TABLE OF FEET

Feet of Two Syllables. Of Three. Of Four. Of Five.
Iamb,̆ ̄Amphibrach,̆ ̄ ̆Antispast,̆ ̄ ̄ ̆Dochmiac. (See under head.)
Pyrrhic,̆ ̆Anapæst,̆ ̆ ̄Choriamb,̄ ̆ ̆ ̄
Spondee,̄ ̄Anti-Bacchic,̆ ̄ ̄Di-iamb,̆ ̄ ̆ ̄
Trochee,̄ ̆Bacchic,̄ ̄ ̆Dispondee,̄ ̄ ̄ ̆
Cretic,̄ ̆ ̄Ditrochee,̄ ̆ ̄ ̆
[see TN below]Dactyl,̄ ̆ ̆Epitrite (four forms)̆ ̄ ̄ ̄
Molossus,̄ ̄ ̄̄ ̆ ̄ ̄
Tribrach,̆ ̆ ̆̄ ̄ ̆ ̄
̄ ̄ ̄ ̆
[see TN below]Ionic:
a majore,̄ ̄ ̆ ̆
a minore,̆ ̆ ̄ ̄
Pæon (four forms)̄ ̆ ̆ ̆
̆ ̄ ̆ ̆
̆ ̆ ̄ ̆
̆ ̆ ̆ ̄
Proceleusmatic,̆ ̆ ̆ ̆

[TN - note under Trochee]: (The trochee ("running foot") was sometimes also called "choree," [a]χορειος], or [a]χοριος] ("dancing foot"), this form appears in "choriambic.")

[TN - note under Cretic]: (The Cretic was also called amphimacer, its arrangement being just the opposite to the amphibrach.)

Fourteener.—A line of seven iambic feet which emerges as almost the first equivalent of the old long A.S. line in English, as early as the Moral Ode, etc. At first it is oftenest a "fifteener," from the presence of the final e; but this drops off. Very largely used by Robert of Gloucester and others in the late thirteenth century; varied in Gamelyn; much mixed up with the doggerel of the fifteenth; frequent in the sixteenth, both alone and as "poulter's" measure; and splendidly used by Chapman in his translation of the Iliad. Sometimes employed to vary heroic couplet by Dryden. A favourite metre ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Splits into "ballad-measure."

Galliambic.—A classical metre of which the most famous, and only substantive, example is the magnificent Atys of Catullus, but which has been imitated in two fine English poems, Tennyson's great Boadicea and Mr. George Meredith's Phaethon. Both of these have given a rather trochaic-dactylic swing to the metre, which is probably unavoidable in English. The late Mr. Grant Allen endeavoured to make out, and attempted in his translation of the Atys, an iambic basis with anapæstic and tribrachic substitution, but unsuccessfully. Ionic a minore (v. inf.) is the ancient suggestion; and, with an accentual liberty not unsuitable to its half-barbaric associations, it fits Catullus pretty well. But Ionics, as has been said, do not suit English (v. inf. p. [285], note).

Gemell or Geminel ("twin").—Terms applied by Drayton to the heroic couplet.

Head-Rhyme.—A name sometimes applied—it may be thought unjustifiably, and beyond all question in a way likely to mislead—to alliteration. See Rhyme.

Hendecasyllable.—An eleven-syllabled line. There is a classical metre specially so called, executed with particular success by Catullus, and imitated by Tennyson in the piece describing it:

So fantastical is the dainty metre.

But the term is not infrequently used of the staple Italian line, of English heroic or decasyllabic lines with redundance, etc.

Heptameter.—It is rather doubtful whether the word is wanted in English, for if applied to the fourteener it would (see Metre and Dimeter) be a complete misnomer; and not less so, according to correct analogy, if applied to the seven-foot anapæst, where it would properly designate fourteen feet or forty-two possible syllables—a length which not even Mr. Swinburne has attempted. He himself, however, by oversight, used it of this line, which is properly a tetrameter brachycatalectic.

