Part 1 — ENGLISH VERSE

I. ACCENT AND TIME

A.—KINDS OF ACCENT

The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according to cause or significance.

Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed). Schipper makes four groups: Principal Accent (Hauptaccent or Hochton), Secondary Accent (Nebenaccent or Tiefton), No Accent (Tonlosigkeit), and Disappearance of Sound (Stummheit). In illustration he gives the word ponderous, where the first syllable has the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent; while in the verse

the second syllable is suppressed or silent.

Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three principal classes of syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from Paradise Lost he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them, by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 With loss of Eden, till one greater man 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top 2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1 Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2 In the beginning, how the heavens and earth 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 Rose out of chaos.[2] 2 0 0 2 0

It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew Arnold's Forsaken Merman),—

we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "soul, Merman" are respectively cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below.

The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W. Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says, "un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable, and Je-rusalem ... are naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables, and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word, or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further illustrated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the second syllable. In the line

he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "illustrates with its four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis." The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent." (All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old English Verse,' in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse,—that is, the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.

According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical scheme. In the verse

the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons, and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical reasons.

The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict, the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In both cases exceptions are of course numerous.

The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where—as commonly read—the prose- (word-) accent triumphs.

(Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel.)

(Shakspere: Romeo and Juliet, I. i. 196 ff.)

(Shakspere: ib. V. i. 68 ff.)

(Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 712 ff.)

(Keats: Lamia, i. 47 ff.)

(Tennyson: The Princess, v. 318 ff.)

(Browning: Paracelsus, i. 36 ff.)

On the other hand, we find verses showing a conflict between prose and verse accent, where the verse-accent may be regarded as triumphing wholly or in part. Where this triumph is complete, the accent is said to be wrenched; as, for example, in old ballad endings like "north countree."[3] Where there is a compromise effected in reading, the accent is said to be hovering; as in one of Shakspere's songs,—

(Rossetti: Willowwood. House of Life, Sonnet xlix.)

(Fair Helen; old ballad.)

(Swinburne: Chorus in Atalanta in Calydon.)

(Swinburne: The Leper.)

These wrenched accents are characteristic of one phase of the so-called "pre-Raphaelite" poetry of the Victorian period; in part, no doubt, they are due to the influence of the old ballads. My colleague Professor Newcomer has suggested that they are partly due, also, to a dislike for the combative accent which would occur where two heavy syllables came together (accented as commonly) in a compound like "harp-player."

Of special interest are the examples of wrenched and hovering accent found in the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey,—more especially in Wyatt. These mark the time when the syllable-counting principle was coming into prominence in English verse, under the new culture of the days of Henry VIII. The first conscious followers of this principle seem to have given it such prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the requisite number of syllables, whether the accents conformed to any regular system or not. In the case of Wyatt we can also compare the original forms of many of his poems, as preserved in manuscript, with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557). (See Dr. Flügel's transcriptions from the Wyatt Mss., in Anglia, vol. xviii.) The following is the octave of one of the sonnets, as found in the Ms.:

(Anglia, xviii. 465.)

Compare this with the revised form in Tottel's edition:

(Arber Reprint, p. 40.)

It appears that this revision was the work of the editor, who had a better sense of true English rhythm than the poet himself. Alscher, however, in his work on Wyatt, contends that Wyatt doubtless revised his own verses so as to give them their finished form. (See Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine Stellung, etc., p. 49.) Other lines in Wyatt's verse where the number of syllables is counted but where the accents are faulty, are these:

Another large group of hovering accents is that formed by French words with such terminations as -our, -ance, -ace, -age, -ant, -ess. In such cases the original tendency of the word was to accent the final syllable; but the general tendency of English accents being recessive, the words often passed through a transitional period when the accent was variable or "hovering." The first of the four lines just quoted shows us a word of this character.

For an interesting presentation of certain phases of the laws of stress in English verse, see Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody (ed. 1901), Appendix J, "on the Rules of Stress Rhythms."

