(Robert Blair: The Grave. 1743.)
This poem was one of those connected with the revival of blank verse, for didactic poetry, near the middle of the eighteenth century. Of Blair's verse Mr. Saintsbury says that it "is by no means to be despised. Technically its only fault is the use and abuse of the redundant syllable. The quality ... is in every respect rather moulded upon dramatic than upon purely poetical models, and he shows little trace of imitation either of Milton, or of his contemporary, Thomson." (Ward's English Poets, vol. iii. p. 217.)
(Thomson: The Seasons; Winter. 1726.)
Thomson's Seasons was undoubtedly the most influential of the poems of the blank-verse revival of this period. Saintsbury says: "His blank verse in especial cannot receive too much commendation. With that of Milton, and that of the present Poet Laureate [Tennyson], it must rank as one of the chief original models of the metre to be found in English poetry." (Ward's English Poets, vol. iii. p. 169.)
Other influential poems of the same period, written in blank verse, were Glover's Leonidas (1737), Young's Night Thoughts (1742-1744), and Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination (1744). Much earlier than these had come the curious poem of John Philips on Cider (1708). Philips is praised by Thomson as the successor of Milton in some lines of Autumn:
In general, the blank verse of all these poets shows the influence of the couplet and lacks flexibility. Thus Mr. Symonds says: "The use of the couplet had unfitted poets for its composition. Their acquired canons of regularity, when applied to loose and flowing metre, led them astray.... Hence it followed, that when blank verse began again to be written, it found itself very much at the point where it had stood before the appearance of Marlowe. Even Thomson ... wrote stiff and languid blank verse with monosyllabic terminations and monotonous cadences—a pedestrian style." (Blank Verse, pp. 61, 62.)[33]
(Cowper: The Task, book VI. ll. 295-320. 1785.)
"The blank verse of Cowper's Task is admirably adapted to the theme," says Professor Corson. "Cowper saw farther than any one before him had seen, into the secrets of the elaborate music of Milton's blank verse, and availed himself of those secrets to some extent—to as far an extent as the simplicity of his themes demanded." (Primer of English Verse, p. 221.) Professor Ward speaks, however, of the "lumbering movement" of Cowper's blank verse as being in contrast to "the neatness and ease of his rhymed couplets." (English Poets, vol. iii. p. 432.) Cowper prided himself, not without reason, on the individuality of his blank verse. In a letter to the Rev. John Newton (Dec. 11, 1784) he said: "Milton's manner was peculiar. So is Thomson's. He that should write like either of them, would, in my judgment, deserve the name of a copyist, but not of a poet.... Blank verse is susceptible of a much greater diversification of manner than verse in rhyme: and why the modern writers of it have all thought proper to cast their numbers alike, I know not." In another letter (to Lady Hesketh, March 20, 1786) Cowper reveals his careful study of Milton's verse: "When the sense requires it, or when for the sake of avoiding a monotonous cadence of the lines, of which there is always danger in so long a work, it shall appear to be prudent, I still leave a verse behind me that has some uneasiness in its formation. It is not possible to read Paradise Lost, with an ear for harmony, without being sensible of the great advantage which Milton drew from such a management.... Uncritical readers find that they perform a long journey through several hundred pages perhaps without weariness; they find the numbers harmonious, but are not aware of the art by which that harmony is brought to pass, much less suspect that a violation of all harmony on some occasions is the very thing to which they are not a little indebted for their gratification."
(Coleridge: Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni, ll. 70-85. 1802.)
(Keats: Hyperion, book II. 1820.)
"In Keats at last," says Mr. Symonds, "we find again that inner music which is the soul of true blank verse.... His Hyperion is sung, not written.... Its music is fluid, bound by no external measurement of feet, but determined by the sense and intonation of the poet's thought, while like the crotalos of the Athenian flute-player, the decasyllabic beat maintains an uninterrupted undercurrent of regular pulsations." (Blank Verse, p. 64.)
(Wordsworth: Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey. 1798.)
(Shelley: Alastor, ll. 707-720. 1815.)
(Tennyson: Idylls of the King; The Passing of Arthur. 1869.)
(Tennyson: The Princess, v. 1847.)
(Tennyson: Queen Mary, V. v. 1875.)
(Tennyson: The Princess, iv.; "Tears, Idle Tears." 1847.)
