The aim of this book is to give the materials for the inductive study of
English verse. Its origin was in certain university courses, for which
it proved to be necessary--often for use in a single hour's work--to
gather almost numberless books, some of which must ordinarily be
inaccessible except in the vicinity of large libraries. I have tried to
extract from these books the materials necessary for the study of
English verse-forms, adding notes designed to make the specimens
intelligible and useful.
Dealing with a subject where theories are almost as numerous as those
who have written on it, it has been my purpose to avoid the setting
forth of my own opinions, and to present the subject-matter in a way
suited, so far as possible, to the use of those holding widely divergent
views. In the arrangement and naming of the earlier sections of the
book, some systematic theory of the subject--accepted at least
tentatively--was indeed indispensable; but I trust that even here those
who would apply to English verse a different classification or
terminology may be able to discard what they cannot approve and to make
use of the specimens from their own standpoint. Even where (as in these
introductory sections) the notes seem to overtop the text somewhat
threateningly, they are invariably intended--as the type indicates--to
be subordinate. Where it has been possible to do so, I have preferred to
present comments on the specimens in the words of other writers, and
have not confined these notes to opinions with which I wholly agree, but
only to those which seem worthy of attention. My own views on the more
disputed elements of the subject (such as the relations of time and
accent in our verse, the presence of "quantity" in English, and the
terminology of the subject) I have reserved for Part Three, where I
trust they will be found helpful by some readers, but where they may
easily be passed over.
To classify the materials of this subject is peculiarly difficult, and
one who tries to solve the problem will early abandon the hope of being
able to follow any system with consistency. Main divisions and
subdivisions will inevitably conflict and overlap. For practical
purposes, basing my arrangement in part on that found convenient in
university lectures (which it will be seen is not altogether unlike that
followed by Schipper in his _Englische Metrik_), I have divided the
specimens of verse into two main divisions, each of which is suggested
by a word in the sub-title of the book. Part One contains specimens
designed to illustrate the principles of English verse, arranged in
topical order. Part Two contains specimens designed to illustrate the
history of the more important forms of English verse, arranged--in the
several divisions--in chronological order. Part Three has already been
spoken of. Part Four contains extracts from important critical writers
on the place and function of the verse-element in poetry,--matters which
give us the _raison d'être_ for the whole study of versification.
If there had ever been hope of making the collection of specimens fairly
complete, even in a representative sense, this would have been
dissipated by the discovery, during the very time of the book's going
through the press, of a number of additional specimens which it seemed
wicked to omit. Doubtless every reader will miss some favorite selection
which might well have been included, and suggestions as to important
omissions will be received gratefully. The attempt has been to put
students on the track of all the more important lines of development of
English verse, and to indicate, by including a considerable number of
specimens from early periods, the continuity of this development from
the times of our Saxon forefathers to our own.
Little consistency can be claimed for the practice observed in the
matter of modernizing texts that date from transition periods like the
sixteenth century. In some cases the text has been modernized, or
retained in its original form, according as it seemed well to emphasize
either the permanent significance or the historical position of the
specimen in question. In other cases the form of the text was determined
merely by the best edition accessible for purposes of reproduction.
Dates have been appended to the specimens in those sections where
chronology is a significant element. It has not always been possible to
verify these dates with thoroughness, or to distinguish between the date
of writing and that of publication; but it is hoped that inaccuracies of
this sort will at least not be found of a character to misrepresent the
historical relations of the specimens. Dates are not ordinarily given
for the poems of writers still living.
In the notes on the specimens I have tried to distinguish between
material likely to be useful for all students of the subject and that
going more into detail, which is intended only for advanced or special
students. Notes of the second class are printed in smaller type. There
has been no attempt to give the notes of a bibliographical character any
pretension to completeness. One may well hesitate to add, in this
direction, to the admirable material presented in the _Methods and
Materials of Literary Criticism_ of Professors Gayley and Scott.
