FOOTNOTES:
[1] Note to Second Edition. Christmas 1913.—The opportunity of this second edition[2] has been taken to read the text carefully, and to correct a certain number of errors of pen and press, connected more especially with division of feet and quantification of syllables. How difficult it is to avoid errors here, nobody who has not tried the matter on an extensive scale can well conceive. Few more substantial alterations have been found necessary; but I may mention here an addition to the evidence of distinct, if clumsy, anapæstic metre in the mid.-sixteenth century, which I had not noticed when writing this book, or my larger one. It is a translation of the 149th Psalm, contributed to the "Old Version" (1561-2) by John Pulleyne, Student of Christchurch, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. It may be found in the Parker Society's Select Poems, and begins:
Sing unto the Lord with hearty accord
A new joyful song;
His praises resound, in every ground
His saints all among.
[2] And of a third.—Bath, Sept. 1919.
[CONTENTS]
| [BOOK I] INTRODUCTORY AND DOGMATIC | |
| [CHAPTER I] | |
| PAGE | |
| Introductory | [3] |
| [CHAPTER II] SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE ACCENTUAL OR STRESS | |
| Classical prosody uniform in theory—English not so—"Accent"and "stress"—English prosody as adjusted to them—Itsdifficulties—and insufficiencies—Examples of its application—Itsvarious sects and supporters | [6] |
| [CHAPTER III] SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE SYLLABIC | |
| History of the syllabic theory—Its results—Note: Cautions | [14] |
| [CHAPTER IV] SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE FOOT | |
| General if not always consistent use of the term "foot"—Particularobjections to its systematic use—"Quantity" in English—The"common" syllable—Intermediate rules of arrangement—Someinterim rules of feet (expanded in note)—The different systemsapplied to a single verse of Tennyson's—and their applicationexamined—Application further to his "Hollyhock" song—Suchapplication possible always and everywhere | [19] |
| [CHAPTER V] RULES OF THE FOOT SYSTEM | |
| § A. Feet.—Feet composed of long and short syllables—Not allcombinations actual—Differences from "classical" feet—Thethree usual kinds: iamb, trochee, anapæst—The spondee—Thedactyl—The pyrrhic—The tribrach—Others. § B. Constitution ofFeet.—Quality or "quantity" in feet—Not necessarily "time"—norvowel "quantity"—Accumulated consonants—or rhetorical stress—orplace in verse will quantify—Commonness of monosyllables. §C. Equivalence and Substitution.—Substitution of equivalentfeet—Its two laws—Confusion of base must be avoided—(Of whichthe ear must judge)—Certain substitutions are not eligible. § D.Pause.—Variation of pause —Practically at discretion—Blank versespecially dependent on pause. § E. Line-Combination.—Simple orcomplex—Rhymes necessary to couplet—Few instances of successfulunrhymed stanza—Unevenness of line in length—Stanzas to bejudged by the ear—Origin of commonest line-combinations. § F.Rhyme.—Rhyme natural in English—It must be "full" —and notidentical—General rule as to it—Alliteration—Single, etc.,rhyme—Fullness of sound—Internal rhyme permissible—but sometimesdangerous. § G. Miscellaneous—Vowel-music—"Fingering"—Confusionof rhythms intolerable | [30] |
| [CHAPTER VI] CONTINUOUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH SCANSION ACCORDING TO THE FOOTSYSTEM | |