Heroic.—A word applied, with only indirect propriety, to the decasyllabic or five-foot couplet, and with hardly any propriety at all to the single line of the same construction; but occasionally convenient in each case. The origin of the employment is the use of this line and couplet in the "heroic" poem and "heroic" play of the seventeenth century. It has therefore the same sort of justification as "Alexandrine." There was also an earlier habit, as in Dante's De Vulg. Eloq., of calling it (in its Italian or hendecasyllabic form) the "noblest" or most dignified line; and this connects itself with the Greek practice of calling the hexameter—the Epic-verse—"heroic."

Hexameter.—The great staple metre of Greek and Latin epic, in which the line consists of six feet, dactyls or spondees at choice for the first four, but normally always a dactyl in the fifth and always a spondee in the sixth—the latter foot being by special licence sometimes allowed in the fifth also (in which case the line is called spondaic), but never a dactyl in the sixth. To this metre, and to the attempts to imitate it in English, the term should be strictly confined, and never applied to the Alexandrine or iambic trimeter.

Hiatus.—The juxtaposition of vowels either in the same word, or, more especially, at the end of one word and the beginning of the next. At different times, and in different languages, this has been regarded as a beauty and as a defect; but in English it entirely depends upon circumstances whether it is one, or the other, or neither. For a considerable period—roughly from 1650 to 1780, if not 1800—it was supposed—without a shadow of reason—that English poets ought to elide one of such concurrents and indicate it only by apostrophe, so that not merely did "the enormous" become "th' enormous," and "to affect" "t' affect," but "violet" was crushed into "vi'let," and "diamond" into "di'mond." But this has been almost entirely abandoned, though there are still "metrical fictions" on the subject.

Iambic.—A foot of two syllables—short, long ( ̆ ̄ )—the commonest in almost all prosodies,[157] and (though this is sometimes denied) the staple foot of English.

Inverted Stress.—A term used by accentual or stress prosodists to designate the substitution of a trochee for an iamb. Unnecessary, if not erroneous, from the point of view of this book.

Ionic.—A foot of four syllables, consisting of a spondee ( ̄ ̄ ) and a pyrrhic ( ̆ ̆ ). With the spondee first it is called "Ionic a majore"; with the pyrrhic first, a minore. Neither movement is common in English verse, and, if it were, it would hardly require any joint name. But when the music is uppermost, as in "Vilikins and his Dinah," it suggests itself, with the alternative of the third pæon:

Nŏw ăs Dīnā̆h | wăs ă-wālkī̆ng | ĭn thĕ gārdē̆n | sō gāy.[158]

Leonine Verse.—A term not strictly applicable to English, but sometimes found in prosody-books. It means the peculiar mediæval Latin hexameter with middle and end rhymed, as in

Post cœnam stabis: seu passus mille meabis.

Browning comes nearest to it in such lines as

On my specked hide, not you the pride.

Line.—The larger integer of verse, as the foot is the smaller, and the stanza or paragraph the largest. It is usually indicated, in printing or writing, by independent beginning and ending on the page—whence the name,—but this is accidental and arranged for convenience of the eye. As a rule, however, it should not be encroached upon lightly, and, even when enjambment is practised, the individual line should have a thinkable self-sufficiency. Nor should two lines be separated when they clamour for union, as in the case of some modern rhymeless experimenters (Mr. Arnold, Mr. Henley, etc.) and in some of the early Elizabethans (Grimoald, Googe, and others).

Long and Short are words which, until comparatively recently, have been taken as the bases of all prosodic analysis. They represent two values which, though no doubt by no means always identical in themselves, are invariably, unmistakably, and at once, distinguished by the ear; and the combining of which, in ordinary mathematical permutation, constitutes the feet, or lowest integers, of metrical rhythm. This nomenclature—which presents no initial difficulties, is sufficient for all practical purposes, and commends itself at once to any unprejudiced intelligence—seems first to have excited question and suspicion towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is disagreeable to both accentual and syllabic prosodists (see chapters devoted to these), and it appears to disturb some who would not class themselves with either. It is indeed quite possible to work either system with "long" and "short," applied uncontentiously to the natural values of rhythmed speech in English poetry. But a punctilio arises as to the definition of the words. "Does length," some people ask, "really mean 'duration of time' in pronouncing?" This question, and others, seem to the present writer unnecessary. We need not decide what makes the difference between "long" and "short"; it is sufficient that this difference unmistakably exists, and is felt at once. Whether it is due to accent, length of pronunciation, sharpness, loudness, strength, or anything else, is a question in no way directly affecting verse. The important things are, once more, that it exists; that verse cannot exist without it; that it is partly, and in English rather largely, created by the poet, but that this creation is conditioned by certain conventions of the language, of which accent is one, but only one.

