VII. POETRY
[Footnote: To the Teacher.—Since the expression of ideas in metrical form is seldom the one best suited to the conditions of modern life, it has not seemed desirable to continue the themes throughout this chapter. The study of this chapter, with suitable illustrations from the poems to which the pupils have access, may serve to aid them in their appreciation of poetry. This appreciation of poetry will be increased if the pupils attempt some constructive work. It is recommended, therefore, that one or more of the simpler kinds of metrical composition be tried. For example, one or two good ballads may be read and the pupils asked to write similar ones. Some pupils may be able to write blank verse.]
+107. Purpose of Poetry.+—All writing aims to give information or to furnish entertainment (Section 54). Often the same theme may both inform and entertain, though one of these purposes may be more prominent than the other. Prose may merely entertain, or it may so distinctly attempt to set forth ideas clearly that the giving of pleasure is entirely neglected. In poetry the entertainment side is never thus subordinated. Poetry always aims to please by the presentation of that which is beautiful. All real poetry produces an aesthetic effect by appealing to our aesthetic sense; that is, to our love of the beautiful.
In making this appeal to our love of the beautiful, poetry depends both upon the ideas it contains and upon the forms it uses. Like prose, it may increase its aesthetic effect by appropriate phrasing, effective arrangement, and subtle suggestiveness, but it also makes use of certain devices of language such as rhythm, rhyme, etc., which, though they may occur in writings that would be classed as prose, are characteristic of poetry. Much depends upon the ideas that poetry contains; for mere nonsense, though in perfect rhyme and rhythm, is not poetry. But it is not the idea alone which makes a poem beautiful; it is the form as well. The merely trivial cannot be made beautiful by giving it poetical form, but there are many poems containing ideas of small importance which please us because of the perfection of form. We enjoy them as we do the singing of the birds or the murmuring of the brooks. In fact, poetry is inseparable from its characteristic forms. To sort out, re-arrange, and paraphrase into second-class prose the ideas which a poem contains is a profitless and harmful exercise, because it emphasizes the intellectual side of a work which was created for the purpose of appealing to our aesthetic sense.
+108. Rhythm.+—There are several forms characteristic of poetry, by the use of which its beauty and effectiveness are enhanced. Of these, rhythm is the most prominent one, without which no poetry is possible. In its widest sense, rhythm indicates a regular succession of motions, impulses, sounds, accents, etc., producing an agreeable effect. Rhythm in poetry consists of the recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables in regular succession. In poetry, care must be taken to make the accented syllable of a word come at the place where the rhythm demands an accent. The regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables produces a harmony which appeals to our aesthetic sense and thus enhances for us the beauty of poetry. Read the following selections so as to show the rhythm:—
1.
We were crowded in the cabin;
Not a soul would dare to speak;
It was midnight on the waters
And a storm was on the deep.
—James T. Fields.
2.
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
—Tennyson.
3.
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor
—Poe.
4.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.
—Tennyson.
5.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.
—Lovelace.
6.
Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Snug and safe is this nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.
—Bryant.
7.
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
—Browning.
+109. Feet.+—The metrical effect of the preceding selections is produced by the regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables. A group of accented and unaccented syllables is called a foot. There are four regular feet in English verse, the iambus, the anapest, the trochee, and the dactyl. Three irregular feet, the pyrrhic, the spondee, the amphibrach, are occasionally found in lines, but not in entire poems, and are often considered merely as substitutes for regular feet. For the sake of convenience the accented syllables are indicated thus: _, and the unaccented syllables thus: U.
An iambus is a foot consisting of two syllables with the accent on the last.
U | U | U | U | U _|
Let not ambition mock their useful toil.
—Gray.
U |U | U |U |
He prayeth best who loveth best
U | U | U _|
All things both great and small;
U | U | U |U |
For the dear God who loveth us,
U | U |U _|
He made and loveth all.
—Coleridge.
An anapest is a foot consisting of three syllables with the accent on the last.
U U | U U |U U |
I am monarch of all I survey.
U U | U U | U U |
I would hide with the beasts of the chase.
A trochee is a foot consisting of two syllables with the accent on the first.
U | U | U | U|
Double, double, toil and trouble.
—Shakespeare.
U | U | U | U |
Let us then be up and doing,
U| U | U | |
With a heart for any fate,
U | U | U| U |
Still achieving, still pursuing,
U | U | U | |
Learn to labor and to wait.
—Longfellow.
A dactyl is a foot consisting of three syllables with the accent on the first.
U U | U U | Cannon to right of them, U U | U U | Cannon to left of them, U U | U U | Cannon in front of them, U U | U | Volleyed and thundered.
—Tennyson.
It will be convenient to remember that two of these, the iambus and the anapest, have the accent on the last syllable, and that two, the trochee and the dactyl, have the accent on the first syllable.
A spondee is a foot consisting of two syllables, both of which are accented about equally. It is an unusual foot in English poetry.
U | | U | U _ |
Come now, blow, Wind, and waft us o'er.
A pyrrhic is a foot consisting of two syllables both of which are unaccented. It is frequently found at the end of a line.
U | U | U _|U U
Life is so full of misery.
An amphibrach is a foot consisting of three syllables, with the accent on the second.
U U U U| U U| U |
Creator, Preserver, Redeemer and friend.
+110. Names of Verse.+—A single line of poetry is called a verse. A stanza is composed of several verses. When a verse consists of one foot, it is called a monometer; of two feet, a dimeter; of three feet, a trimeter; of four feet, a tetrameter; of five feet, a pentameter; and of six feet, a hexameter.
_ U
Monometer. Slowly.
U U| U U |
Dimeter. Emblem of happiness.
_ U| U| U |
Trimeter. Like a poet hidden.
U| U| U | U |
Tetrameter. Tell me not in mournful numbers.
U |U |U | U | U _ |
Pentameter. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.
U U | U U | U U | U U | U
Hexameter. This is the forest primeval; the murmuring pines and
U | U |
the hemlocks.
When we say that a verse is of any particular kind, we do not mean that every foot in that line is necessarily of the same kind. Verse is named by stating first the prevailing foot which composes it, and second the number of feet in a line. A verse having four iambic feet is called iambic tetrameter. So we have dactylic hexameter, trochaic pentameter, iambic trimeter, anapestic dimeter, etc.