| I. Old English Period: Scansion only dimly visible—II. Late OldEnglish with nisus towards Metre: "Grave" Poem—III. TransitionPeriod: Metre struggling to assert itself in a new way—IV. EarlyMiddle English Period: Attempt at merely Syllabic Uniformitywith Unbroken Iambic Run and no Rhyme—V. Early Middle EnglishPeriod: Conflict or Indecision between Accentual Rhythm andMetrical Scheme—VI. Early Middle English Period: The Appearanceand Development of the "Fourteener"—VII. Early Middle EnglishPeriod: The Plain and Equivalenced Octosyllable—VIII. Early MiddleEnglish Period: The Romance-Six or Rime Couée—IX. Early MiddleEnglish Period: Miscellaneous Stanzas—X. Early Middle EnglishPeriod: Appearance of the Decasyllable—XI. Later Middle EnglishPeriod: The Alliterative Revival (Pure)—XII. Later Middle EnglishPeriod: The Alliterative Revival (Mixed)—XIII. Later MiddleEnglish Period: Potentially Metrical Lines in Langland (see [BookII].)—XIV. Later Middle English Period: Scansions from Chaucer—XV.Later Middle English Period: Variations from Strict Iambic Norm inGower—XVI. Transition Period: Examples of Break-down in LiteraryVerse—XVII. Transition Period: Examples of True Prosody in Ballad,Carols, etc.—XVIII. Transition Period: Examples of Skeltonic andother Doggerel—XIX. Transition Period: Examples from the ScottishPoets—XX. Early Elizabethan Period: Examples of Reformed Metrefrom Wyatt, Surrey, and other Poets before Spenser—XXI. Spenserat Different Periods—XXII. Examples of the Development of BlankVerse—XXIII. Examples of Elizabethan Lyric—XXIV. Early ContinuousAnapæsts—XXV. The Enjambed Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)—XXVI.The Stopped Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)—XXVII. Various Formsof Octosyllable-Heptasyllable (late Sixteenth and SeventeenthCentury)—XXVIII. "Common," "Long," and "In Memoriam" Measure(Seventeenth Century)—XXIX. Improved Anapæstic Measures (Dryden,Anon., Prior)—XXX. "Pindarics" (Seventeenth Century)—XXXI. TheHeroic Couplet from Dryden to Crabbe—XXXII. Eighteenth-CenturyBlank Verse—XXXIII. The Regularised Pindaric Ode—XXXIV. LighterEighteenth-Century Lyric—XXXV. The Revival of Equivalence(Chatterton and Blake)—XXXVI. Rhymeless Attempts (Collins toShelley)—XXXVII. The Revived Ballad (Percy to Coleridge)—XXXVIII.Specimens of Christabel; Note on the Application of theChristabel System to Nineteenth-Century Lyric generally—XXXIX.Nineteenth-Century Couplet (Leigh Hunt to Mr. Swinburne)—XL.Nineteenth-Century Blank Verse (Wordsworth to Mr. Swinburne)—XLI.The Non-Equivalenced Octosyllable of Keats and Morris—XLII. TheContinuous Alexandrine (Drayton and Browning)—XLIII. The DyingSwan of Tennyson scanned entirely through to show the Applicationof the System—XLIV. The Stages of the Metre of "Dolores" and theDedication of "Poems and Ballads"—XLV. Long Metres of Tennyson,Browning, Morris, and Swinburne—XLVI. The Later Sonnet—XLVII.The Various Attempts at "Hexameters" in English—XLVIII. MinorImitations of Classical Metres—XLIX. Imitations of ArtificialFrench Forms—L. Later Rhymelessness—LI. Some "Unusual" Metres andDisputed Scansions | [37] |
| [BOOK II] HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGLISH PROSODY | |
| [CHAPTER I] FROM THE ORIGINS TO CHAUCER—THE CONSTITUTION OF ENGLISH VERSE | |
| Relations of "Old" to "Middle" and "New" English—generally—andin prosody—Anglo-Saxon prosody itself—Prosody of the Transitionto Middle English—Contrast in Layamon—Examinations of it:Insufficient—Sufficient—Other documents The Ormulum—TheMoral Ode and the Orison of Our Lady—The Proverbs ofAlfred and Hendyng—The Bestiary—Minor poems—The Owland the Nightingale and Genesis and Exodus—Summary ofresults to the mid-thirteenth century—The later thirteenthcentury and the fourteenth—Robert of Gloucester—TheRomances—Lyrics—The alliterative revival—The later fourteenthcentury—Langland—Gower—Chaucer—His perfecting of M.E.verse—Details of his prosody | [133] |