B.—TIME-INTERVALS

The fundamental principle of the rhythm of English verse (and indeed of any rhythm) is that the accents appear at regular time-intervals. In practice there is of course great freedom in departing from this regularity, the equal time-intervals being at times only a standard of rhythm to which the varying successions of accented and unaccented syllables are mentally referred. Where the equal time-intervals are observed with substantial regularity, two sorts of verse are still to be clearly distinguished: that in which not only the intervals of time but the numbers of syllables between the accents are substantially equal and regular, and that in which the number of syllables varies. The latter class is that of the native Germanic metres; the former is that of the Romance metres, and of modern English verse as influenced by them. With the development of regularity in the counting of syllables there has perhaps also taken place a development of regularity in the regular counting of the time-intervals. In other words, the modern English reader, where the number of syllables between accents is variable, makes the time-intervals as nearly equal as possible by lengthening and shortening the syllables in the manner permitted by the freedom of English speech; in early English verse, where the number of syllables between accents varied very greatly, we cannot be sure that the time-intervals were so accurately felt or preserved in recitation.

i. Verse showing fairly regular intervals between accents

(Pope: Essay on Criticism, ll. 384-393.)

(Scott: Hunting Song.)

(Tennyson: Locksley Hall.)

(Swinburne: March.)

ii. Verse showing irregular intervals between accents

(Beowulf, ll. 2516-2528. ab. 700.)

(The Farmer's Complaint, ab. 1300; in Böddeker's Altenglische Dichtungen, p. 102, and Wright's Political Songs, p. 149.)

(N. Udall: Ralph Roister Doister, IV. iii. 13-19. 1566.)

(Spenser: Shepherd's Calendar, February. 1579.)

(Milton: Paradise Lost, II. 618 ff. 1667.)

(Coleridge: Christabel, Part I. 1816.)

In his Preface to this poem Coleridge said: "The metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion." The verse is accurately described, but it has frequently been pointed out as curious that Coleridge should have spoken of it as "founded on a new principle," when the principle in question was that of native English verse from the earliest times.[5]

For other specimens of verse showing irregularity in the number of syllables between the accents, see Part Two, under Non-syllable-counting Four-stress Verse.

iii. Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)

(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables.

Most English verses of more than eight syllables are divided not only into the time-intervals between the accents, but also into two parts (which Schipper calls "rhythmical series") by the Cesura. The Cesura is a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but corresponding to the pauses between "phrases" in music, and nearly always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the sentence.

The medial cesura is the typical pause of this kind, dividing the verse into two parts of approximately equal length. In much early English verse, and in French verse, this medial cesura is almost universal; in modern English verse (and in that of some early poets, notably Chaucer) there is great freedom in the placing of the cesura, and also in omitting it altogether. The importance of this matter in the history of English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two.

In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis (Quomodo E. Spenserus, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in Modern Language Notes for November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English (1575), we find: "There are also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below.

Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589), where the writer compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.)

Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:

(Du Bartas: La Première Semaine. 1579.)

See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse.

Specimen of early blank verse printed with regular medial cesura:

(Gascoigne: The Steel Glass, ll. 439 ff. 1576.)

For specimens of regular medial cesura, and of variable cesura, in modern verse, see under the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.

The Cesura is called masculine when it follows an accented syllable. (For examples, see previous specimen from Gascoigne.) It is called feminine when it follows an unaccented syllable. Two varieties of the feminine cesura are also distinguished: the Lyric, when the pause occurs inside a foot; e.g.:

the Epic, when the pause occurs after an extra (hypermetrical) light syllable; e.g.:

The "epic" cesura is quite as characteristic of dramatic blank verse as of epic.

The pause occurring at the end of a line is equally regular with the medial pause, and corresponds in the same way to a phrase-pause in music. It is an element of the same character, then, as the cesura, though not bearing the same name. It coincides less closely than the cesura with syntactical and rhetorical pauses. When there is no corresponding syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (in other words, when the metrical pause marking the end of the verse cannot be prominently represented in reading without interfering with the expression of the sense), the line is said to be "run-on." Such an ending is also called enjambement. The importance of this distinction between "end-stopped" and "run-on" lines will appear in the notes on the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.

(b) Pauses filling the time of syllables.

A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be distinguished from the cesural pause by the fact that in this case the time of the pause is counted in the metrical scheme. Pauses of this class correspond to rests in music; and as in the case of such rests, their occurrence is exceptional.

(Chaucer: Prologue to Canterbury Tales, 75 f. and 293 f.)

This omission of the first light syllable is characteristic of Chaucer's couplet and of Middle English verse generally. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 462, and ten Brink's Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst, p. 175.) In modern verse it is not usually permitted.

(Wyatt: The joy so short, alas!)

