northern nations. They had nearly or quite as many
examples in the same class of the _trochaic_ dimeter
Gaude, plaude, Magdalena
and they paid no attention to this, though their southern neighbours
did. They had, from the time of Pope Damasus[163] downwards, and in
almost all the hymn-writers, mixed dactylic metres to choose from;
but for a staple they went to this. It seems impossible that there
should not have been some additional and natural reasons for the
adoption--reasons which, if they had not actually brought it about
without any literary patterns at all, directed poets to those patterns
irresistibly. Nor, as it seems to the present writer, is it at all
difficult to discover, as far at least as English is concerned, what
these reasons were.
The discovery might be made "out of one's own head"; but here as
elsewhere Layamon is a most important assistant and safeguard. A mere
glance at any edition of alliterative verse, printed in half lines,
will show that it has a rough resemblance on the page to octosyllabics,
though the outline is more irregular. A moderately careful study of
Layamon shows, as has been indicated, that, in writing this verse with
new influences at work upon him, he substitutes octosyllabic couplet
for it constantly. And the history in the same way shows that this
occasional substitution became a habitual one with others. Not that
there is any mystical virtue in four feet, despite their frequency in
the actual creation: but that, as an equivalent of the old half line,
the choice lies practically between three and four. Now a three-foot
line, though actually tried as in the _Bestiary_ and in parts of
_Horn_, is, as a general norm, too short, is ineffective and jingly,
brings the rhyme too quick, and hampers the exhibition of the sense by
a too staccato and piecemeal presentment. The abundant adoption of the
octosyllable in French no doubt assisted the spread in English. But it
is not unimportant to observe that English translators and adapters
of French octosyllabic poems by no means always preserve the metre,
and that English octosyllables often represent French poems which are
differently metred in the original.
IV. DECASYLLABLE.--A connected literary origin for this great line--the
ancient staple of French poetry, the modern staple of English, and (in
still greater modernity) of German to some extent, as well as (with
the extension of one syllable necessitated by the prevailing rhythm of
the language) of Italian throughout its history--has always been found
extraordinarily difficult to assign. That some have even been driven to
the line which furnishes the opening couplet of the Alcaic
Quam si clientum longa negotia,
or
Vides ut alta stet nive candidum,
an invariably _hen_decasyllabic line of the most opposite rhythm,
constitution, and division, will show the straits which must have
oppressed them. The fact is that there is nothing, either in Greek
or Latin prosody, in the least resembling it or suggestive of it.
To connect it with these prosodies at all reasonably, it would be
necessary to content ourselves with the supposition, not illogical or
impossible, but not very explanatory, that somebody found the iambic
dimeter too short, and the iambic trimeter too long, and split the
difference.
In another way, and abandoning the attempt to find parents or sponsors
in antiquity for this remarkable foundling, a not wholly dissimilar
conjecture becomes really illuminative--that the line of ten syllables
(or eleven with "weak ending") proved itself the most useful in the
modern languages. As a matter of fact it appears in the very earliest
French poem we possess--the tenth- or perhaps even ninth-century _Hymn
of St. Eulalia_:
Bel auret corps, bellezour anima,
and in the (at youngest) tenth-century Provençal _Boethius_:
No credet Deu lo nostre creator.
If it still seem pusillanimous to be content with such an explanation,
one can share one's pusillanimity with Dante, who contents himself with
saying that the line of eleven syllables "seems the stateliest and
most excellent, as well by reason of the length of time it occupies
as of the extent of subject, construction and language of which it is
capable." And in English, with which we are specially, if not indeed
wholly, concerned, history brings us the reinforcement of showing that
the decasyllable literally forced itself, in practice, upon the English
poet.
This all-important fact has been constantly obscured by the habit of
saying that Chaucer "invented" the heroic couplet in English--that
he, at any rate, borrowed it first from the French. Whether he did so
as a personal fact we cannot say, for he is not here to tell us. That
he need not have done so there is ample and irrefragable evidence.