| [CHAPTER II] FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER—DISORGANISATION AND RECONSTRUCTION | |
| Causes of decay in Southern English prosody—Lydgate, Occleve,etc.—The Scottish poets—Ballad, etc.—Dissatisfaction andreform—Wyatt and Surrey—Their followers—Spenser—The Shepherd'sCalendar—The Faerie Queene | [161] |
| [CHAPTER III] FROM SHAKESPEARE TO MILTON—THE CLOSE OF THE FORMATIVE PERIOD | |
| Blank verse—Before Shakespeare—In him—and after him indrama—Its degeneration—Milton's reform of it—Comus—ParadiseLost—Analysis of its versification, with application of differentsystems—Stanza, etc., in Shakespeare—in Milton—and others—The"heroic" couplet—Enjambed—and stopped—Lyric | [173] |
| [CHAPTER IV] HALT AND RETROSPECT—CONTINUATION ON HEROIC VERSE AND ITSCOMPANIONS FROM DRYDEN TO CRABBE | |
| Recapitulation—Dryden's couplet—and Pope's—Theirpredominance—Eighteenth-century octosyllable and anapæst—Blankverse—and lyric—Merit of eighteenth-century "regularity" | [190] |
| [CHAPTER V] THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL—ITS PRECURSORS AND FIRST GREAT STAGE | |
| Gray and Collins—Chatterton, Burns, and Blake—Otherinfluences of change—Wordsworth, Southey, andScott—Coleridge—Moore—Byron—Shelley: his longer poems—Hislyrics—Keats | [198] |
| [CHAPTER VI] THE LAST STAGE—TENNYSON TO SWINBURNE | |
| From Keats to Tennyson—Tennyson himself—Special example of hismanipulation of the quatrain—Browning—Mrs. Browning—MatthewArnold—Later poets: The Rossettis—W. Morris—Mr. Swinburne—Others | [207] |
| [CHAPTER VII] RECAPITULATION OR SUMMARY VIEW OF STAGES OF ENGLISH PROSODY | |
| I. Old English Period—II. Before or very soon after 1200: EarliestMiddle English Period—III. Middle and Later Thirteenth Century:Second Early Middle English Period—IV. Earlier Fourteenth Century:Central Period of Middle English—V. Later Fourteenth Century:Crowning Period of Middle English—VI. Fifteenth and EarlySixteenth Centuries: The Decadence of Middle English Prosody—VII.Mid-Sixteenth Century: The Recovery of Rhythm—VIII. Late SixteenthCentury: The Perfecting of Metre and of Poetical Diction—IX.Early Seventeenth Century: The further Development of Lyric,Stanza, and Blank Verse; Insurgence and Division of the Couplet—X.Mid-Seventeenth Century: Milton—XI. The Later Seventeenth Century:Dryden—XII. The Eighteenth Century—XIII. The Early NineteenthCentury and the Romantic Revival—XIV. The Later Nineteenth Century | [220] |
| [BOOK III] HISTORICAL SURVEY OF VIEWS ON PROSODY | |
| [CHAPTER I] BEFORE 1700 | |
| Dearth of early prosodic studies—Gascoigne—His remark on feet—Spenser and Harvey—Stanyhurst—Webbe—King James VI.— Pattenham(?)—Campion and Daniel—Ben Jonson, Drayton, Beaumont—JoshuaPoole and "J. D."—Milton—Dryden— Woodford—Comparativebarrenness of the whole | [233] |
| [CHAPTER II] FROM BYSSHE TO GUEST | |
| Bysshe's Art of Poetry—Its importance—Minor prosodists ofthe mid-eighteenth century—Dr. Johnson—Shenstone—Sheridan—John Mason—Mitford—Joshua Steele—Historical and Romanticprosody—Gray—Taylor and Sayers—Southey: his importance—Wordsworth—Coleridge—Christabel, its theory and itspractice—Prosodists from 1800 to 1850—Guest | [242] |
| [CHAPTER III] LATER NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROSODISTS | |
| Discussions on the Evangeline hexameter—Mid-century prosodists—Those about 1870—and since—Summary | [256] |
| [BOOK IV] AUXILIARY APPARATUS | |
| [CHAPTER I] GLOSSARY | |