The omitted syllable following the medial pause is closely parallel to that at the beginning of the verse.

(Richard II, I. iii. 118.)

(King John, I. i. 161.)

(Macbeth, I. iv. 35.)

(Measure for Measure, II. ii. 117.)

These specimens of pauses in Shakspere's verse indicate the natural varieties of dramatic form. In such cases the pause often occurs between speeches, or where some action is to be understood as filling the time; as in the second instance, where the accolade is given in the middle of the line. (See Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, pp. 413 ff.)

(Tennyson: Break, Break, Break.)

In Lanier's Science of English Verse, p. 101, this stanza is represented in musical notation, with rests, to show that rhythm "may be dependent on silences."

(Burns: Auld Lang Syne.)

Here the syllables "auld" and "lang" may be regarded as lengthened so as to fill the time of the missing light syllables. So in many cases there is a choice between compensatory lengthening and compensatory pause.

(Kipling: The Last Chantey.)

This is an instance of a pause forming a regular part of the verse-rhythm. Thus in the first verse of each stanza the second and sixth syllables are omitted, and the result gives the characteristic effect of the rhythm. In measures where there is regular catalexis (that is, where the last light syllable of the verse is regularly omitted) the phenomenon is really of the same kind.

(Keats: Sonnet to Haydon.)

(Matthew Arnold: The Forsaken Merman.)

In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly read.

FOOTNOTES:

II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE

English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic. The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an iambus (or iamb) if the unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a trochee if the accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly called an anapest if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented syllable, and a dactyl if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse; the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in predominance in English poetry.

The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis or Truncation (the light syllable at the end—or less frequently at the beginning—being omitted).

In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause ("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as

One-stress iambic.

(Herrick: Upon his Departure Hence. 1648.)

(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:)

(Herrick: His Recantation. 1648.)

Two-stress iambic.

(Drayton: Amouret Anacreontic. ab. 1600.)

(Herrick: To the Lark. 1648.)

(Shakspere: Bottom's song in Midsummer Night's Dream, I. ii. ab. 1595.)

(In combination with three-stress:)

(Herrick: His Poetry his Pillar. 1648.)

In the second stanza we have the same measure with feminine ending.

(In combination with four-stress:)

(Pope: Ode on Solitude. ab. 1700.)

Two-stress trochaic.

(Campion: Anacreontics, in Observations in the Art of English Poesie. 1602.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

(Swinburne: Song in Season.)

(Catalectic, and in combination with three-stress:)

(George Eliot: Song from The Spanish Gypsy, Bk. i. 1868.)

The trochaic measures in The Spanish Gypsy are in imitation of the similar forms in Spanish poetry. See p. 114, below.

Two-stress anapestic.

(In combination with three-stress:)

(Shelley: Arethusa. 1820.)

(With feminine ending:)

(Scott: Coronach, from The Lady of the Lake, Canto 3. 1810.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

(Browning: Prospice. 1864.)

These specimens, as is usual in anapestic verse, show considerable freedom in the treatment of the part of the foot containing the light syllables, substituted iambi being very common. Note the iambi in the Shelley stanza, line 1, second foot, and line 5, first foot. In the latter case, however, the first light syllable of line 5 is really supplied by the syllable added to make the feminine ending of line 4. In like manner, in the Scott stanza, the first syllable of line 8 is really supplied by the -ing of line 7; and where we have both feminine ending (in line 1) and a full anapest following, the effect is that of a hypermetrical syllable which must be hurried over in the reading. In the specimen from Browning we find an iambus in the opening foot in lines 2 and 6 (also, of course, in lines 1 and 5).

Two-stress dactylic.

(Thomas Hood: The Bridge of Sighs. ab. 1830.)

Here the alternate lines are catalectic, both light syllables being wanting.

(Tennyson: Charge of the Light Brigade. 1854.)

Here the fourth and ninth lines are catalectic.

(Longfellow: Saga of King Olaf, xvii. 1863.)

In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl (except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic (in the classical terminology); i.e. a foot made up of two heavy syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is generally recognized in English verse.

Two-stress irregular.

(Shakspere: Puck's Song in Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. ab. 1595.)

(Browning: Song in Caliban upon Setebos. 1864.)

In the usual printing of Caliban upon Setebos this song is brought into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended, however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only a grammar but a prosody of his own.

(John Skelton: Colyn Cloute. ab. 1510.)