Long Measure ("L.M.").—The octosyllabic quatrain, alternately rhymed.

Lydgatian Line.—An arrangement of extraordinary hideousness, which occurs rather frequently in Lydgate; and which has been assigned by the merciful to incompetence or carelessness; by other critics, who defend it, to what must have been deliberate bad taste. It is a line of nine syllables only, the missing one being not, as in the Chaucerian acephala, at the first, but occurring somewhere in the middle, and at the cæsura. An uglier metrical entity probably nowhere exists than such a line as

If an|y word | in thee | ʌ be | missaid.[160]

Masculine Rhyme.—A rhyme where the rhyming syllable is single, and ends in a consonant, without any mute e following. Less correctly, a monosyllabic rhyme.

Metre.—In the wide sense, collections of rhythm which correspond, both within the collection, and, if there be such, with one or more other collections adjoining. In the narrow, collections dominated by a single foot-rhythm, as "iambic metre," "anapæstic metre," etc.

Molossus.—A foot of three long syllables ( ̄ ̄ ̄ ). Practically impossible in English verse, being too bulky for a rhythm-integer with us, but admissible as a musical arrangement.

Monometer.—A line consisting of one foot only, or one pair of feet. See Dimeter.

Monopressure.—A term invented to express a theory that the divisions of metre are associated with, and determined by, some physical throat-conditions. Unnecessary and unworkable.

Octave.—A stanza of eight lines.

Octometer.—A term properly applied to eight-foot dactylic metre, such as Tennyson's Kapiolani; improperly to Mr. Swinburne's eight-foot anapæsts.

Ode.—A name used in English with great laxity, and not perhaps to be tied down too much without loss. The word itself, in Greek, means simply a song. But the choric odes of the Greek dramatists, and the non-dramatic odes of Pindar, being couched in a peculiar form—irregular at first sight, but exactly correspondent when examined,—have created a certain tendency to restrict the term ode, sometimes with the epithet "regular," to things similar in English (see, in list of poets, Cowley, Congreve, Gray). On the other hand, the Latins—especially Horace, whose influence has been even wider—extend the term to pieces in short, obviously regular stanzas identically repeated, and the majority of English odes are of this kind.

Ottava Rima.—A special form of octave derived from the Italians, and composed of eight decasyllabic lines rhymed abababcc. There are other decasyllabic octaves, such as that used by Chaucer in the Monk's Tale, and by Spenser after him, with or without that adoption of the Alexandrine which turns it into the Spenserian.

Pæon.—A foot of four syllables—one long and three short—arranged in varying order. The commonest English foot in rhythmical prose, but unnecessary in English verse.

Pause.—A break in the line as metrically read or heard, which is almost always coincident with the end of a word, and which very frequently, but not always or so often as in the former case, coincides with a stop in punctuation. It is not necessary that every line should have a pause; and the place of the pause, when it exists, is practically ad libitum in most, if not all lines, while there may be more pauses than one. The attempt to curtail liberty in these three respects has been the cause of some of the worst mistakes about English prosody, especially when it takes the form of prescribing that the pause should always be as near the middle as possible. Variety of pause is, in fact, next to variety of feet, the great secret of success in our verse; and it is owing to this that Shakespeare and Milton more especially stand so high. On the other hand, this variety requires the most careful adjustment; and if such adjustment is neglected, the lines will be uglier than continuously middle-paused ones, though not so monotonous.

Pentameter.—See Dimeter. As properly used, a line of five feet—dactyls or spondees—divided into two batches of two and a half each. As improperly used, a five-foot iambic line in English.