The blank verse of Tennyson is probably to be regarded as the most masterly found among modern poets.[34] Its flexibility is almost infinite, yet never unmelodious. The last of the specimens just quoted illustrates his use of blank verse for short lyrical poems,—an unusual and notable achievement. Perhaps only Collins's Ode to Evening can be compared with his success in this direction, and Collins used a more elaborate strophe to fill, in part, the place of rime. Of the unrimed lyrics in The Princess, Mr. Symonds says that they "are perfect specimens of most melodious and complete minstrelsy in words." In the "Tears, Idle Tears," he goes on to say, the verse "is divided into periods of five lines, each of which terminates with the words 'days that are no more.' This recurrence of sound and meaning is a substitute for rhyme, and suggests rhyme so persuasively that it is impossible to call the poem mere blank verse." See also the specimens on p. 144 above.
In the case of both Tennyson and Browning the student should compare the form of the narrative blank verse on the one hand with that of the dramatic on the other. Yet in a sense all Browning's blank verse is dramatic. It is no less flexible than Tennyson's, but (as in most of Browning's poetry) sacrifices more of melody in adapting itself to the thought.
(Browning: The Ring and the Book; Caponsacchi. 1868.)
The Ring and the Book Professor Corson calls "the greatest achievement of the century ... in the effective use of blank verse in the treatment of a great subject.... Its blank verse, while having a most complex variety of character, is the most dramatic blank verse since the Elizabethan era.... One reads it without a sense almost of there being anything artificial in the construction of the language; ... one gets the impression that the poet thought and felt spontaneously in blank verse." (Primer of English Verse, pp. 224, 225.)
(Browning: In a Balcony. 1855.)
(Browning: Epistle of Karshish. 1855.)
(Browning: Fra Lippo Lippi. 1855.)
Of some of Browning's blank verse Mr. Mayor observes: "The extreme harshness of many of these lines is almost a match for anything in Surrey, only what in Surrey is helplessness seems the perversity of strength in Browning.... The Aristophanic vein in Browning is continually leading him to trample under foot the dignity of verse and to shock the uninitiated reader by colloquial familiarities, 'thumps upon the back,' such as the poet Cowper resented; yet no one can be more impressive than he is when he surrenders himself to the pure spirit of poetry, and flows onward in a stream of glorious music, such as that in which Balaustion pictures Athens overwhelmed by an advance of the sea (Aristophanes' Apology, p. 2)." (Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., pp. 216, 217.)
(Matthew Arnold: Sohrab and Rustum. 1853.)
(Stephen Phillips: Paolo and Francesca, III. iii. 1901.)
The blank verse of Stephen Phillips is the most important—one may say perhaps the only important—that has been written since Tennyson's; and it is of especial interest as forming an actual revival of the form on the English stage. Aside from the dramas, it is seen at its best in Marpessa. Imitating Milton, and at the same time handling the measure with original force, Mr. Phillips introduces unusual cadences, for which he has been severely reproached by the critics. Such lines as the following are typical of these variations from the normal rhythm:
For a criticism of Mr. Phillips's verse, see Mr. William Archer's Poets of the Younger Generation, pp. 313-327.
[19] One may easily find other instances of the sporadic appearance of the same measure in the midst of irregular "long lines" or rough alexandrines and septenaries. Compare, for example, the following, from early plays in Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama:
The context of many of these lines shows that they were intended to be read as four-stress rather than five-stress; but such examples serve to make clear how easily English rhythm would fall into the decasyllabic line.
[20] See also an account of Zarncke's monograph (1865) Ueber den fünffussiger Iambus, in Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, Postscript.
[21] See the entire Preface in Chalmers's English Poets, vol. viii. p. 32, and in the Appendix to Gosse's From Shakespeare to Pope. For an analysis of Waller's verse with reference to this Preface, see "A Note upon Waller's Distich," by H. C. Beeching, in the Furnivall Miscellany (1901), p. 4.
[22] Beaumont's own verse is of no little interest, and Mr. Gosse, in a recent letter to the present editor, observes that he finds in Beaumont, "far more definitely than in George Sandys, the principal precursor of Waller."
[23] See also the verses of Oliver Wendell Holmes on The Strong Heroic Line (in Stedman's American Anthology, p. 161), where he says:
[24] On the verse of Keats in general, see the remarks of Mr. Robert Bridges in his Introduction to the Muses' Library edition of Keats.
[25] On Shelley's metres, see Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. xiv.