This is a specimen of what Mr. Churton Collins calls "that headlong voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through quick-recurring rhymes, ... has taken from the name of its author the title of Skeltonical verse." (Ward's English Poets, vol. i. p. 185.) The number of accents, as well as the number of syllables, is irregular, being quite as often (perhaps more often) three as two.

Three-stress iambic.

(Tennyson: Song in Maud, xi. 1855.)

(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)

(Milton: Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 1629.)

Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the beginning,—rare in modern English poetry.

(With feminine ending:)

(Thomas Love Peacock: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from The Misfortunes of Elphin. 1829.)

In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis.

Three-stress trochaic.

(In combination with iambic:)

(Thomas Moore: Go Where Glory Waits Thee. ab. 1820.)

(In combination with six-stress verses:)

(Shelley: To a Skylark. 1820.)

Here lines 2 and 4 are catalectic.

Three-stress anapestic.

(Cowper: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. 1782.)

In this specimen lines 2, 5, 6, and 8 show initial truncation, the first light syllable being missing.

(With two-stress verse:)

(Sir Walter Raleigh (?): Pilgrim to Pilgrim. In MS. Rawl. 85; in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, p. 3.)

"The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this perfectly metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapæstic movement comes like a surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my attention to three epigrams—printed among the poems of Raleigh, ed. Hannah, p. 55—all of them in more or less limping anapæsts, but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to which these verses were sung may have affected the measure." (Notes to Elizabethan Lyrics, pp. 211, 212.)

(With initial truncation:)

(Shenstone: Pastoral Ballad. 1743.)

Mr. Saintsbury praises highly the anapests of Shenstone (Ward's English Poets, vol. iii. p. 272), saying that he "taught the metre to a greater poet than himself, Cowper, and these two between them have written almost everything that is worth reading in it, if we put avowed parody and burlesque out of the question." But this is probably to be regarded as overstating the case.

(With feminine ending:)

(Arthur O'Shaughnessy: The Fountain of Tears. 1870.)

Here the extra light syllable at the end of the line is really the initial light syllable of the following line, as in the specimen on p. 29, above.

(S. Weir Mitchell: A Psalm of the Waters. 1890.)

Here, also, the final light syllable might be said to take the place of the missing initial syllable; but the structure of the verse, with the fact that the initial anapest is always truncated and that the final syllable is never accented, indicates that the verse as it stands is the norm of the poem—three-stress anapestic, with initial truncation and feminine ending.

Three-stress dactylic.

(Catalectic:)

(Browning: Misconceptions. 1855.)

Four-stress iambic.

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

Four-stress trochaic.

(George Eliot: Song from The Spanish Gypsy, Book i. 1868.)

(Longfellow: Hiawatha. 1855.)

(Shakspere: Juno's Song in The Tempest, IV. i. ab. 1610.)

(Catalectic:)

(Shakspere: Love's Labor's Lost, IV. 3. ab. 1590.)

(Milton: L'Allegro. 1634.)

(Keats: Lines on the Mermaid Tavern. 1820.)

Four-stress anapestic.

(Prior: A Better Answer. ab. 1710.)

Prior's anapests well illustrate the appropriateness of the measure for light tripping effects, such as are sought vers de société. See also the measure of Goldsmith's Retaliation, especially the passage beginning—

(Burns: The Chevalier's Lament. 1788.)

(Byron: The Destruction of Sennacherib. 1815.)

(With three-stress:)

(Thomas Moore: Believe me, if all those endearing young charms. ab. 1825.)

Four-stress dactylic.

(Dryden: Song in An Evening's Love. 1668.)

Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual, equally to be scanned as anapests." (Life of Dryden, Men of Letters Series, p. 62.) Here, as almost always in English, the measure is catalectic, a final dactyl being instinctively avoided, except in short two-stress lines.

(Byron: Song of Saul before his Last Battle. 1815.)

(Browning: Cavalier Tunes. 1843.)

Here the metre is varied interestingly by pauses. Thus in lines 1 and 5 the light syllables of the second foot are wholly wanting.

Five-stress iambic.

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

Five-stress trochaic.

(Browning: One Word More. 1855.)

This is a rare specimen of unrimed verse in other than iambic rhythm.

(Catalectic:)

(Tennyson: The Vision of Sin. 1842.)

Five-stress anapestic.

(Browning: Saul. 1845.)

