The Beginnings of Poetry

by Francis Barton Gummere

[882]. Essai Comparatif sur l’Origine et l’Histoire des Rythmes, Paris, 1889.

[883]. Even this may be questioned in a literal sense. “Formen,” says Usener, Altgriechischer Versbau, p. 111, “werden nicht geschaffen, sondern sie entstehen und wachsen. Der schöpferische Künstler erzeugt sie nicht, sondern bildet das Ueberkommene veredelnd um.” He is speaking of the popular four-accent verse found in so many languages.

[884]. L’Esthétique du Mouvement, Paris, 1889, Cap. iv. See pp. 54, 65.

[885]. In the First Principles.

[886]. Essai, pp. 102, 104.

[887]. Mélusine, I. 1 ff. See, too, Poésie du Moyen Age, pp. 77, 89.

[888]. Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol., XVII. 113 ff.

[889]. Kalewala, p. 38.

[890]. Nordboernes Aandsliv, II. 437 ff.

[891]. The refrain of two lines, he thinks, was added to the two-line stanza of narrative ballads; and so resulted the common ballad stanza. This is denied by Steenstrup.