Epanaphora ("referring" or "repetition").—The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive lines. This, originally a rhetorical figure, becomes, especially with some of the Elizabethans and with Tennyson, a not unimportant prosodic device; and, in the hands of the latter, assists powerfully in the construction of the verse-paragraph.
Epanorthosis ("setting up again," with a sense also of "correction").—Also a rhetorical figure, and meaning the repetition of some word, not necessarily at the beginning of clause or line. This also can be made of considerable prosodic effect; for repetition, especially if including some slight change, is necessarily associated with emphasis, and this emphasis colours and weights the line variously.
Epitrite.—A four-syllabled foot consisting of three long syllables and one short ( ̄ ̄ ̄ ̆ ). The shifting of this latter from place to place makes four different kinds of epitrite. Like its congeners, it is not needed in English poetry, though spondaic substitution (in the trochaic tetrameter, etc.) may sometimes simulate it; and the fact that few English words have clusters of definitely long syllables makes it rare even in prose.
Epode.—The third and last member of the typical choric arrangement in a regular ode. See Strophe.
Equivalence means, prosodically, the quality or faculty which fits one combination of syllables for substitution in the place of another to perform the part of foot, as the dactyl and spondee do to each other in the classical hexameter, and as various feet do to the iamb in the Greek iambic trimeter and other metres. It is, with its correlative, Substitution itself, the most important principle in English prosody; it emerges almost at once, and, though at times frowned upon in theory, never loses its hold upon practice.
Eye-Rhyme.—A practice (most largely resorted to by Spenser, but to some extent by others) of adjusting the spellings of the final syllables of words so as to make the rhyme clear to the eye as well as to the ear. It is sometimes forced, and perhaps never ought to be necessary; but it is so associated with the beauties of the Faerie Queene as to become almost a beauty in itself, though hardly to be recommended for imitation.
Feminine Rhyme—Feminine Ending.—Terms applied to the use of words at the end of a line with the final (now mute) e. "Feminine" rhyme is sometimes extended to double rhyme in general, but this is not strictly correct.
"Fingering."—A term used in this book for the single and peculiar turn and colour given to metre by the individual poet.
Foot.—The admitted constituent of all classical prosody, and, according to one system (that adopted preferentially in this book), of English likewise, though with variations necessitated by the language. "Foot" ([a]πους], pes) is "that upon which the verse runs or marches." A Greek foot is made of Greek "long" and "short" syllables; an English foot of English. The possible combinations of these have Greek names which are convenient, and the fact that the conditions of "length" and "shortness" are different in the two languages need cause no misunderstanding whatever. But a comparatively small number are actually found in English poetry. All, however, are separately described in this Glossary, and for convenience' sake a tabular view of them is given on the next page.