(Tennyson: Maud, III. vi. 1855.)

Here frequent iambi are substituted for anapests; as in line 1, second and fourth feet; lines 2 and 3, fifth foot; line 5, third foot.

Five-stress dactylic.

This form is almost unknown. In the following lines we find five-stress catalectic verse of dactyls and trochees combined:

(Swinburne: A Century of Roundels.)

Six-stress iambic.

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

Six-stress trochaic.

(With alternate lines catalectic:)

(Swinburne: The Last Oracle.)

Six-stress anapestic.

(Tennyson: Maud, I. i. 1855.)

(See note on p. 41.)

(Swinburne: The Garden of Cymodoce, in Songs of the Springtides.)

Six-stress dactylic.

(For this, see chiefly Part Two.)

(Catalectic:)

(Tennyson: Northern Farmer—new style. ab. 1860.)

(Swinburne: Hesperia.)

Seven-stress iambic.

(Byron: Stanzas for Music. 1815.)

Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4.

(Kipling: Wolcott Balestier.)

(See also under Seven-stress Verse, in Part Two.)

Seven-stress trochaic.

(Catalectic:)

(Swinburne: Clear the Way.)

Seven-stress anapestic.

(With feminine ending:)

(Swinburne: The Birds, from Aristophanes.)

Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who

(Studies in Song, p. 68.)

Seven-stress dactylic.

This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made merely for the metrical purpose:

(Englische Metrik, vol. ii. p. 419.)

Eight-stress iambic.

This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length which I have seen used in English":

Eight-stress trochaic.

(Catalectic:)

(Tennyson: Locksley Hall. 1842.)

(Poe: The Raven. 1845.)

(Swinburne: Night in Guernsey.)

In the last line of this specimen we have a nine-accent verse,—very rare in English poetry.

The tendency of all eight-accent lines being to break up into halves of four accents, the distinction between four-stress and eight-stress verse may be at times only a question of printing. Thus, Thackeray's Sorrows of Werther might be regarded as eight-stress trochaic, though commonly printed in short lines:

Eight-stress anapestic.

(Swinburne: March.)

Eight-stress dactylic.

(Longfellow: Golden Legend, iv. 1851.)

The breathlessly continuous character of such long anapestic or dactylic lines may of course be interrupted, by way of relief, by the substitution of iambi or trochees. In the specimen from Swinburne such a resting-place is found in line 3, where a light syllable is omitted after winds. In the specimen from Longfellow the words high-way, distant, human, of course, fill the places of complete dactyls.

COMBINATIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS

i. Verses in which different sorts of feet are more or less regularly combined.

(Jean Ingelow: Give us Love and Give us Peace.)

(Kipling: A Song of the English.)

In both these specimens the full accent regularly recurs in only the alternate feet. Thus while the first specimen is technically eight-stress trochaic, there are in the normal reading of it only four full accents to the line. In other words the first, third, fifth, and seventh feet are regularly pyrrhics. (See p. 55.) The same thing appears in the specimen from Kipling: ye, and, in (in line 2) are accented only in a distinctly secondary fashion. Some have suggested, for such rhythms as these, the recognition of a foot made up of one stressed and three unstressed syllables. Lanier represents such measures (in The Science of English Verse) in four-eight time.

(Browning: Prospice.)

Here the tendency is to use iambi and anapests in alternate feet; see especially lines 2, 3, and 5.

(Browning: Abt Vogler.)

Here we have a hexameter which is neither iambic nor anapestic, but a combination of the two rhythms. So in the following specimens dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet are used interchangeably.

(Shelley: The Flight of Love.)

(Swinburne: The Seaboard.)

(Swinburne: The Armada, vii.)

(Longfellow: The Golden Legend, iv.)

(Shakspere: Twelfth Night, II. iv.)

The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due, no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music.

(Tennyson: Maud, I. v.)

In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic.

(Dryden: Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687.)

In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of imitative representation.

(Matthew Arnold: The Forsaken Merman.)

(Tennyson: Vision of Sin.)

ii. Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical scheme.

Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical metre may be conveniently classified in five groups: Deficiency in accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot.

Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus deficient in stress may conveniently be called pyrrhics, the pyrrhic being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable convenience.

Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables, even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the other, may conveniently be called a spondee.

Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus for a trochee (the latter very rarely).

A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation may be considered as the substitution of an anapest for an iambus, in iambic measure, or the substitution of a dactyl for a trochee, in trochaic measure.