In the process of providing substitutes for the old unmetrical line,
it is not only obvious that the decasyllable--which, from a period
certainly anterior to the rise of Middle English, had been the staple
metre, in long assonanced _tirades_ or batches, of the French _Chansons
de geste_--must have suggested itself. It is still more certain that
it did. It is found in an unpolished and haphazard condition, but
unmistakable, in the _Orison of our Lady_ (early thirteenth century);
it occurs in _Genesis and Exodus_, varying the octosyllable itself,
in the middle of that age; it is scattered about the Romances, in
the same company, at what must have been early fourteenth century at
latest; it occurs constantly in Hampole's _Prick of Conscience_ at the
middle of this century; and there are solid blocks of it in the Vernon
MS., which was written (_i.e._ copied from earlier work), at latest,
before Chaucer is likely to have started the _Legend of Good Women_
or the _Canterbury Tales_. That his practice settled and established
it--though for long the octosyllable still outbid it in couplet, and
it was written chiefly in the stanza form of "rhyme-royal"--is true.
But by degrees the qualities which Dante had alleged made it prevail,
and prepared it as _the_ line-length for blank verse as well as for
the heroic couplet, and for the bulk of narrative stanza-writing.
No doubt Chaucer was assisted by the practice of Machault and other
French poets. But there should be still less doubt that, without that
practice, he might, and probably would, have taken it up. For the
first real master of versification--whether he were Chaucer, or (in
unhappy default of him) somebody else, who must have turned up sooner
or later--could not but have seen, for his own language, what Dante saw
for his.
V. ALEXANDRINE.--The Alexandrine or verse of twelve syllables,
iambically divided, does not resemble its relation, the octosyllable,
in having a doubtful classical ancestry; or its other relation, the
decasyllable, in having none. It is, from a certain point of view, the
exact representative of the great iambic trimeter which was the staple
metre of Greek tragedy, and was largely used in Greek and Roman verse.
The identity of the two was recognised in English as early as the
_Mirror for Magistrates_, and indeed could escape no one who had the
knowledge and used it in the most obvious way.
At the same time it is necessary frankly to say that this
resemblance--at least, as giving the key to origin--is, in all
probability, wholly delusive. There are twelve syllables in each line,
and there are iambics in both. But to any one who has acquired--as
it is the purpose of this book to help its readers to acquire or
develop--a "prosodic" sense, like the much-talked-of historic sense,
it will seem to be a matter of no small weight, that while the cæsura
(central pause) of the ancient trimeter is penthemimeral (at the
fifth syllable), or hepthemimeral (at the seventh), that of the modern
"Alexandrine" is, save by rare, and not often justified, license,
invariably at the sixth or middle--a thing which actually alters the
whole rhythmical constitution and effect of the line.[164] Nor, is the
_name_ to be neglected. Despite the strenuous effort of modern times
to upset traditional notions, it remains a not seriously disputed fact
that the name "Alexandrine" comes from the French _Roman d'Alexandre_,
not earlier than the late twelfth century, and itself following upon
at least one _decasyllabic_ Alexandreid. The metre, however, suited
French, and, as it had done on this particular subject, ousted the
decasyllable in the _Chansons de geste_ generally; while, with some
intervals and revolts, it has remained the "dress-clothes" of French
poetry ever since, and even imposed itself as such upon German for a
considerable time.
In English, however, though, by accident and in special and partial
use, it has occupied a remarkable place, it has never been anything
like a staple. One of the most singular statements in Guest's _English
Rhythms_ is that the "verse of six accents" (as he calls it) was
"formerly the one most commonly used in our language." The present
writer is entirely unable to identify this "formerly": and the examples
which Guest produces, of single and occasional occurrence in O.E. and
early M.E., seem to him for the most part to have nothing to do with
the form. But it was inevitable that on the one hand the large use
of the metre in French, and on the other its nearness as a metrical
adjustment to the old long line or stave, should make it appear
sometimes. The six-syllable lines of the _Bestiary_ and _Horn_ are
attempts to reproduce it in halves, and Robert of Brunne reproduces it
as a whole.[165] It appears not seldom in the great metrical miscellany
of the Vernon MS., and many of Langland's accentual-alliterative
lines reduce themselves to, or close to it; while it very often makes
a fugitive and unkempt appearance in fifteenth-century doggerel. Not a
few of the poems of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ are composed in it,
and as an alternative to the fourteener (this was possibly what Guest
was thinking of) it figures in the "poulter's measure" of the early and
middle sixteenth century. Sidney used it for the sonnet. But it was not
till Drayton's _Polyolbion_ that it obtained the position of continuous
metre for a long poem: and this has never been repeated since, except
in Browning's _Fifine at the Fair_.