| Accent – Acephalous – Acrostic – Alexandrine – Alcaic – Alliteration – Amphibrach – Amphimacer – Noteon Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse – Anacrusis – Anapæst – Anti-Bacchic orAnti-Bacchius – Antispast – Antistrophe – Appoggiatura – Arsis and its opposite,Thesis – Assonance – Atonic – Bacchic orBacchius – Ballad (rarely Ballet) – Ballade – BalladMetre or Common Measure – Bar and Beat – BlankVerse – Bob and Wheel – Burden – BurnsMetre – Cadence – Cæsura – Carol –Catalexis – Catch – Chant-Royal – Choriamb – Coda – Common – Common Measure ("C.M.") – Consonance – Couplet –Cretic – Dactyl – Di-iamb – Dimeter – Dispondee – Distich –Ditrochee – Dochmiac – Doggerel – Duple – Elision –End-stopped – Enjambment – Envoi – Epanaphora – Epanorthosis – Epitrite – Epode – Equivalence – Eye-Rhyme – FeminineRhyme (Feminine Ending) – "Fingering" – Foot; Tableof Feet – Fourteener – Galliambic – Gemellor Geminel – Head-Rhyme – Hendecasyllable – Heptameter – Heroic – Hexameter –Hiatus – Iambic – Inverted Stress – Ionic;Note on Ionic a minore as applicable to the Epilogue ofBrowning's Asolando – Leonine Verse – Line – Longand Short – Long Measure ("L.M.") – LydgatianLine – Masculine Rhyme – Metre – Molossus –Monometer – Monopressure – Octave – Octometer – Ode – OttavaRima – Pæon – Pause – Pentameter – Pindaric – Position – Poulter'sMeasure – Proceleusmatic – Pyrrhic – Quantity – Quartetor Quatrain – Quintet – Redundance – Refrain – Rhyme – Rhyme-Royal – Rhythm – RidingRhyme – Rime Couée or TailedRhyme – Romance-Six – Rondeau, Rondel – Sapphic –Section – Septenar – Septet – Sestet,also Sixain – Sestine, Sestina – ShortMeasure ("S.M.") – Single-moulded – Skeltonic – Slur – Sonnet – Spenserian – Spondee – Stanza orStave – Stress – Stress-Unit – Strophe – Substitution – Synalœpha –Syncope – Synizesis – Syzygy – TailedSonnet – Tercet – TerzaRima – Tetrameter – Thesis – Time – Tribrach – Triolet –Triple – Triplet – Trochee – Truncation – TumblingVerse – Turn of Words – Verse – VerseParagraph – Vowel-Music – Weak Ending – WrenchedAccent | [265] |
| [CHAPTER II] REASONED LIST OF POETS WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO THEIR PROSODICQUALITY AND INFLUENCE | |
| Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)—Barham, Richard H.("Thomas Ingoldsby") (1788-1845)—Beaumont, Sir John(1583-1623)—Blake, William (1757-1827)—Bowles, William Lisle(1762-1850)—Browne, William (1591-1643)—Browning, ElizabethBarrett (1806-1861)—Browning, Robert (1812-1889)—Burns, Robert(1759-1796)—Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)—Campbell,Thomas (1777-1844)—Campion, Thomas (?-1619)—Canning, George(1770-1827)—Chamberlayne, William (1619-1689)—Chatterton,Thomas (1752-1770)—Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400)—Cleveland,John (1613-1658)—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)—Collins,William (1721-1759)—Congreve, William (1670-1729)—Cowley,Abraham (1618-1667)—Cowper, William (1731-1800)—Donne,John (1573-1631)—Drayton, Michael (1563-1631)—Dryden, John(1630-1700)—Dixon, Richard Watson (1833-1900)—Dunbar, William(1450?-1513? or -1530?)—Dyer, John (1700?-1758?)—Fairfax,Edward (d. 1635)—Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883)—Fletcher,Giles (1588-1623), and Phineas (1582-1650)—Fletcher, John(1579-1625)—Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)—Gascoigne, George(1525?-1577)—Glover, Richard (1712-1785)—Godric, Saint(?-1170)—Gower, John (1325?-1408)—Hampole, Richard Rolleof (1290?-1347)—Hawes, Stephen (d. 1523?)—Herrick, Robert(1591-1674)—Hunt, J. H. Leigh (1784—1859)—-Jonson, Benjamin(1573?-1637)—Keats, John (1795-1821)—Kingsley, Charles(1819-1875)—Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)—Langland, William(fourteenth century)—Layamon (late twelfth and early thirteenthcentury)—Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)—Locker (latterlyLocker-Lampson), Frederick (1821-1895)—Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth(1807-1882)—Lydgate, John (1370-1450?)