Title: Historical Manual of English Prosody
Author: George Saintsbury
Release date: December 16, 2017 [eBook #56187]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY FROM THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY. 3 vols. 8vo.
Vol. I. From the Origins to Spenser. 12s. 6d. net.
Vol. II. From Shakespeare to Crabbe. 18s. net.
Vol. III. From Blake to Swinburne. 18s. net.
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE RHYTHM. 8vo. 18s. net.
A HISTORY OF ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. Crown 8vo. 10s. Also in Five Parts. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. each.
LIFE OF DRYDEN. Library Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. net. Pocket Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 2s. net.
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
HISTORICAL MANUAL
OF
ENGLISH PROSODY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.
HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC
AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1910
Reprinted 1914, 1919
The reception of the first two volumes of a larger work (since completed) on English Prosody suggested, to the author and to the publishers, that there might be room for a more compressed dealing with the subject, possessing more introductory character, and attempting the functions of a manual as well as those of a history. It did not, however, seem that the matter could be satisfactorily treated in extremely brief form, as a primer or elementary school-book. The subject is one not very well suited for elementary instruction; and in endeavouring to shape it for that use there is a particular danger of too positive and peremptory statement in reference to matters of the most contentious kind. Catechetical instruction has to be categorical; if you set hypotheses, or alternative systems, before young scholars, they are apt either to distrust the whole thing or to become hopelessly muddled. And the opposite danger—of unhesitating adoption of positive statements on doubtful points—must have been found to be only too real by any one who has had to do with education. Schoolboys cannot be too early, or too plentifully, or too variously supplied with good examples of verse; but they should be thoroughly familiar with the practice before they come to the principles.
To the Senior Forms of the higher Secondary Schools, on the other hand, and to students in those Universities which admit English literature as a subject, this function of it is quite suitable and well adapted, and it is for their use that this volume is planned (as well as for that of the general reader who may hardly feel inclined to tackle three large octavos). An effort will be made to include everything that is vital to a clear understanding of the subject; while opportunity will, it is hoped, be found for insertion of some information, both of a historical and of a practical kind, which did not seem so germane to the larger History. It has been a main object with me in preparing this book, while reducing prosodic theory to the necessary minimum, but keeping that, to "load every rift" with prosodic fact; and I could almost recommend the student to devote himself to the Contents and the Index, illustrated by the Glossary, all of which have been made exceptionally full, before attacking the text.
The work, like the larger one of which it is not so much an abstract as a parallel with a different purpose, cannot hope to content those who think that prosody should be, like mathematics or music, a science, immutable, peremptory, abstract in the other sense. It will not content those who think—in pursuance or independently of such an opinion—that it should discard appreciation of the actual poetry, on which, from my point of view, it is solely based. It will, from another point, leave dissatisfied those who decline the attempt to reduce this poetry to some general but elastic laws, and who concentrate themselves on the immediate musical or rhetorical values (as they seem to them) of individual poems, or passages, or even (as is not uncommon) lines. Nor will it provide, what some seem to desire, a tabular analysis of every verse-form in the language, for reasons explained in the proper place (v. inf. p. 336 note). But, from past experience, it seems that it may find some public ready for it; and it is perhaps not wholly fatuous to hope that it may help to create a larger.[1]
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
Edinburgh,
All Souls' Day,
1910.
[1] Note to Second Edition. Christmas 1913.—The opportunity of this second edition[2] has been taken to read the text carefully, and to correct a certain number of errors of pen and press, connected more especially with division of feet and quantification of syllables. How difficult it is to avoid errors here, nobody who has not tried the matter on an extensive scale can well conceive. Few more substantial alterations have been found necessary; but I may mention here an addition to the evidence of distinct, if clumsy, anapæstic metre in the mid.-sixteenth century, which I had not noticed when writing this book, or my larger one. It is a translation of the 149th Psalm, contributed to the "Old Version" (1561-2) by John Pulleyne, Student of Christchurch, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. It may be found in the Parker Society's Select Poems, and begins:
[2] And of a third.—Bath, Sept. 1919.