So, the most important appearances by far of the Alexandrine in English
are _not_ continuous; but as employed to vary and complete other lines.
There are two of these in especial: the first among the greatest
metrical devices in English, the other (though variously judged and
not very widely employed) a great improvement. The first is the
addition, to an eight-line arrangement in decasyllables, of a ninth in
Alexandrine which constitutes the Spenserian stanza and will be spoken
of below. The other is the employment of the Alexandrine as a variation
of decasyllable in couplet, in triplet and singly, which is, according
to some, including the present writer, visible in the "riding-rhyme"
of Chaucer; which is often present in the blank verse of Shakespeare;
not absent from that of Milton in his earlier attempts; employed in
decasyllabic couplet by Cowley, and (with far greater success) by
Dryden; gradually abandoned and unfavourably spoken of by Pope; but
revived with magnificent effect by Keats in _Lamia_.
VI. FOURTEENER.--On this, as indeed on most of these heads, it will
be well to compare the continuous survey of scanned examples and
the remarks there. This line (or its practical equivalent under the
final _e_ system, the _fif_teener) is probably the oldest attempt to
get a single metrical equivalent for the old divided stave. Its own
equivalents exist, of course, both in Greek and Latin, but it is rather
doubtful whether these had much or anything to do with its genesis. A
more probable source, if any source of the kind is wanted, has been
suggested in the peculiar Latin _thir_teener so popular in the Middle
Ages, and best known by the lines attributed to Mapes--
Meum est propositum in taberna mori.
With a "catch" syllable at each half[166] you get the full accentual
iambic _fif_teener, and the _four_teener follows.
Perhaps, though it is difficult to recognise the fourteener-rhythm
attributed by Guest and others to Cædmon and later A.S. writers, it is
not necessary to look for any foreign sources as other than auxiliary
to the development of the metre in English. So soon as a definite
iambic mould, with or without trochaic and anapæstic substitution,
began to be impressed on the language, the amount of stuff usual in a
full line would naturally fall into fourteener shape. It did so, we
know, as early as the _Moral Ode_ at least; and barely a century later,
it showed its popularity by the abundant use of Robert of Gloucester
and the _Saints' Lives_ writers. Nor, although the inevitable and
fortunate break-up into ballad eight-and-six encroached on its rights
to a large extent, and the alliterative revival still more, did it lose
its attraction, as _Gamelyn_ and other things show, till it got half
drowned in the doggerel welter of the fifteenth century. From this the
earlier Elizabethans fished it out, cleaned and mended it for practice
both independently and as part of the "poulter's measure," while the
finest example existing was given by Chapman's _Iliad_ in the early
seventeenth century. More recently, except in the _Sigurd_ variety, it
has been seldom used for long poems, but has served as the vehicle of
many of the finest short pieces in the poetry of the nineteenth century.
VII. DOGGEREL.--In the sense (see Glossary) in which this ambiguous
word applies to _line_, it is very important to acquire some notion
of its meaning, but rather difficult to put that notion except very
hypothetically. It is, in this use, conveniently applied to an enormous
mass of verse--sometimes hardly deserving that name, but principally
produced in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries--which refuses,
except occasionally, to adjust itself to any standard, even liberally
equivalenced, of iambic octosyllable, decasyllable, Alexandrine, and
fourteener, or of the trochaic and anapæstic metres corresponding to
some of these, though it comes nearest to the anapæstic division. The
pure accentualist may dismiss it as lines of so many irregular beats,
and trouble himself no farther. But that, on the principles of this
book, will not do. An exceedingly interesting parallel between it
(as well as one of its regularised forms, the anapæstic dimeter) and
the Spanish long line, or "Arte Mayor," has been drawn by Professor
Ker. (See Bibliography.) But, without either taking or opposing his
view, there is no doubt of the existence of this _mare magnum_ of
imperfect versification. It seems to have been fed by various streams.
In the first place, as we see from the _Gamelyn_ metre, and from some
nursery songs (which, though they cannot be older than formed Middle
English, may be nearly as old), like "The Queen was in the Parlour,"
the fourteener had a tendency to break itself into roughly balanced
halves of sometimes different rhythm. The Alexandrine, never quite
at home in English, would naturally bulge and straddle in the same
way. On the regular and continuous anapæstic swing nobody had yet
hit for long, though it probably arose in part from this very chaos.
But perhaps the most abundant source of all was the attempt to write
Chaucerian decasyllables with a constantly altering pronunciation, and
the break-down in it. Examples of various forms of doggerel, with their
corresponding metres, are given below.[167]
VIII. "LONG" LINES.--Beyond the fourteener or fifteener English verse
has, until quite modern times, rarely gone. There are _six_teeners
to be found in fourteenth-century verse, in the disorderly welter of
the fifteenth, and (no doubt deliberately used) in the experiments of
the _Mirror for Magistrates_; but neither they, nor any longer still,
commended themselves much to any English poet before Mr. Swinburne.
His experiments are famous, and some examples of them are given
elsewhere. Their spirit and sweep has made not a few readers look on
them with favour; but it may be questioned whether any lines beyond
seven feet--and whether even six- and seven-foot lines when trisyllabic
feet are allowed--do not tend to break themselves up in English. In
Mr. Swinburne's own case certainly, and perhaps in some others, the
seven-foot anapæstic line of Aristophanes gave the suggestion, while
the abundant practice in so-called English hexameters may also have had
not a little to do with it.
B. STANZAS, ETC.
I. BALLAD VERSE.--A good deal has been said incidentally about this
at several points in the preceding text; but summary, and a little
repetition, will not be out of place here. There has been an idea with
some that it is a shortened form of the Romance-six (see next article)
or _rime couée_; but this does not seem to the present writer nearly
so probable as the supposition of a break-up of the certainly earlier
fourteener couplet, which gives it at once.[168] It is, however,
not improbable that the crystallising of this was assisted by the
hesitation, also noticed in text, between octosyllabic and hexasyllabic
couplet. The indecision and vacillation, noticeable in such a piece as
_Horn_, between the four- and three-foot line, would easily settle to
alternation more or less regular, and then, with the assistance of the
broken fourteener, into quite regular use. We do not, however, find
decided examples much before "Judas" and the _Gospel of Nicodemus_ in
the late thirteenth century; it is not common in the early mysteries,
though there are approaches to it; and it seems first to have secured
the popular ear in the much-discussed compositions which give it its
name, and which, in English, are very doubtfully to be traced before
the late fourteenth century. These, however, "estated" it once for
all; though for a long time it was treated with the usual mediæval
freedom--wisely restored by Coleridge in the _Ancient Mariner_--and the
exact number of four lines, 8, 6, 8, 6, was not adhered to. The further
fixed variations, familiar from Psalm- and Hymn-books, of "L.M."
(long measure) or octosyllabic quatrain; "C.M." (common measure), the
actual 8 and 6; and "S.M." (short measure) 6, 6, 8, 6, date only from
Elizabethan times, the last being a breaking-up of the then favourite
"poulter's measure" or alternate Alexandrine and fourteener.
II. ROMANCE-SIX or RIME COUÉE.--As in the case of the ballad-four,
much has been said about this earlier. In considering its origin it is
particularly desirable to distinguish between the possible source of
the principle and the probable derivation of the actual form. The term
_couée_ (_caudatus_), which, as has been pointed out, does not apply
very obviously or appropriately to our actual romance-stanza, appears
to refer originally to the peculiar jingly infusion of rhyme into Latin
hexameters which has been traced back at least to the twelfth century,
and the most famous example of which is the original of "Jerusalem the
Golden," the _De Contemptu Mundi_ of Bernard of Morlaix--
Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus--
Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus,
where the rhyme "in the tail" appears clearly enough. It is also not
inappropriate to the form in which Robert of Brunne writes his verse of
the kind, as in Guest's example:
When ye have the prize of your enemies, none shall ye save:
Smite with sword in hand; all Northumberland with right shall ye have.
Sometimes, however, he also batches the two first divisions:
For Edward's good deed }
} a wicked bountỳ.
The Balliol did him meed }
But it came generally to be written in short lines straight on after
the form now familiar. How or why it became so favourite a measure
for romance is not, I believe, known. Direct French influence could
certainly have had little to do here; for though the six-line measure
appears in Marot (early sixteenth century), it is not common earlier,
and I am not even aware of any perfect example[169] of it, in the
abundant variety of French and Provençal lyric during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; while it is quite unknown to the longer French
romances. But it is nearly as easy to remember--or to extemporise in
default of memory--as the couplet itself. And it looks as if it were
less monotonous; though--as those who drew down on it the lash of _Sir
Thopas_, and _Sir Thopas_ itself, show--nothing can be more monotonous
in actuality. Its extensions and variations, and its migration from
long narrative to short lyrical use, have been noticed already. _These_
may have been to some extent influenced by the great popularity of
Marot's _Psalms_, though the metre had long been naturalised.
III. OCTOSYLLABIC and DECASYLLABIC COUPLET.--Of the two great couplet
metres in English, the octosyllabic requires little notice, because
it is almost indissolubly connected with the octosyllabic _line_. As
soon as rhyme appears, the old iambic dimeter, four-accent line, or
whatever you like to call it, _must_ fall into this shape, and does.
There remains indeed the problem why we have no period, in French, of
octosyllabic _tirade_ or batch-writing as we have (see immediately
below) of decasyllabic.[170] But it is certain that the octosyllabic
couplet established itself very early in French, and that at the
important nick of time, when English prosody was being formed late in
the twelfth century, this couplet came to Layamon and others as a great
influence in determining the shape which alteration of the old long
line or halved stave should take in their hands.
Decasyllabic couplet, on the other hand, has a much more tardy and
uncertain history; though, again, much that has to be said about it has
been said in reference to the single line. As soon as that line makes
its appearance, in the "Saint Eulalia" hymn, it does indeed make its
appearance in couplet, rhymed or assonanced.[171] But the attraction
of the longer batches in identical rhyme or assonance seems, however
surprisingly,[172] to get the better; and this is the form that it
takes in the Provençal _Boethius_ and the French _Saint Alexis_. In
fact, as has been hinted above, our own scattered decasyllabic couplet
rather precedes the French, though Guillaume de Machault has the
credit, rightly or wrongly, of teaching it to Chaucer. After Chaucer,
at any rate, there needed nobody to teach it to Englishmen; although it
underwent various vicissitudes, which are duly traced elsewhere.
IV. QUATRAIN.--At a very early period, indeed as soon as they appear,
Latin accentual rhythms have a tendency to batch themselves in four; as
had, earlier still, Greek and Latin stanzas, Sapphic, Alcaic, and what
not. The development of alternate rhyme in the octosyllabic quatrain or
(_v. sup._) ballad metre was certain to lead to a similar arrangement
of _deca_syllables; and when rhyme-royal became popular the first four
lines were so arranged, and might easily be broken off for separate
use, as there is little doubt that the final couplet was. "Fours" of
various arrangement are also abundant in lyric and in drama from the
thirteenth to the fifteenth century. But the greatest impulse was
probably given to the alternate decasyllabic form by its adoption for
the bulk of the English sonnet; and from this to separate use, which
became common in the later Elizabethan poetry, there is but a very
short step. The metre has always been a popular one since, and, in the
hands of Dryden and Gray especially, is very effective. But a certain
grave monotony about it has constantly invited modifications, of which
the greatest and most successful, without altering the line-length,
are those of FitzGerald in _Omar Khayyám_[173] and Mr. Swinburne in
_Laus Veneris_;[174] with altered line-lengths, those of Tennyson in
"The Poet,"[175] "The Palace of Art," and "A Dream of Fair Women." It
was also tried in the seventeenth century as what may be called by
anticipation "long _In Memoriam_ measure"--that is to say, with the
rhymes arranged _abba_.
V. IN MEMORIAM METRE itself may have been suggested quite casually
in the endless rhyme-welter of mediæval experiment. For instance,
it occurs in lines 3 to 6 of Chaucer's nine-line stanza[176] in the
_Complaint of Mars_, and the last eight of his ten-line in the
_Complaint to his Lady_,[177] with decasyllabic lines, of course.
It occurs also, with six-syllable lines, in the last halves of the
octaves of No. XIX. of the _York Plays_.[178] Sidney has it as a
"sport" or chance. But the first person to use it regularly and with
octosyllables was Ben Jonson,[179] who was followed by Lord Herbert of
Cherbury and George Sandys. Yet it was not widely taken up, though few
measures could better have suited the "metaphysical" poets; and after
that generation it remained unused till Tennyson, and by unwitting
coincidence Rossetti, hit upon it just before the middle of the
nineteenth century. Rossetti has also a very effective extension of it
to seven lines _abbacca_.[180]