—Macaulay, ThomasBabington (1800-1859)—Maginn, William (1793-1842)—Marlowe,Christopher (1664-1693)—Milton, John (1608-1674)—Moore, Thomas(1779-1852)—Morris, William (1834-1896)—Orm—O'Shaughnessy,Arthur W. E. (1844-1881)—Peele, George (1558?-1597?)—Percy,Thomas (1729-1811)—Poe, Edgar (1809-1849)—Pope, Alexander(1688-1744)—Praed, Winthrop Mackworth (1802-1839)—Prior,Matthew (1664-1721)—Robert of Gloucester (fl. c.1280)—Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830-1894) and DanteGabriel (1828-1882)—Sackville, Thomas (1536-1608)—Sandys,George (1578-1644)—Sayers, Frank (1763-1817)—Scott, Sir Walter(1771-1832)—Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)—Shelley, PercyBysshe (1792-1822)—Shenstone, William (1714-1763)—Sidney, SirPhilip (1554-1586)—Southey, Robert (1774-1843)—Spenser, Edmund(1552?-1599)—Surrey, Earl of (1517-1547)—Swinburne, AlgernonCharles (1837-1909)—Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)—Thomson,James (1700-1748)—Tusser, Thomas (1524?-1580)—Waller, Edmund(1606-1687)—Watts, Isaac (1674-1741)—Whitman, Walt[er](1819-1892)—Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)—Wyatt, Sir Thomas(1503?-1542) | [298] |
| [CHAPTER III] ORIGINS OF LINES AND STANZAS | |
| A. Lines.—I. Alliterative—II. "Short" Lines—III.Octosyllable—IV. Decasyllabic—V. Alexandrine—VI.Fourteener—VII. Doggerel—VIII. "Long" Lines. B. Stanzas, etc.—I.Ballad Verse—II. Romance-Six or Rime Couée—III. Octosyllabicand Decasyllabic Couplet—IV. Quatrain—V. In Memoriam Metre—VI.Rhyme-Royal—VII. Octave—VIII. Spenserian—IX. Burns Metre—X.Other Stanzas | [316] |
| [CHAPTER IV] BIBLIOGRAPHY | |
| Abbot, E. A.—Alden, R. M.—[Blake, J. W.]—Brewer, R. F.—Bridges,R. S.—Bysshe, Edward—Calverley, C. S.—Campion, Thomas—Cayley,C. B.—Coleridge, S. T.—Conway, Gilbert—Crowe, William—Daniel,Samuel—Dryden, John—Gascoigne, George—Goldsmith, Oliver—Guest,Edwin—Hodgson, Shadworth—Hood, T. (the younger)—Jenkin,Fleeming—Johnson, Samuel—Ker, W. P.—King James the First (Sixthof Scotland)—Lewis, C. M.—Liddell, Mark H.—Mason, John—Masson,David—Mayor, J. B.—Mitford, William—Omond, T.S.—Patmore,Coventry—Poe, E. A.—[Puttenham, George?]—Ruskin, John—Schipper,J.—Shenstone, William—Skeat, W. W.—Southey, Robert—Spedding,James—Spenser, Edmund—Steele, Joshua—Stone, W. J.—Symonds, J.A.—Thelwall, John—Verrier, M.—Wadham, E.—Webbe, William | [337] |
| INDEX | [341] |
[BOOK I]
INTRODUCTORY AND DOGMATIC
[CHAPTER I]
INTRODUCTORY
Prosody, or the study of the constitution of verse, was, not so long ago, made familiar, in so far as it concerned Latin, to all persons educated above the very lowest degree, by the presence of a tractate on the subject as a conclusion to the Latin Grammar. The same persons were further obliged to a more than theoretical knowledge of it, in so far as it concerned that language, by the once universal, now (as some think) most unwisely disused habit of composing Latin verses. The great majority of English poets, from at least the sixteenth century, if not earlier, until far into the nineteenth, had actually composed such verses; and even more had learnt the rules of them, long before attempting in English the work which has given them their fame. It is sometimes held that this fact—which as a fact is undeniable—has had an undue influence on the way in which English prosody has been regarded; that it must have exercised an enormous influence on the way in which English poetry has been produced may be denied, but hardly by any one who really considers the fact itself, and who is capable of drawing an inference.