[26] On the verse of Surrey in general, see W. J. Courthope, in his History of English Poetry, vol. ii. pp. 92-96. Mr. Courthope speaks highly of Surrey as a metrist, in particular attributing to him certain reforms in the handling of English verse: the attempt to use five perfect iambic feet to the line, the harmonious placing of the cesura, the avoidance of rime on weak syllables, the preservation of the accent on the even-numbered syllables. (To some of these reforms, as has been indicated, there are not a few exceptions.) In like manner ten Brink observes that Surrey "is more successful than Wyatt in adapting foreign rules to the rhythmical accent of the English language, and thus he is in reality the founder of the New-English metrical system." (English Literature, Kennedy trans., vol. iii. p. 243.)
On the blank verse of Surrey, see also an article by Prof. O. J. Emerson, in Modern Language Notes, vol. iv. col. 466, and Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. x.
[27] The edition of 1616 has:
and omits the preceding line.
(See Bullen ed., vol. i. pp. 279, 280.)
[28] On Marlowe's verse see also Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. x.
[29] On the technical problems of Shakspere's verse, see Fleay's Shakspere Manual; Abbott's Shakespearean Grammar; G. Browne's Notes on Shakspere's Versification; and Mayor's Chapters on English Metre.
[30] "In a play of 2500 lines Massinger might possibly have as many as 1200 double or triple endings, Shakspere in his last period might have as many as 850, while Fletcher would normally have at least 1700, and might not improbably give as many as 2000." (G. C. Macaulay, in Francis Beaumont, pp. 43, 44. See the entire passage on Fletcher's metre as a test of authorship. Mr. Macaulay also remarks interestingly that Fletcher's metrical style is an outgrowth of his general use of the loose or disjointed, as opposed to the periodic or rounded, style of speech. To this "Shakspere worked his way slowly," while Fletcher "seems to have at once and naturally adopted" it.) See also Fleay's Shakespeare Manual, p. 153.
[31] On Massinger's verse see also Fleay's Shakespeare Manual, p. 154.
[32] On Milton's verse, see, besides the entire third essay in Mr. Symonds's book, Masson's edition of Milton, vol. iii. pp. 107-133; Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody; Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., pp. 71-77 and 96-105; chapter xii. of Corson's Primer of English Verse; and a passage in De Quincey's essay on "Milton v. Southey and Landor," in his works, ed. Masson, vol. xi. pp. 463 ff. Says De Quincey: "You might as well tax Mozart with harshness in the divinest passages of Don Giovanni as Milton with any such offence against metrical science. Be assured it is yourself that do not read with understanding, not Milton that by possibility can be found deaf to the demands of perfect harmony."
[33] Aaron Hill (1685-1750), an admirer of Thomson, wrote a "Poem in Praise of Blank Verse," opening:
On the other hand, there were not wanting protestants against the form, like Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith (see above, p. 205). Robert Lloyd (1733-1764) wrote:
(Quoted in Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, p. 385.)
[34] On its analysis, see Mayor's Chapters on English Metre, 2d ed., chap. xiii.
The alexandrine was introduced into English from French verse, as early (according to Schipper) as the early part of the thirteenth century. Early poems in this metre alone, however, are almost wholly wanting, if they ever existed. The early alexandrines usually appear in conjunction with the septenary (seven-stress verse). The French alexandrine has almost always been characterized by a regular and strongly marked medial cesura, and this very commonly appears in the English form, but by no means universally.
The French alexandrine is of uncertain origin. Kawczynski would trace it to the classical Asclepiadean verse, as in
which at least has the requisite number of syllables. It appeared in France as early as the first part of the twelfth century, and in four-line stanzas was the favorite for didactic poetry as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century; otherwise, in the close of the fourteenth century, it was supplanted by the decasyllabic. In the middle of the sixteenth century it again won precedence over the decasyllabic—in part through the influence of Ronsard—and is of course the standard measure of modern French poetry. The name "alexandrine" seems to have been applied in the fifteenth century, from the familiar use of the measure in the Alexander romance. The earliest known mention of the term is in Herenc's Doctrinal de la secunde Retorique. (See Stengel's article in Gröber's Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie, from which these statements are taken.)
The French alexandrine is in a sense a quite different measure from the English form. Accent is an element of so comparatively slight importance in the French language and French rhythm, that its place seems partly to be filled by regularity of cesural pause and regularity in the counting of syllables. The French alexandrine, therefore, may often be described as a verse of twelve syllables, divided into two equal parts by a pause, with marked accents on the sixth and twelfth syllables, but with the other accents irregularly disposed. Often it seems to an English reader to have an anapestic effect, and to be best described as anapestic tetrameter. In English, however, while the regularity in the number of syllables is followed, and very commonly the medial pause, there is also observed the regularity of alternate accents which gives the verse the characteristic form indicated by the term "six-stress."