Pindaric.—Strictly the regular ode (see Strophe) of Greek poetry; but extended by, and still more in imitation of, Cowley to any lyrical composition in irregularly rhymed stanzas of different line-lengths. According to Dryden, the Alexandrine line, frequent in Cowley's odes, was so-called, "but," he most properly adds, "improperly."

Position.—In the classical prosodies a short or common vowel before two consonants (but not every two) was said to be long "by position"; and efforts have been made to determine English quantity in the same way. No rule of the kind can be laid down; doubled or grouped consonants after a vowel usually shortening the pronunciation, and sometimes lengthening the value.

Poulter's Measure.—A term used by Gascoigne, and said to be derived from the practice of poulter[er]s in giving twelve to the dozen in one case and thirteen or fourteen in another. It is applied to the combination of Alexandrine and fourteener which was such a favourite with the earlier Tudor poets, and which broke up into the "Short Measure" of the hymn-books.

Proceleusmatic.—A double pyrrhic, or foot of four short syllables ( ̆ ̆ ̆ ̆ ). Not needed, if not also impossible, in English.

Pyrrhic.—Foot of two short syllables ( ̆ ̆ ). Very doubtfully found in English; but not impossible.

Quantity.—That which fits a syllable for its place as "long" or "short" in a verse.

Quartet or Quatrain.—A group of four lines usually, indeed with the rarest exceptions, united in themselves, and separated from others, by rhyme.

Quintet.—A similar group of five lines.

Redundance.—An extra syllable at the end of the line, not strictly part of its last foot.

Refrain.—A line recurring identically, or with very slight alteration, at the end of every stanza of a poem. Probably one of the oldest of all poetic features—certainly one of the oldest in English. The same as "burden." Refrains or burdens are not uncommonly meaningless collections of musical-sounding words.

Rhyme.—The arrangement of two word-endings—identical in vowel and following consonant or consonants, but not having the same consonant before the vowel—at the conclusion of two or more lines, or sometimes within the lines themselves.

Rhyme-Royal.—The stanza of seven decasyllabic lines, rhymed ababbcc, which occurs in Chaucer's Troilus, and which traditionally derives its name from its use in The King's Quair, though its extreme popularity for a long period is perhaps the real reason.

Rhythm.—An orderly arrangement, but not necessarily a correspondent succession, of sounds.

Riding Rhyme.—An old name for the decasyllabic couplet, obviously derived from its appearance in Chaucer's Tales of Pilgrims "riding" to Canterbury.

Rime Couée or Tailed Rhyme.—Translations in French and English of the Latin versus caudatus, and not very happy from the English point of view, though justified by origin (see Origin-List). The verse to which they refer is the sixain of two eights, a six, two more eights, and another six. Two tails are not common in English fauna; and one might prefer to call the verse "waisted and tailed." It is, however, in the old Romances (where it is common, and from its commonness in which it is better called the "Romance-six") often found in multiples of three other than six; and it is at the batch of three that the title looks—the couplet of eights constituting the body, and the odd six the tail.

Romance-Six.—See Rime Couée.

Rondeau—Rondel.—French (and English) forms in which lines are repeated at regular intervals. (See pp. [125-6].)

Sapphic.—A classical metre consisting of three longer lines and one shorter (called an Adonic) arranged in the following scheme:—

̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆̄
̄ ̆ ̆ ̄ ̆̄

It has been frequently tried in English, both as burlesque and seriously. For the former use (as in Canning's immortal "Needy Knife-Grinder") it is, like most classical metres, well suited, though the true Greek and even Latin rhythm is generally (v. sup. p. [124]) violated. In serious verse Mr. Swinburne has produced exquisite and others (as Watts and Cowper) respectable examples; but even the best is a tour de force only.

Section.—A term not useless in its general sense as denoting verse divisions larger than a foot; but now prejudicially preoccupied by Guest (v. sup. p. [254], note) and others.

Septenar.—A word applied (very undesirably) by most German and a few English writers to the fourteener or seven-foot iambic.

Septet.—A verse or stanza of seven lines.

Sestet, also Sixain.—A verse or stanza of six lines.