It was, however, a very considerable time before any attempt was regularly made to construct a similar scientific or artistic analysis for English verse itself. Although efforts were made early to adjust that verse to the complete forms of Latin—and of Greek, which is in some respects prosodically nearer than Latin to English,— although such attempts have been constantly repeated and are being continued now,—it has always been impossible for any intelligent person to make them without finding curious, sometimes rather indefinite, but extremely palpable differences and difficulties in the way. The differences especially have sometimes been exaggerated and more often mistaken, and it is partly owing to this fact that, up to the present moment, no authoritative body of doctrine on the subject of English prosody can be said to exist. It is believed by the present writer that such a body of doctrine ought to be and can be framed—with the constant proviso and warning that it will be doctrine subject, not to the practically invariable uniformity of Science, but to the wide variations of Art,—not to the absolute compulsion of the universal, but to the comparative freedom of the individual and particular. The inquiries and considerations upon which this doctrine is based will be found, at full, in the larger work referred to in the Preface. In the first Book, here, will be set forth the leading systems or principles which have actually underlain, and do underlie, the conflicting views and the discordant terminology of the subject, and this will be followed by perhaps the most valuable part, if any be valuable, of the whole—a series of selected passages, scanned and commented, from the very beginning to the very end of English poetry. In the second, a survey will be given of that actual history of the actual poetry which ought to be, but has very seldom been, the basis of every discussion on prosody. In the third a brief conspectus will be supplied of the actual opinions which have been held on this subject by those who have handled it in English. The fourth will give, in the first place, a Glossary of Terms, which appears to be very much needed; in the second, a list of poets who have specially influenced the course of prosody, with reasoned remarks on their connection with it; in the third, a selected list of important metres with their origins and affiliations; any further matter which may seem necessary following, with a short Bibliography to conclude. The object of the whole is not merely to inculcate what seems to the author to be the best if not the only adequate general system of English prosody, but to provide the student with ample materials for forming his own judgment on this difficult, long debated, often mistaken, but always, if duly handled, profitable and delectable matter.
[CHAPTER II]
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE ACCENTUAL OR STRESS
Classical prosody uniform in theory.
The great difficulty attending the study of English prosody, and the cause of the fact that no book hitherto published can be said to possess actual authority on the subject, arises from the other fact that no general agreement exists, or ever has existed, on the root-principles of the matter.[3] Classical writers on metre, of whom we possess a tolerable stock, differed with each other on many minor points of opinion, and from each other in the ways in which they attacked the subject. But they were practically agreed that "quantity" (i.e. the difference of technical "time" in pronunciation of syllables) and "feet"—that is to say, certain regular mathematical combinations of "long" and "short" quantity—constituted metre. They had indeed accent—the later Greeks certainly and the Latins probably—which was independent of, and perhaps sometimes opposed to, quantity; but except in what we call the ante-classical times of Latin and the post-classical times of both Latin and Greek, it had nothing to do with metrical arrangement. They had different values of "long" and "short"; but these did not affect metre, nor did the fact that in both languages, but especially in Greek, a certain number of syllables were allowed to be "common"—that is to say, capable of taking the place of "long" or "short" alike. The central system of prosodic arrangement (till the flooding of the later Empire with "barbarians" of various nationality and as various intonation and modes of speech broke it down altogether) remained the same. "Longs" and "shorts" in the various combinations and permutations possible, up to three syllables most commonly, up to four in fewer cases, and possibly up to five in still fewer, made up lines which experiment discovered to be harmonious, and practice adopted as such. These lines were sometimes used continuously (with or without certain internal variations of feet, considered equivalent to each other), as in modern blank verse; sometimes arranged in batches corresponding more or less to each other, as in modern couplet or stanza poetry.