| BOOK I
INTRODUCTORY AND DOGMATIC | |
| CHAPTER I | |
| PAGE | |
| Introductory | 3 |
| CHAPTER II
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE ACCENTUAL OR STRESS | |
| Classical prosody uniform in theory—English not so—"Accent" and "stress"—English prosody as adjusted to them—Its difficulties—and insufficiencies—Examples of its application—Its various sects and supporters | 6 |
| CHAPTER III
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE SYLLABIC | |
| History of the syllabic theory—Its results—Note: Cautions | 14 |
| CHAPTER IV
SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY—THE FOOT | |
| General if not always consistent use of the term "foot"—Particular objections to its systematic use—"Quantity" in English—The "common" syllable—Intermediate rules of arrangement—Some interim rules of feet (expanded in note)—The different systems applied to a single verse of Tennyson's—and their application examined—Application further to his "Hollyhock" song—Such application possible always and everywhere | 19 |
| CHAPTER V
RULES OF THE FOOT SYSTEM | |
| § A. Feet.—Feet composed of long and short syllables—Not all combinations actual—Differences from "classical" feet—The three usual kinds: iamb, trochee, anapæst—The spondee—The dactyl—The pyrrhic—The tribrach—Others. § B. Constitution of Feet.—Quality or "quantity" in feet—Not necessarily "time"—nor vowel "quantity"—Accumulated consonants—or rhetorical stress—or place in verse will quantify—Commonness of monosyllables. § C. Equivalence and Substitution.—Substitution of equivalent feet—Its two laws—Confusion of base must be avoided—(Of which the ear must judge)—Certain substitutions are not eligible. § D. Pause.—Variation of pause —Practically at discretion—Blank verse specially dependent on pause. § E. Line-Combination.—Simple or complex—Rhymes necessary to couplet—Few instances of successful unrhymed stanza—Unevenness of line in length—Stanzas to be judged by the ear—Origin of commonest line-combinations. § F. Rhyme.—Rhyme natural in English—It must be "full" —and not identical—General rule as to it—Alliteration—Single, etc., rhyme—Fullness of sound—Internal rhyme permissible—but sometimes dangerous. § G. Miscellaneous—Vowel-music—"Fingering"—Confusion of rhythms intolerable | 30 |
| CHAPTER VI
CONTINUOUS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ENGLISH SCANSION ACCORDING TO THE FOOT SYSTEM | |
| I. Old English Period: Scansion only dimly visible—II. Late Old English with nisus towards Metre: "Grave" Poem—III. Transition Period: Metre struggling to assert itself in a new way—IV. Early Middle English Period: Attempt at merely Syllabic Uniformity with Unbroken Iambic Run and no Rhyme—V. Early Middle English Period: Conflict or Indecision between Accentual Rhythm and Metrical Scheme—VI. Early Middle English Period: The Appearance and Development of the "Fourteener"—VII. Early Middle English Period: The Plain and Equivalenced Octosyllable—VIII. Early Middle English Period: The Romance-Six or Rime Couée—IX. Early Middle English Period: Miscellaneous Stanzas—X. Early Middle English Period: Appearance of the Decasyllable—XI. Later Middle English Period: The Alliterative Revival (Pure)—XII. Later Middle English Period: The Alliterative Revival (Mixed)—XIII. Later Middle English Period: Potentially Metrical Lines in Langland (see Book II.)—XIV. Later Middle English Period: Scansions from Chaucer—XV. Later Middle English Period: Variations from Strict Iambic Norm in Gower—XVI. Transition Period: Examples of Break-down in Literary Verse—XVII. Transition Period: Examples of True Prosody in Ballad, Carols, etc.