Sestine, Sestina.—A very elaborate measure invented by the Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel, imitated by Dante and other Italians, tried inexactly by Spenser, and sometimes recently attempted in English.

Short Measure ("S.M.").—The split-up poulter's measure or quartet of 6, 6, 8, 6.

Single-Moulded.—The term used in this book to describe the early blank-verse line, which appears to be constructed complete in itself, without any expectation of, or preparation for, continuance. See End-stopped.

Skeltonic.—-The peculiar kind of (generally short) line used by Skelton. Its commonest form is an anapæstic monometer (i.e. two feet), often much further cut down by dissyllabic and monosyllabic substitution or by catalexis, but sometimes extended. It is always rhymed; sometimes on the same rhyme for several lines together. Though usually called "doggerel," it does not quite deserve that name as defined above. See also note p. [297].

Slur.—See Elision.

Sonnet.—A word sometimes, in former days, loosely applied to any short poem, especially of an amatory nature; often nowadays almost as improperly limited to a special Italian form of the true sonnet. This latter is a poem of fourteen lines, of the same length generally and (except by exception) decasyllables (originally, of course, hendecasyllables) arranged in varying rhyme-schemes. Its exact origin is unknown; but it is first found in Italian-Sicilian poets of the thirteenth century, and it became enormously popular in Italy very soon. It did not spread northward for a considerable time, the first French sonnets occurring not very early in the sixteenth century; the first English, not till near its middle. A great sonnet outburst took place at the end of that century with us; but the form fell into disuse in the seventeenth, though championed by Milton; and it was not till the extreme end of the eighteenth century that it became, and has since remained, something of a staple. Partly the absence of the Italian plethora of similar endings, and partly something else, made the earliest English practitioners select an arrangement with final rhymed couplet, the twelve remaining lines being usually arranged in rhymed, but not rhyme-linked, quatrains: and this form, immortalised by Shakespeare, is probably the best suited to English. It is, at any rate, absolutely genuine and orthodox there. But Milton, Wordsworth, and especially Dante and Christina Rossetti, have given examples of the sonnets which, divided mostly into octave and sestet, have this latter arranged in intertwisted rhymes. This form is susceptible of great beauty, but has no prerogative, still less any primogeniture, in our poetry.

Spenserian.—See Origin-List.

Spondee.—A foot of two long syllables ( ̄ ̄ ). Its presence in English has been denied, but most strangely; its condition is, in fact, exactly opposite to that of the dactyl. In single and separate words its representatives are chiefly compounds like "moonshine," "humdrum," etc. But, as formed out of different words, it is frequent.

Stanza or Stave.—A collection of lines arranged in an ordered batch and generally on some definite rhyme-scheme. Also designated by one of the loose senses of "verse."

Stress.—Generally, though not universally, used as synonymous with accent, but somewhat differently applied, "accent" being regarded as something more or less permanent in the word, "stress" something added specially in the verse. By extension of this, numerous arbitrary and fanciful systems of prosody have been recently devised.

Stress-Unit.—A recent instance, and one of the worst, of the new terms invented to avoid the use of "foot." For, almost more than any other, it ignores the importance of non-stressed syllables.

Strophe.—The stanza-unit of Greek odic or choric arrangement. The system is triple—strophe, antistrophe, and epode—and will be found fully illustrated and scanned from Gray (v. sup. pp. [89-91]).

Substitution.—See Equivalence.

Synalœpha.} Syncope. }—See Elision. Synizesis. }

Syzygy.—A term of classical prosody which has a perfectly strict meaning—the yoking of two feet into a metrical batch (see Dimeter). It has, in some recent cases, been rather unfortunately extended to other forms of combining syllables, sounds, etc. As thus used it is not needed, and is likely to cause confusion.

Tailed Sonnet.—An Italian lengthening of the sonnet to eighteen or twenty lines, sometimes practised in English, the best known example being Milton's; but not very admirable in our language, and not at all necessary. Even in Italian the use is largely burlesque.

Tercet.—A group of three lines like Triplet, but specially limited to that used in Terza Rima.

