Transcriber's Notes
Any changes made to the text to correct typographical errors are listed at [the end of the book].
The author makes extensive use of diacritics such as macron, breve and grave accent to indicate stress, length etc. In the original, these symbols often float over the text to show that they apply to the syllable, but in this e-book are morked on the first vowel of the syllable only.
Note that rare instances of simultaneous macron and breve diacritics over the same syllable have been retained. This may indicate that the syllable be interpreted as long or short.
In a few cases where sidenotes refer to new topics introduced within a long paragraph, an additional paragraph break has been added.
All footnotes have been renumbered [1] ... [181]. Because of the number and the length of some footnotes, all are presented at the end of the chapter or section to which they refer.
Non-roman script (e.g. Greek) has been rendered in Unicode, with a roman transliteration available with mouse-hover.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY. 3 vols. 8vo.
Vol. I. From the Origins to Spenser. 12s. 6d. net.
Vol. II. From Shakespeare to Crabbe. 18s. net.
Vol. III. From Blake to Swinburne. 18s. net.
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE RHYTHM. 8vo. 18s. net.
A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 10s. Also in Five Parts. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.
LIFE OF DRYDEN. Library Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
HISTORICAL MANUAL
OF
ENGLISH PROSODY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
HISTORICAL MANUAL
OF
ENGLISH PROSODY
BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.
HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC
AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1910
Reprinted 1914, 1919
[PREFACE]
The reception of the first two volumes of a larger work (since completed) on English Prosody suggested, to the author and to the publishers, that there might be room for a more compressed dealing with the subject, possessing more introductory character, and attempting the functions of a manual as well as those of a history. It did not, however, seem that the matter could be satisfactorily treated in extremely brief form, as a primer or elementary school-book. The subject is one not very well suited for elementary instruction; and in endeavouring to shape it for that use there is a particular danger of too positive and peremptory statement in reference to matters of the most contentious kind. Catechetical instruction has to be categorical; if you set hypotheses, or alternative systems, before young scholars, they are apt either to distrust the whole thing or to become hopelessly muddled. And the opposite danger—of unhesitating adoption of positive statements on doubtful points—must have been found to be only too real by any one who has had to do with education. Schoolboys cannot be too early, or too plentifully, or too variously supplied with good examples of verse; but they should be thoroughly familiar with the practice before they come to the principles.
To the Senior Forms of the higher Secondary Schools, on the other hand, and to students in those Universities which admit English literature as a subject, this function of it is quite suitable and well adapted, and it is for their use that this volume is planned (as well as for that of the general reader who may hardly feel inclined to tackle three large octavos). An effort will be made to include everything that is vital to a clear understanding of the subject; while opportunity will, it is hoped, be found for insertion of some information, both of a historical and of a practical kind, which did not seem so germane to the larger History. It has been a main object with me in preparing this book, while reducing prosodic theory to the necessary minimum, but keeping that, to "load every rift" with prosodic fact; and I could almost recommend the student to devote himself to the Contents and the Index, illustrated by the Glossary, all of which have been made exceptionally full, before attacking the text.
The work, like the larger one of which it is not so much an abstract as a parallel with a different purpose, cannot hope to content those who think that prosody should be, like mathematics or music, a science, immutable, peremptory, abstract in the other sense. It will not content those who think—in pursuance or independently of such an opinion—that it should discard appreciation of the actual poetry, on which, from my point of view, it is solely based. It will, from another point, leave dissatisfied those who decline the attempt to reduce this poetry to some general but elastic laws, and who concentrate themselves on the immediate musical or rhetorical values (as they seem to them) of individual poems, or passages, or even (as is not uncommon) lines. Nor will it provide, what some seem to desire, a tabular analysis of every verse-form in the language, for reasons explained in the proper place (v. inf. p. [336] note). But, from past experience, it seems that it may find some public ready for it; and it is perhaps not wholly fatuous to hope that it may help to create a larger.[1]
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Edinburgh,
All Souls' Day,
1910.