English not so.
On the other hand, though English prosodists may sometimes agree on details, translated into their different terminologies, the systems which lie at the root of these terminologies are almost irreconcilably different. Even the reduction of these systems to three types may excite protest, though it is believed that it can be made out without begging the question in favour of any one.
"Accent" and "stress."
The discord begins as early as possible; for there are some who would maintain that "accentual" systems and "stress" systems ought not to be identified, or even associated. It is quite true that the words are technically used[4] with less or more extensive and intensive meaning; but definitions of each are almost always driven to adopt the other, and in prosodic systems they are practically inseparable. The soundest distinction perhaps is that "accent" refers to the habitual stress laid on a syllable in ordinary pronunciation; "stress" to a syllable specially accented for this or that reason, logical, rhetorical, or prosodic purely.
English prosody as adjusted to them.
According to this system (or systems) English poetry consists of syllables—accented or unaccented, stressed or unstressed—arranged on principles which, whatever they may be in themselves, have no analogy to those of classical feet. According to the more reckless and thorough-going accentualists—the view is expressed, with all but its utmost crudity, in Coleridge's celebrated Preface to Christabel[5]—all you have got to do is to look to the accents. Cruder advocates still have said that "accents take the place of feet" (which is something like saying that points take the place of swords), or that unaccented syllables are "left to take care of themselves." It has also been contended that the number and the position of accents or stresses give a complete and sufficient scheme of the metre. And in some late forms of stress-prosody the regularity, actual or comparative, which used to be contended for by accentualists themselves, is entirely given up; lines in continuous and apparently identical arrangement may have two, three, four, five, or even more stresses. While yet others have gone farther still and deliberately proposed reading of verse as a prose paragraph, the natural stresses of which will give the rhythm at which the author aimed.[6] Some again would deny the existence of any normal form of staple lines like the heroic, distributing them in "bars" of "beats" which may vary almost indefinitely.
On the other hand, there are some accentualists who hardly differ, in more than terminology, from the upholders of a foot-and-quantity system. They think that there is no or little time-quantity in English; that an English "long" syllable is really an accented one only, and an English short syllable an unaccented. They would not neglect the unaccented syllables; but would keep them in batches similar to, if not actually homonymous with, feet. In fact the difference with them becomes, if not one of mere terminology, one chiefly on the previous question of the final constitution and causation of "long" and "short" syllables. Of these, and of a larger number who consciously or unconsciously approach nearer to, though they do not actually enter, the "go-as-you-please" prosody of the extreme stressmen, the majority of English prosodists has nearly always consisted. Gascoigne, our first writer on the subject, belonged to them, calling accent itself "emphasis," and applying the term "accent" only to the written or typographical symbols of it; while he laid great stress on its observance in verse. With those who adopt this system, and its terminology, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the heroic line is "inversion of accent," the raising or lowering of the usual pronounced value of a syllable, "wrenching of accent," and so on. And the principal argument which they advance in favour of their system against the foot-and-quantity scheme is the very large prevalence of "common" syllables in English—an undoubted fact; though the inference does not seem to follow.
Its difficulties
The mere use of the word "unaccented" for "short" and "accented" for "long" does no particular harm, though it seems to some clumsy, irrational, and not always strictly correct even from its own point of view, while it produces unnecessary difficulty in the case of feet, or "sections," with no accent in them—things which most certainly exist in English poetry. But the moment that advance is made upon this mere question of words and names, far more serious mischief arises. There can be no doubt that the insistence on strict accent, alternately placed, led directly to the monotonous and snip-snap verse of the eighteenth century. In some cases it leads, logically and necessarily, to denial of such feet as those just mentioned—a denial which flies straight in the face of fact. Although it does not necessarily involve, it most frequently leads also to, the forbidding, ignoring, or shuffling off of trisyllabic feet, which are the chief glory and the chief charm of English poetry, as substituted for dissyllabic. And, further still, it leads to the most extraordinary confusion of rhythms—accentualists very commonly, if not always, maintaining that, inasmuch as there are the same number of accented syllables, it does not matter whether you scan
Whēn | thĕ Brī|tĭsh wār|rĭŏr quēen |
iambically or
Whēn thĕ | Brītĭsh | wārrĭŏr | quēen
trochaically,
Īn thĕ hĕx|āmĕtĕr | rīsĕs thĕ | fōuntāin's | sīlvĕry̆ | cōlūmn
dactylically or
Īn | thĕ hĕxām|ĕtĕr rī|sĕs thĕ fōun|tāin's sīl|vĕry̆ cōl|ūmn
anapæstically.