The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the substitution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl.

Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are added here, for the sake of greater clearness.

Deficiency in accent (substituted pyrrhic).

(Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, I.)

Excess of accent (substituted spondee).

(Pope: Essay on Criticism.)

(Milton: Paradise Lost, II. 621.)

(Marlowe: Faustus, sc. xvi.)

(Browning: The Ring and the Book, VI.)

(Browning: Caliban upon Setebos.)

Inversion of accent (substituted trochee).

(Shakspere: Romeo and Juliet, V. iii. 45 f.)

(As You Like It, II. i. 16 f.)

(Merchant of Venice, II. vii. 44 f.)

(Tennyson: Enoch Arden.)

(Tennyson: The Princess.)

(Tennyson: Merlin and Vivien.)

(Matthew Arnold: Sohrab and Rustum.)

Hypermetrical syllable (substituted anapest).

(Shakspere: Julius Cæsar, IV. iii. 271.)

(Milton: Paradise Lost, I. 201 f.)

This passage was one of those where Bentley made himself ridiculous in his edition of Milton. "To smooth it" he changed the lines to read—

not perceiving, what Cowper pointed out, that Milton had designedly used "the word hugest where it may have the clumsiest effect.... Smoothness was not the thing to be consulted when the Leviathan was in question."

(ib. II. 1021 f.)

(Tennyson: Enoch Arden.)

(Tennyson: Geraint and Enid.)

(Tennyson: Œnone.)

(Browning: The Ring and the Book, I.)

(Browning: Paracelsus, I.)

A distinction should be made between these hypermetrical syllables which change the character of the foot from dissyllabic to trisyllabic, and syllables (in a sense hypermetrical) which are slurred or elided in the reading. The word radiance, for example, is regarded as trisyllabic in prose, but in the verse—

it is made dissyllabic by instinctive compression, and in no proper sense makes an anapest of the fifth foot. Of the same character are the numerous cases where a vowel is elided before another vowel—especially the vowel of the article the.[7] On the elisions of Milton's verse, see Mr. Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody; on those of Shakspere's verse, see Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar. In modern verse the use of elision and slurring is ordinarily that found in common speech.

Omitted syllable (substituted iambus).

(Swinburne: Death of Richard Wagner.)

See also specimens on pp. 42, 43, 48, above.

Mr. Mayor considers the question as to how far substitution of other than the typical foot may be carried in a verse, without destroying the genuineness of the fundamental rhythm. His conclusions are these:

(1) The limit of trochaic substitution is three feet out of five, with the final foot iambic; or two out of five, if the fifth foot is inverted.

(2) A spondee is allowable in any position; the limit is four out of five, with either the fourth or fifth foot remaining iambic.

(3) A pyrrhic may occur in any position; the limit is three out of five, with the other feet preferably spondees.

(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five.

(Chapters on English Metre, chap. V.)

Professor Corson discusses the æsthetic effect of these changes from the typical metre: "The true metrical artist ... never indulges in variety for variety's sake.... All metrical effects are to a great extent relative—and relativity of effect depends, of course, upon having a standard in the mind or feelings.... Now the more closely the poet adheres to his standard—to the even tenor (modulus) of his verse—so long as there is no logical nor æsthetic motive for departing from it, the more effective do his departures become when they are sufficiently motived. All non-significant departures weaken the significant ones.... The normal tenor of the verse is presumed to represent the normal tenor of the feeling which produces it. And departures from that normal tenor represent, or should represent, variations in the normal tenor of the feeling. Outside of the general law ... of the slurring or suppression of extra light syllables, which do not go for anything in the expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is presumed to have metrical skill; and where ripples occur in the stream of his verse, they will generally be found to justify themselves as organic; i.e. they are a part of the expression."

(Primer of English Verse, pp. 48-50.)

On the æsthetic symbolism of various metrical movements, see G. L. Raymond's Poetry as a Representative Art, pp. 113 ff.

FOOTNOTES:

III. THE STANZA

The stanza, or strophe, is the largest unit of verse-measure ordinarily recognized. It is based not so much on rhythmical divisions as on periods either rhetorical or melodic; that is, a short stanza will roughly correspond to the period of a sentence, and a long one to that of a paragraph, while in lyrical verse the original idea was to conform the stanza to the melody for which it was written. Thus Schipper observes: "The word strophe properly signifies a turning, and originally indicated the return of the song, as sung, to the melody with which it began." Schipper defines a stanza as a group of verses of a certain number, so combined that all the stanzas of the same poem will be identical in the number, the length, and the metre of the corresponding verses; in rimed verse, also, the arrangement of the rimes will be identical. (See Grundriss, p. 268.)

