Rhymes and Meters Part 1

Rhymes and Meters.

by Horatio Winslow.

PREFACE

Throughout the following pages "verse" stands for any kind of metrical composition as distinguished from prose. It is not used as a synonym for "poetry." Though most poetry is in verse form, most verse is not poetry.

The ability to write verse can be acquired; only a poet can write poetry. At the same time, even a poet must learn to handle his verse with some degree of skill or his work is apt to fall very flat, and the mere verse writer who cannot rhyme correctly and fit his lines together in meter had much better stick to prose.

This book has been compiled with one end in view: to arrange in a convenient and inexpensive form the fundamentals of verse--enough for the student who takes up verse as a literary exercise or for the older verse writer who has fallen into a rut or who is a bit shaky on theory.

It is even hoped that there may be a word of help for some embryo poet.

In construction the plan has been to suggest rather than to explain in detail and as far as possible to help the reader to help himself. No verse has been quoted except where the ill.u.s.tration of a point made it necessary. With the increasing number of libraries it ought to be an easy matter for any one to refer to most of the lesser verse writers as well as all the standard poets.

I

VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL

CHAPTER I

VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL

It is scarcely necessary to write a defense of verse making. As a literary exercise it has been recommended and practiced by every well-known English writer and as a literary a.s.set it has been of practical value at one time or another to most of the authors of to-day.

Indirectly it helps one's prose and is an essential to the understanding of the greatest literature.

The fact that courses in "Poetics" have been established at all the large universities shows the interest which verse making has aroused in America. In England the ability to write metrical verse has long been considered one of the component parts of the education of a university man.

Looked at from the purely practical side, even though not a single line be sold, verse making has its value. It strengthens the vocabulary; teaches niceness in the choice of words; invigorates the imagination and disciplines the mind far more than a dozen times the amount of prose.

But, though careful verse is much more difficult to write than careful prose, slipshod verse is not worth the ink that shapes it. In taking up verse writing the student must solemnly resolve on one thing: to consider no composition complete until it proves up--until the rhymes and meter are perfect. This "perfection" is not as unattainable as it sounds, for the laws of rhyme and meter are as fixed as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. Any one may not be able to write artistic verse, but any one can write true verse, and the only way to make a course in verse writing count is to live up to all the rules; to banish all ideas of "poetic license"; to write and rewrite till the composition is as near perfect as lies in one, and finally to lay aside and rewrite again.

After the line scans and the rhymes are proved should come the effort to put the thought clearly. It is often hard to say what one means in prose. It is harder in verse. In fact, one of the greatest difficulties any verse maker can overcome is the tendency to be obscure in his meaning.

With the surmounting of this obstacle comes simplicity of diction; to present the thought without superfluous words; to avoid the threadbare phrases and to put the idea in a new way and yet in plain speech. How far the verse maker will go in clearness and simplicity depends largely on his natural good taste and discrimination. The better he is able to appreciate the work of others the better his own will become, and this appreciation, though it cannot be created, can be cultivated as well as good manners. To-day more than ever before good reading is one of the prime essentials to good writing.

Stevenson has recommended imitation as a road to originality and few have disagreed with him on this point. It is undoubtedly easier to write a sonnet if one is familiar with Wordsworth or to write a ballade if one has read Dobson. At the same time to be of value the imitation must be done broadly and systematically. The artist does not learn to draw by copying Gibson heads nor the verse maker to write by diluting Kipling.

An imitation should always be made with the idea of reproducing some one quality which the imitator wishes to develop in himself; the verse maker should copy not one style but many, and aim at methods rather than mannerisms.

For a first step in imitation it is well to select a subject akin to the original and follow the author's construction and trend of thought as closely as possible. For instance, there is a sonnet on Milton--write a companion sonnet on Shakespeare or Dante. Match stanzas to Was.h.i.+ngton with similar stanzas to Lincoln or Cromwell or any other character who can be treated in the same general manner. Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" suggests other elegies in other churchyards.

One may even parody a poem--not broadly, line for line in the American fas.h.i.+on--but in the more delicate Calverley way, which applies the spirit and meter of the poem to a lighter subject. One must imitate before one can originate, but haphazard imitation leads nowhere.

In conclusion it may be said that verse making is no mystic art hidden from the many. It is to be acquired by any one who is willing to work at it steadily and consistently. First, a start in the right direction, and then practice--practice--practice.

Nothing "dashed off" or "turned out," but every composition saved from the wastebasket made--

Correct in construction, Clear in thought, Simple in diction.

II

METER

CHAPTER II

METER

A metrical composition is divided into lines, each line containing a definite number of syllables. These syllables are grouped by twos and threes into "feet" which, by their makeup, determine the meter or movement of the line.

Meter in English verse is built up through accent alone, but, though this principle differs entirely from that of the ancients, who depended on the length of the syllable, we still cling to the names with which they distinguished the different feet. It will be discovered that by combining accented and unaccented syllables into groups of two, three and four an immense variety of feet can be produced. In fact the Roman poets made use of about thirty. In English verse we disregard the four-syllabled foot altogether and make use only of the two and three syllabled.

Those commonly accepted are:

Iambus [u][-] Dactyl [-][u][u]

Trochee [-][u] Anapest [u][u][-]

Spondee [-][-] Amphimacer [-][u][-]

Amphibrach [u][-][u]

The dash stands for the accented syllable.

An idea of the use of these meters in verse may be gained from the following examples:

IAMBIC

u -- u ---- u -- u - u ----- "From low to high doth dis solu tion climb

u - u ---- u - u - u -- And sink from high to low along a scale."

TROCHAIC

---- u --- u -- u -- u "Tell us, Master, of thy wisdom

-- u --- u ---- u ---- u Ere the chains of darkness bind thee."