Further still, and almost worst of all, it leads to the enormities of fancy stress above referred to, committed by people who decline to regard as "long" syllables not accented in ordinary pronunciation.
and insufficiencies.
But its greatest crime is its hopeless inadequacy, poverty, and "beggarly elementariness." At best the accentual prosodist, unless he is a quantitative one in disguise, confines himself to the mere skeleton of the lines, and neglects their delicately formed and softly coloured flesh and members. To leave unaccented syllables "as it were to take care of themselves" is to make prosody mere singsong or patter.
Finally, it may be observed that, in all accentual or stress prosodies which are not utterly loose and desultory, there is a tendency to multiply exceptions, provisos, minor classifications to suit particular cases, and the like, so that English prosody assumes the aspect, not of a combination of general order and individual freedom, but of a tangle of by-laws and partial regulations. Unnecessary when it is not mischievous, mischievous when it is strictly and logically carried out, the accentual system derives its only support from the fact above mentioned (the large number of common syllables to be found in English), from the actual existence of it in Old English before the language and the poetry had been modified by Romance admixture, and from an unscientific application of the true proposition that the classical and the English prosodies are in some respects radically different.
Examples of its application.
It will, however, of course be proper to give examples of the manner in which accentual (or stress) scansion is worked by its own partisans and exponents. Their common formula for the English heroic line in its normal aspect is 5xa:[7]
What òft | was thòught, | but nè'er | so wèll | exprèst.
If they meet with a trisyllabic foot, as in
And ma|ny an am|orous, ma|ny a hu|morous lay,
they either admit two unaccented syllables between the accents, or suggest "slur" or synalœpha or "elision" ("man-yan"), this last especially taking place with the definite article "the" ("th'"). But this last process need not be insisted on by accentualists, though it must by the next class we shall come to.
It is common, if not universal, for accentual prosodists to hold that two accents must not come together, so that they are troubled by that double line of Milton's where the ending and beginning run—
Bòth stòod
Bòth tùrned,
They admit occasional "inversion of accent" (trochaic substitution)—especially at the opening of a verse,—as in the line which Milton begins with
Màker;
but, when they hold fast to their principles, dislike it much in other cases, as, for instance, in
fàlls to | the gròund.
And they complain when the accent which they think necessary falls, as they call it, on one of two weak syllables, as in
And when. |
This older and simpler school, however, represented by Johnson, has been largely supplemented by another, whose members use the term "stress" or ictus in preference to "accent," and to a greater or less extent give up the attempt to establish normality of line at all.
Its various sects and supporters.
Some of them[8] admit lines of four, three, or even two stresses, as, for instance—
His mìn|isters of vèn|geance and pursùit. |
Others[9] break it up into "bars" or "sections" which need not contain the same or any fixed number of "beats" or "stresses," while some again[10] seem to regard the stresses of a whole passage as supplying, like those of a prose paragraph, a sufficient rhythmical skeleton the flesh of which—the unaccented or unstressed part—is allowed to huddle itself on and shuffle itself along as it pleases.
This school has received large recent accessions; but even now the greater number of accentualists do little more than eschew the terms of quantity, and substitute for them those of accent, more or less consistently. Many of them even use the classical names and divisions of feet; and with these there need not, according to strict necessity, be any quarrel, since their error, if it be one, only affects the constitution of prosodic material before it is verse at all, and not the actual prosodic arrangement of verse as such.