The form of a stanza, then, is determined and described (the fundamental metre being assumed) by the number of verses, the length of verses, and the arrangement of rimes. The usual and convenient method of indicating these conditions is to represent all the verses that rime together by the same letter, while the number of feet in the verse is written like an algebraic exponent. Thus a quatrain in "common metre" (four-stress and three-stress lines), riming alternately, is represented by the formula a⁴b³a⁴b³.

The appearance of the stanza in English verse is always the sign of foreign influence. The West Germanic verse, as far back as we have specimens of it, is uniformly stichic (that is, marked by no periods save those of the individual verse), not stanzaic.[8] On the other hand, we find the stanza in the Old Norse verse. Sievers's view is that originally the two sorts of verse existed side by side, the stanzaic being preferred for chorus delivery, the stichic for individual recitation; one form at length crowding out the other.

The great organizer of the stanza is, of course, the element of rime. While unrimed stanzas are familiar in classical verse, the two innovations, rime and stanza, were introduced together into English verse, under both Latin and French influences, and have almost invariably been associated. For notes on the history of the beginnings of stanza-forms in English, see therefore under Rime, in the following section.

TERCETS

(Shakspere: The Phœnix and the Turtle. 1601.)

(George Sandys: Paraphrase upon Luke i. ab. 1630.)

(Sir Jno. Denham: Against Love. ab. 1640.)

(Landor: Children Playing in a Churchyard. 1858.)

(Crashaw: Wishes for the Supposed Mistress. 1646.)

(Tennyson: The Two Voices. 1833.)

(Longfellow: Maidenhood. 1842.)

(Herrick: To Julia. 1648)

(Kipling: Mulholland's Contract.)

Terza rima (aba, bcb, etc.).

(Sir Thomas Wyatt: How to use the court and himself therein, written to Sir Francis Bryan. ab. 1542.)

The terza rima is, strictly speaking, a scheme of continuous verse rather than a stanza, each tercet being united by the rime-scheme to the preceding. Its use in English has always been slight, and always due to conscious imitation of the Italian. No successful attempt has been made to use it for a long poem, as Dante did in the Divina Commedia. Wyatt's specimen is the earliest in English; he chose the form for his three satires imitating those of Alamanni.

(Sir Philip Sidney: Thyrsis and Dorus, in the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. ab. 1580.)

(Milton: Psalm II. 1653.)

(Shelley: Ode to the West Wind. 1819.)

In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle line of the preceding tercet.

(Browning: The Statue and the Bust. 1855.)

The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished translation of the Inferno, reproduced here by the courtesy of the author.

(Byron: Francesca of Rimini, from Dante's Inferno, Canto V. 1820.)

(Melville B. Anderson: Dante's Inferno, Canto i. ll. 112-129.)

QUATRAINS

aaaa

(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253—12th century, Böddeker's Altenglische Dichtungen, p. 191.)

aabb

(Sir Philip Sidney: Psalm viii. ab. 1580.)

(Shelley: The Sensitive Plant. 1820.)

abcb

(Ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk. In Gummere's English Ballads, p. 77.)

This is the familiar stanza of the early ballads. The omission of rime in the third line signalizes the fact that the stanza could be (and was) regarded indifferently as made up either of two long lines or four short ones. Thus the famous Chevy Chase ballad is found (Ashmole Ms., of about 1560) written in long lines:

(See in Flügel's Neuenglisches Lesebuch, vol. i. p. 199.)

The same thing occurs also where there are two rimes to the stanza. Originally, the extra internal rime was no doubt the cause of the breaking up of the long couplet into two short lines. (See examples in Part Two, in the case of the septenary.)

(Burns: Bonnie Doon. ab. 1790.)

abab

(From the Harleian Ms. 913. In Mätzner's Altenglische Sprachproben, vol. i. p. 125.)

Furnivall prints this in long lines with internal rime, which of itself seems to form the short-line stanza from the long lines.

(Chaucer: Proverb. ab. 1380.)

(Earl of Surrey: Description of the restless state of a lover. ab. 1545.)

