Historical Manual of English Prosody

by George Saintsbury

Causes of decay in Southern English prosody.

It might be supposed, especially in face of the unquestionable reputation which Chaucer had attained before his death—and which he maintained undisturbed, and hardly approached, for the entire period until Spenser's birth,—that his prosodic work, once done, would have been done once for all; that in points of form, though individual inferiority of poetic gift might show itself, there could be no great technical falling off. To think this, however, would be to ignore—as, in fact, men too usually do ignore, and have ignored—the necessary and intricate connection between language and prosody. Chaucer had raised the state of English versification to the highest point possible in his time; in fact, there are reasons for saying that he had screwed it up beyond the level possible to ordinary men. To mention nothing else, the exactness, and at the same time the rhythmical variety of his verse, depend on two special points—the valuing of the final e and the optional but carefully selected shift from French to English accentuation.[74] We know that, even in the mouths and on the pens of his own contemporaries, the e was breaking down, and that it "went" more and more during the fifteenth century; and we know likewise, though less certainly, that though, even at the close of the period with which we are dealing, French accentuation was still permissible to poets, an English standard was gradually establishing itself, violation of which was disapproved.[75] Moreover, the fact remains undeniable that the poetic quality of the followers of Chaucer, in Southern English of the literary kind, was low to a point unprecedented, and never yet again reached since.

The progress of prosody between Chaucer and Spenser divides itself, sharply but unequally in point of time, between a longer space (about a century and a quarter) from Chaucer to poets like Hawes, Skelton, and Barclay; a shorter (of about half a century or less) from Wyatt to Spenser. In the first division a subdivision—of matter, not time—has to be made between the literary poets in Southern English, the Scottish Chaucerians from James the First to Douglas or Lyndsay (if not even to Montgomerie, who died later than Spenser himself), and the ballad, carol, and other folk-song writers of the fifteenth century.

Lydgate, Occleve, etc.

The history of the first division is the history of the breakdown just referred to. Except in the so-called Chauceriana—pieces such as "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale," "The Flower and the Leaf," "The Court of Love," etc., once attributed to Chaucer himself, but cast out on various kinds of evidence ranging from practically conclusive to very doubtful—and sometimes even in such poets as Lydgate and Occleve, who for no very small portion of their lives were Chaucer's own contemporaries, downwards, seem to be struck with metrical palsy or metrical blindness. Examples, given in the Scanned Conspectus above, will show the way in which they confuse different metres, vary the lengths of their lines not by intentional substitution but by sheer muddlement, violate rhythm and cadence—turn, in fact, the perfect harmony of their master into a cacophony which is not even prosaic. Sometimes, especially in Occleve, by rigid counting of syllables, they escape worse blunders, though they seldom make real music. Generally, even this resource fails them, and there is no worse chaos than in Hawes, one of the latest and not one of the least of them; while Skelton, perhaps the acutest intelligence of all, takes refuge in frank, not clumsy, and intentional doggerel.

The Scottish poets.

To this spectacle of disorganisation and decay the Scottish followers of Chaucer (who, generally with acknowledgment as eager and hearty as that of their English comrades, take him for their master) present what may at first sight seem an astonishing and almost unintelligible contrast. With final e's allowed for (or in case of necessity touched in), the Kingis Quair, traditionally ascribed, and never with solid reason denied, to James the First, is a piece of rhyme-royal as soundly constructed, and as well fitted and polished, as if it were Chaucer's own. Henryson, in his following of Chaucer's Troilus, and in his other poems, never breaks down in metre, but handles every form that he touches with equal precision and charm. Even more may be said of Dunbar, whose lyrics possess the peculiar grace only given by metrical accomplishment, who can manage alliterative metre more smoothly than Langland and with not less vigour, and who, if he wrote the "Friars of Berwick," is, next to Chaucer himself, the greatest master of the early (Middle English) heroic couplet. Of the verse-chroniclers, Wyntoun, though not very poetical, uses octosyllabic couplet, with not infrequent equivalence, effectively enough, and Blind Harry writes very strict decasyllabic couplet with cæsura at the fourth syllable, after the French model. The earlier sixteenth-century writers, Douglas and Lyndsay, if not perhaps quite impeccable, appear so beside Hawes and his fellows; while the two latest strictly Scots poets, Scott and Montgomerie, manage most complicated measures—reminding us of early French and Provençal, or of those of the English fourteenth century in lyric and drama—with unerring accuracy and finished grace. Of this strange contrast the simple fact of writing in a different dialect, requiring more care in imitation, may supply some explanation; the other fact, that this dialect was rather a literary convention than a vernacular speech, some more; and the higher quality of individual genius, more still; but a margin of surprise remains.

Ballad, etc.

It is difficult to say whether that margin is reduced or widened by the fact that a contrast, almost as striking, is found between the English literary poetry of the period and the "folk-song," sacred and profane. It is probable that the bulk of our older ballads date from the earliest fifteenth century or the very close of the fourteenth. The latter would seem to be true of the "Robin Hood" ballads; the former is pretty certainly true of "Chevy Chase." We have also from the fifteenth century a large body of carols, or sacred poems for singing.

Now in these, though they naturally vary much in poetic merit and in prosodic accomplishment, it is remarkable that this latter scarcely ever falls to the level of the worst literary poetry, and never falls in exactly the same way. The ballad-writers invariably, and the carol- and hymn-writers very commonly, preserve the English licence of equivalence in the fullest fashion; and this seems to relieve their motion of the staggering and fatal cramp which rests on their superiors in formal literary rank. They sing naturally: they do not aim at, and break down in, a falsetto. Although it would be impossible to have anything in a worse condition, as far as copying goes, than our oldest version of "Chevy Chase," its natural ballad motion carries it safe through all the corruptions and defacements; the sacred song of "E.I.O." is admirable metre; the Carol of the Virgin, "I sing of a maiden," is matchless in quiet metrical movement; and the famous "Nut-brown Maid," which is certainly not later than this century, deserves the same praise in more rapid melody.