Terza Rima.—A verse-arrangement by which, in a group of three lines, the first and third rhyme together, while the middle is left to rhyme with the first and third of the next batch. This arrangement, very effective in Italian, and undoubtedly one of the chief elements of the magnificence of Dante's prosody, has never been really successful in English. Some of the best examples are Shelley's; the earliest, after some fragments in Chaucer, are Wyatt's; the largest continuous employment is in Canon Dixon's Mano.

Tetrameter.—A term improperly applied to the octosyllable; properly to divers long lines of eight iambs, anapæsts, or trochees.

Thesis.—See Arsis.

Time.—A "word of fear" in prosody, as it is almost always a "voice prophesying war." Used merely in the sense of "rhythm," it is quite innocuous; and construed generally, as when Southey says that "two short syllables take up only the time of one," there need be no harm in it. But when absolute "duration" is insisted on, and people discuss whether this can be given by that or the other means, great and unnecessary mischief is likely to be done.

Tribrach.—A foot of three short syllables ( ̆ ̆ ̆ ). Very frequent in later English, perhaps less so in earlier.

Triolet.—A short French form of the rondeau, in the most common variety of which the first of eight lines is repeated in the fourth and seventh, the second being also repeated in the eighth, so that there are only five lines of independent sense. (See example, p. [125].)

Triple.—See Duple.

Triplet.—A group of three lines; most commonly used of three which rhyme together. See Tercet.

Trochee.—A foot of two syllables—long, short ( ̄ ̆ ). The complement-contrast of the iamb; an invaluable variant upon it; the best introducer (by admitting it as a substitute) of the dactyl in English; and very effective by itself when properly managed.

Truncation.—The lopping off of a syllable at beginning or end of line. This in the latter case equals what is here called Catalexis (q.v.), and in the former is often better accounted for by a monosyllabic foot. But there are cases, as in Chaucer's "acephalous" lines, where it is not inapplicable.

Tumbling Verse.—A phrase of King James the Sixth (First) in his prosodic treatise, which has caused, or at least been connected with, difficulties (see Cadence). He seems to have meant by it nothing more than the loose half-doggerel anapæsts which were so common in the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century.

Turn of Words.—A phrase specially used in the seventeenth century for the repetition, identically or with little change, of the same words at the end of a line and the beginning of the next.

Verse.—A word used with unfortunate, though perhaps unavoidable, ambiguity. It is employed first (and best) of writing in general as opposed to prose; secondly, of a single line of poetry; thirdly, of a batch of lines; while there is even a fourth use, now obsolete, but common in the Elizabethans, by which it applied to classical unrhymed metres in English. This last, one may hope, will never be revived. Of the others, the first and third are indispensable and can cause no real confusion. But, though a fairly strong case can be made out for "verse" in the sense of "line," the inconvenience and confusion of this use should be held to prohibit it.

Verse Paragraph.—A very important development of blank verse, ensuring to it almost all the advantages of stanza in some ways, and more than all in others. First reached by Shakespeare in drama, and by Milton in non-dramatic verse, it consists in so knitting a batch of blank-verse lines together by variation of pause, alternate use of stop and enjambment, and close connection of sense, that neither eye nor voice is disposed to make serious halt till the close of the paragraph is reached. Thus an effect of concerted music is produced through the whole of it. No one has ever been a great master of blank verse without being a master of this device; but perhaps the most special and elaborate command of it has been Tennyson's.

Vowel-Music.—In a certain sense vowel-music may be said to be, and always to have been, a main, if not the main, source of the pleasure given to the ear by poetry. Nor, it may also be said, can any accomplished poet ever have been indifferent to it. Deliberate attention to it, however, has varied much at different times of English poetry, and was perhaps at its lowest in the eighteenth, at its highest in the nineteenth, century.

Weak Ending.—A technical term used by not a few prosodists, but not adopted in this book, for redundance. As a matter of fact a line is often much stronger for the extra syllable.

Wrenched Accent.—A term applied, by accentual prosodists, sometimes to signify removal of accent on a word from the usual place; sometimes to the presence of an unaccented syllable where they expect an accented, or the reverse. In the first sense it is unobjectionable; in the second, always unnecessary, and often suggestive of misdescription of the results of ordinary substitution.[161]