(Ben Jonson: Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy. 1616.)

(Sir William Davenant: Gondibert, Bk. i. Canto 6. 1651)

(Dryden: Annus Mirabilis, stanza 297. 1667.)

(Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. 1751.)

To Davenant's Gondibert is usually traced the use of this "heroic" stanza (abab in iambic five-stress lines) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In his preface the author said: "I believed it would be more pleasant to the reader, in a work of length, to give this respite or pause, between every stanza, ... than to run him out of breath with continued couplets. Nor doth alternate rime by any lowliness of cadence make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain and stately composing of music." Dryden followed Davenant in using the stanza for his Annus Mirabilis, saying in his preface: "I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.... I have always found the couplet verse most easy (though not so proper for this occasion), for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it further on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together." Dryden did not use the stanza again, however, and it is obviously unsuited to a long narrative poem. Saintsbury says: "With regard to the nobility and dignity of this stanza, it may safely be said that Annus Mirabilis itself, the best poem ever written therein, killed it by exposing its faults.... It is chargeable with more than the disjointedness of the couplet, without the possibility of relief; while, on the other hand, the quatrains have not, like the Spenserian stave or the ottava rima, sufficient bulk to form units in themselves." (Life of Dryden, Men of Letters Series, p. 34.)

It is hard to say what Mr. Saintsbury means in speaking of the Annus Mirabilis as the best poem ever written in the heroic quatrain, when we remember that it is the quatrain of Gray's Elegy. On the possible sources of his use of it, see Gosse's Life of Gray, in the Men of Letters Series, p. 98 (also his From Shakespeare to Pope, p. 140). Mr. Gosse refers to the use of the quatrain by Sir John Davies in the Nosce Teipsum (1599), with which Gray was familiar, and (in addition to Davenant, Dryden, and Hobbes's Homer) to the Love Elegies of James Hammond, published 1743. "It is believed that the printing of Hammond's verses incited Gray to begin his Churchyard Elegy, and to make the four-line stanza the basis of most of his harmonies.... The measure itself, from first to last, is an attempt to render in English the solemn alternation of passion and reserve, the interchange of imploring and desponding tones, that is found in the Latin elegiac; and Gray gave his poem, when he first published it, an outward resemblance to the text of Tibullus by printing it without any stanzaic pauses." Mr. Gosse neglects the elegies of William Shenstone, which were also in the quatrain, and some of which had apparently been published before the Churchyard Elegy. On this matter see Beers's Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, p. 137, where Shenstone is said to have borrowed the stanza from Hammond, and Gray from Shenstone. Shenstone, in his Prefatory Essay on Elegy, defended the metrical form and referred to the elegies of Hammond. "Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, seems well enough adapted to this species of poetry; and, however exceptionable upon other occasions, its inconveniencies appear to lose their weight in shorter elegies, and its advantages seem to acquire an additional importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a collection of elegies not long since published." (Chalmers's English Poets, vol. xiii. p. 264.)

(Tennyson: The Palace of Art. 1833.)

abba

(Sir Philip Sidney: Astrophel and Stella, Song ii. ab. 1580.)

(Shakspere: The Phœnix and the Turtle, 1601.)

(Ben Jonson: Elegy, in Underwoods. 1616.)

(Milton: Psalm vi. 1653.)

(Coleridge: To a Friend. ab. 1795.)

(Rossetti: My Sister's Sleep. 1850.)

(Tennyson: In Memoriam, xxvii. 1850.)

(Tennyson: ibid., lxxxiv.)

This stanza (abba in four-stress iambics) is commonly known as the "In Memoriam stanza," from its familiar use by Tennyson. Tennyson is indeed said to have invented it for his own use, not knowing of its earlier appearance in the works of Jonson and Rossetti. Professor Corson has an interesting passage on the poetic quality of the stanza: "By the rhyme-scheme of the quatrain, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza is reduced, the second and third verses being most closely braced by the rhyme. The stanza is thus admirably adapted to that sweet continuity of flow, free from abrupt checks, demanded by the spiritualized sorrow which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would have wrought an entire change in the tone of the poem. To be assured of this, one should read, aloud of course, all the stanzas whose first and second, or third and fourth, verses admit of being transposed without affecting the sense. By such transposition, the rhymes are made alternate, and the concluding rhymes more emphatic." Compare the stanza quoted above from section xxvii. with the transposed form: