English Verse Part 1

English Verse.

by Raymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D.

PREFACE

The aim of this book is to give the materials for the inductive study of English verse. Its origin was in certain university courses, for which it proved to be necessary--often for use in a single hour's work--to gather almost numberless books, some of which must ordinarily be inaccessible except in the vicinity of large libraries. I have tried to extract from these books the materials necessary for the study of English verse-forms, adding notes designed to make the specimens intelligible and useful.

Dealing with a subject where theories are almost as numerous as those who have written on it, it has been my purpose to avoid the setting forth of my own opinions, and to present the subject-matter in a way suited, so far as possible, to the use of those holding widely divergent views. In the arrangement and naming of the earlier sections of the book, some systematic theory of the subject--accepted at least tentatively--was indeed indispensable; but I trust that even here those who would apply to English verse a different cla.s.sification or terminology may be able to discard what they cannot approve and to make use of the specimens from their own standpoint. Even where (as in these introductory sections) the notes seem to overtop the text somewhat threateningly, they are invariably intended--as the type indicates--to be subordinate. Where it has been possible to do so, I have preferred to present comments on the specimens in the words of other writers, and have not confined these notes to opinions with which I wholly agree, but only to those which seem worthy of attention. My own views on the more disputed elements of the subject (such as the relations of time and accent in our verse, the presence of "quant.i.ty" in English, and the terminology of the subject) I have reserved for Part Three, where I trust they will be found helpful by some readers, but where they may easily be pa.s.sed over.

To cla.s.sify the materials of this subject is peculiarly difficult, and one who tries to solve the problem will early abandon the hope of being able to follow any system with consistency. Main divisions and subdivisions will inevitably conflict and overlap. For practical purposes, basing my arrangement in part on that found convenient in university lectures (which it will be seen is not altogether unlike that followed by Schipper in his _Englische Metrik_), I have divided the specimens of verse into two main divisions, each of which is suggested by a word in the sub-t.i.tle of the book. Part One contains specimens designed to ill.u.s.trate the principles of English verse, arranged in topical order. Part Two contains specimens designed to ill.u.s.trate the history of the more important forms of English verse, arranged--in the several divisions--in chronological order. Part Three has already been spoken of. Part Four contains extracts from important critical writers on the place and function of the verse-element in poetry,--matters which give us the _raison d'etre_ for the whole study of versification.

If there had ever been hope of making the collection of specimens fairly complete, even in a representative sense, this would have been dissipated by the discovery, during the very time of the book's going through the press, of a number of additional specimens which it seemed wicked to omit. Doubtless every reader will miss some favorite selection which might well have been included, and suggestions as to important omissions will be received gratefully. The attempt has been to put students on the track of all the more important lines of development of English verse, and to indicate, by including a considerable number of specimens from early periods, the continuity of this development from the times of our Saxon forefathers to our own.

Little consistency can be claimed for the practice observed in the matter of modernizing texts that date from transition periods like the sixteenth century. In some cases the text has been modernized, or retained in its original form, according as it seemed well to emphasize either the permanent significance or the historical position of the specimen in question. In other cases the form of the text was determined merely by the best edition accessible for purposes of reproduction.

Dates have been appended to the specimens in those sections where chronology is a significant element. It has not always been possible to verify these dates with thoroughness, or to distinguish between the date of writing and that of publication; but it is hoped that inaccuracies of this sort will at least not be found of a character to misrepresent the historical relations of the specimens. Dates are not ordinarily given for the poems of writers still living.

In the notes on the specimens I have tried to distinguish between material likely to be useful for all students of the subject and that going more into detail, which is intended only for advanced or special students. Notes of the second cla.s.s are printed in smaller type. There has been no attempt to give the notes of a bibliographical character any pretension to completeness. One may well hesitate to add, in this direction, to the admirable material presented in the _Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism_ of Professors Gayley and Scott.

I have resisted strenuously all temptation to choose or to annotate specimens on general grounds of aesthetic enjoyment, apart from the distinct study of verse-forms. Yet it would be useless to deny having sometimes made choice of particular verses, all other considerations being equal, for their poetic or literary value over and above their prosodical. I shall not claim for the collection what Boswell did for Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, that "he was so attentive in the choice" of the ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sages "that one may read page after page ... with improvement and pleasure;" yet I may say that, so far from fearing that the enjoyment of any poem will be injured by a proper attention to the elements of its metrical form, it is my hope that many a haunting verse may linger, a perpetual possession of beauty, in the memory of the student who first found it here cla.s.sified under a technical name.

Many obligations are to be acknowledged to scholars of whose advice I have availed myself. Most kindly aid has been received from Professor G.

