Note 6 — ENGLISH VERSE

The names of the several kinds of feet are of course borrowed from classical prosody, where they are used to mark feet made up not of accented and unaccented, but of long and short syllables. The different significance of the terms as applied to the verse of different languages has given rise to some confusion, and it is proposed by some to abandon the classical terms; their use, however, seems to be too well established in English to permit of change. Some would even abandon the attempt to measure English verse by feet, contending that its rhythm is too free to admit of any such measuring process; thus, see Mr. J. M. Robertson, in the Appendix to New Essays toward a Critical Method, and Mr. J. A. Symonds in his Blank Verse. See also in Mr. Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody, Appendix G "On the Use of Greek Terminology in English Prosody." (1901 ed. p. 77.)