I have resisted strenuously all temptation to choose or to annotate
specimens on general grounds of æsthetic enjoyment, apart from the
distinct study of verse-forms. Yet it would be useless to deny having
sometimes made choice of particular verses, all other considerations
being equal, for their poetic or literary value over and above their
prosodical. I shall not claim for the collection what Boswell did for
Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, that "he was so attentive in the choice" of
the illustrative passages "that one may read page after page ... with
improvement and pleasure;" yet I may say that, so far from fearing that
the enjoyment of any poem will be injured by a proper attention to the
elements of its metrical form, it is my hope that many a haunting verse
may linger, a perpetual possession of beauty, in the memory of the
student who first found it here classified under a technical name.
Many obligations are to be acknowledged to scholars of whose advice I
have availed myself. Most kindly aid has been received from Professor G.
L. Kittredge and Dr. Fred N. Robinson, of Harvard University; from
Professor Felix E. Schelling, of the University of Pennsylvania; from my
friend, Mr. H. P. Earle, of Stanford University; and from my colleague,
Dr. Ewald Flügel. My obligation to Schipper's monumental works on
English verse will be obvious to every scholar. They suggested many of
the specimens of verse-forms, and are also represented by translations
or paraphrases in the notes; references to Schipper, without full
title, are to the _Englische Metrik_,--the larger work. I have also made
thankful use of Mr. John Addington Symonds's essays on Blank Verse, and
of Professor Corson's _Primer of English Verse_,--both somewhat
unscientific but highly suggestive works. The section on Artificial
French Forms obviously owes very much to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades
and Rondeaus_. A book to which my obligation is out of all proportion to
the number of actual quotations from it is Mr. J. B. Mayor's _Chapters
on English Metre_. This modest but satisfying volume seemed to me, when
I first was taking up the study of English verse, to be a grateful
relief from the thorny and often fruitless discussions with which the
subject had been overgrown; and in returning to it again and again, I
have never failed to renew the impression. Its suggestions underlie a
good part of the system of classification and terminology adopted for
this book. The new and enlarged edition came to hand too late for use,
but I was able to include references to it in the notes.
I must also record thanks to those authors and publishers who have
courteously given permission for the reproduction of their publications:
to Mr. John Lane, for permission to quote from the works of Mr. William
Watson and Mr. Stephen Phillips; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, for permission to make extracts from the poems of Mr. William
Vaughn Moody and from Mr. Stedman's _Nature and Elements of Poetry_; to
Macmillan and Company, Limited, of London, for permission to make
extracts from Professor Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry_ and
from Mr. Courthope's _Life in Poetry and Law in Taste_; to Professor F.
B. Gummere and The Macmillan Company of New York, for permission to
quote from the former's _Beginnings of Poetry_; to the Lothrop
Publishing Company of Boston, for permission to reprint Mr. Clinton
Scollard's villanelle, "Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door," from the
volume entitled _With Reed and Lyre_; to Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
for permission to reprint her rondeau, "A Man must Live," from the
volume entitled _On This Our World_ (published by Small, Maynard and
Company); to Dr. Samuel Minturn Peck, for permission to reprint one of
the triolets called "Under the Rose," from his volume entitled _Cap and
Bells_; to the Frederick A. Stokes Company, for permission to reprint
Mr. Frank D. Sherman's "Ballade to Austin Dobson," from the volume
entitled _Madrigals and Catches_. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Mr. W. E.
Henley, and Mr. Edmund Gosse have given generous permission to quote
freely from their poems. Mr. Henley was also good enough to suggest the
choice of the rondeau from his "Bric-à-Brac"; and Mr. Gosse, whose
unfailing courtesy follows up his numerous published aids to students of
English poetry, has also added some personal notes on the history of the
heroic couplet.
Finally, it should be said that a considerable part of the studies
resulting in this book was carried on while the editor held the Senior
Fellowship in English on the Harrison Foundation in the University of
Pennsylvania. If, therefore, the book should prove of service to any,
the fact will be a single additional tribute to the munificence of that
foundation.