L. Kittredge and Dr. Fred N. Robinson, of Harvard University; from Professor Felix E. Sch.e.l.ling, of the University of Pennsylvania; from my friend, Mr. H. P. Earle, of Stanford University; and from my colleague, Dr. Ewald Flugel. My obligation to Schipper's monumental works on English verse will be obvious to every scholar. They suggested many of the specimens of verse-forms, and are also represented by translations or paraphrases in the notes; references to Schipper, without full t.i.tle, are to the _Englische Metrik_,--the larger work. I have also made thankful use of Mr. John Addington Symonds's essays on Blank Verse, and of Professor Corson's _Primer of English Verse_,--both somewhat unscientific but highly suggestive works. The section on Artificial French Forms obviously owes very much to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades and Rondeaus_. A book to which my obligation is out of all proportion to the number of actual quotations from it is Mr. J. B. Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_. This modest but satisfying volume seemed to me, when I first was taking up the study of English verse, to be a grateful relief from the th.o.r.n.y and often fruitless discussions with which the subject had been overgrown; and in returning to it again and again, I have never failed to renew the impression. Its suggestions underlie a good part of the system of cla.s.sification and terminology adopted for this book. The new and enlarged edition came to hand too late for use, but I was able to include references to it in the notes.

I must also record thanks to those authors and publishers who have courteously given permission for the reproduction of their publications: to Mr. John Lane, for permission to quote from the works of Mr. William Watson and Mr. Stephen Phillips; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, for permission to make extracts from the poems of Mr. William Vaughn Moody and from Mr. Stedman's _Nature and Elements of Poetry_; to Macmillan and Company, Limited, of London, for permission to make extracts from Professor Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry_ and from Mr. Courthope's _Life in Poetry and Law in Taste_; to Professor F.

B. Gummere and The Macmillan Company of New York, for permission to quote from the former's _Beginnings of Poetry_; to the Lothrop Publis.h.i.+ng Company of Boston, for permission to reprint Mr. Clinton Scollard's villanelle, "Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door," from the volume ent.i.tled _With Reed and Lyre_; to Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, for permission to reprint her rondeau, "A Man must Live," from the volume ent.i.tled _On This Our World_ (published by Small, Maynard and Company); to Dr. Samuel Minturn Peck, for permission to reprint one of the triolets called "Under the Rose," from his volume ent.i.tled _Cap and Bells_; to the Frederick A. Stokes Company, for permission to reprint Mr. Frank D. Sherman's "Ballade to Austin Dobson," from the volume ent.i.tled _Madrigals and Catches_. Dr. S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l, Mr. W. E.

Henley, and Mr. Edmund Gosse have given generous permission to quote freely from their poems. Mr. Henley was also good enough to suggest the choice of the rondeau from his "Bric-a-Brac"; and Mr. Gosse, whose unfailing courtesy follows up his numerous published aids to students of English poetry, has also added some personal notes on the history of the heroic couplet.

Finally, it should be said that a considerable part of the studies resulting in this book was carried on while the editor held the Senior Fellows.h.i.+p in English on the Harrison Foundation in the University of Pennsylvania. If, therefore, the book should prove of service to any, the fact will be a single additional tribute to the munificence of that foundation.

R. M. A.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA, November, 1902.

PART ONE

ENGLISH VERSE

I. ACCENT AND TIME

A.--KINDS OF ACCENT

The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly cla.s.sified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according to cause or significance.

Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed).

Schipper makes four groups: Princ.i.p.al Accent (_Hauptaccent_ or _Hochton_), Secondary Accent (_Nebenaccent_ or _Tiefton_), No Accent (_Tonlosigkeit_), and Disappearance of Sound (_Stummheit_). In ill.u.s.tration he gives the word _ponderous_, where the first syllable has the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent; while in the verse

"Most ponderous and substantial things"

the second syllable is suppressed or silent.

Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three princ.i.p.al cla.s.ses of syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from _Paradise Lost_ he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them, by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

With loss of Eden, till one greater man 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2

Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top 2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1

Of h.o.r.eb or of Sinai, didst inspire 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2

In the beginning, how the heavens and earth 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Rose out of chaos.[2]

2 0 0 2 0

It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew Arnold's _Forsaken Merman_),--

"And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"--

we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "_soul, Merman_" are respectively cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below.

The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W.

Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says, "_un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable,_ and _Je-rusalem_ ... are naturally p.r.o.nounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables, and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of English stress. Force, quant.i.ty, and pitch are combined in our word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we naturally p.r.o.nounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word, or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further ill.u.s.trated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the second syllable. In the line

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit"

he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "ill.u.s.trates with its four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis."

The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent."

(All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old English Verse,' in the _Publications of the Modern Language a.s.sociation_, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse,--that is, the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.

According to cause or significance, accents are commonly cla.s.sed in three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first cla.s.s are due to the original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second cla.s.s are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those of the third cla.s.s are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical scheme. In the verse