—XVIII. Transition Period: Examples of Skeltonic and other Doggerel—XIX. Transition Period: Examples from the Scottish Poets—XX. Early Elizabethan Period: Examples of Reformed Metre from Wyatt, Surrey, and other Poets before Spenser—XXI. Spenser at Different Periods—XXII. Examples of the Development of Blank Verse—XXIII. Examples of Elizabethan Lyric—XXIV. Early Continuous Anapæsts—XXV. The Enjambed Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)—XXVI. The Stopped Heroic Couplet (1580-1660)—XXVII. Various Forms of Octosyllable-Heptasyllable (late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century)—XXVIII. "Common," "Long," and "In Memoriam" Measure (Seventeenth Century)—XXIX. Improved Anapæstic Measures (Dryden, Anon., Prior)—XXX. "Pindarics" (Seventeenth Century)—XXXI. The Heroic Couplet from Dryden to Crabbe—XXXII. Eighteenth-Century Blank Verse—XXXIII. The Regularised Pindaric Ode—XXXIV. Lighter Eighteenth-Century Lyric—XXXV. The Revival of Equivalence (Chatterton and Blake)—XXXVI. Rhymeless Attempts (Collins to Shelley)—XXXVII. The Revived Ballad (Percy to Coleridge)—XXXVIII. Specimens of Christabel; Note on the Application of the Christabel System to Nineteenth-Century Lyric generally—XXXIX. Nineteenth-Century Couplet (Leigh Hunt to Mr. Swinburne)—XL. Nineteenth-Century Blank Verse (Wordsworth to Mr. Swinburne)—XLI. The Non-Equivalenced Octosyllable of Keats and Morris—XLII. The Continuous Alexandrine (Drayton and Browning)—XLIII. The Dying Swan of Tennyson scanned entirely through to show the Application of the System—XLIV. The Stages of the Metre of "Dolores" and the Dedication of "Poems and Ballads"—XLV. Long Metres of Tennyson, Browning, Morris, and Swinburne—XLVI. The Later Sonnet—XLVII. The Various Attempts at "Hexameters" in English—XLVIII. Minor Imitations of Classical Metres—XLIX. Imitations of Artificial French Forms—L. Later Rhymelessness—LI. Some "Unusual" Metres and Disputed Scansions | 37 |
| BOOK II
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGLISH PROSODY | |
| CHAPTER I
FROM THE ORIGINS TO CHAUCER—THE CONSTITUTION OF ENGLISH VERSE | |
| Relations of "Old" to "Middle" and "New" English—generally—and in prosody—Anglo-Saxon prosody itself—Prosody of the Transition to Middle English—Contrast in Layamon—Examinations of it: Insufficient—Sufficient—Other documents The Ormulum—The Moral Ode and the Orison of Our Lady—The Proverbs of Alfred and Hendyng—The Bestiary—Minor poems—The Owl and the Nightingale and Genesis and Exodus—Summary of results to the mid-thirteenth century—The later thirteenth century and the fourteenth—Robert of Gloucester—The Romances—Lyrics—The alliterative revival—The later fourteenth century—Langland—Gower—Chaucer—His perfecting of M.E. verse—Details of his prosody | 133 |
| CHAPTER II
FROM CHAUCER TO SPENSER—DISORGANISATION AND RECONSTRUCTION | |
| Causes of decay in Southern English prosody—Lydgate, Occleve, etc.—The Scottish poets—Ballad, etc.—Dissatisfaction and reform—Wyatt and Surrey—Their followers—Spenser—The Shepherd's Calendar—The Faerie Queene | 161 |
| CHAPTER III
FROM SHAKESPEARE TO MILTON—THE CLOSE OF THE FORMATIVE PERIOD | |
| Blank verse—Before Shakespeare—In him—and after him in drama—Its degeneration—Milton's reform of it—Comus—Paradise Lost—Analysis of its versification, with application of different systems—Stanza, etc., in Shakespeare—in Milton—and others—The "heroic" couplet—Enjambed—and stopped—Lyric | 173 |
| CHAPTER IV
HALT AND RETROSPECT—CONTINUATION ON HEROIC VERSE AND ITS COMPANIONS FROM DRYDEN TO CRABBE | |
| Recapitulation—Dryden's couplet—and Pope's—Their predominance—Eighteenth-century octosyllable and anapæst—Blank verse—and lyric—Merit of eighteenth-century "regularity" | 190 |
| CHAPTER V
THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL—ITS PRECURSORS AND FIRST GREAT STAGE | |
| Gray and Collins—Chatterton, Burns, and Blake—Other influences of change—Wordsworth, Southey, and Scott—Coleridge—Moore—Byron—Shelley: his longer poems—His lyrics—Keats | 198 |
| CHAPTER VI
THE LAST STAGE—TENNYSON TO SWINBURNE | |
| From Keats to Tennyson—Tennyson himself—Special example of his manipulation of the quatrain—Browning—Mrs. Browning—Matthew Arnold—Later poets: The Rossettis—W. Morris—Mr. Swinburne—Others | 207 |
| CHAPTER VII
RECAPITULATION OR SUMMARY VIEW OF STAGES OF ENGLISH PROSODY | |
| I. Old English Period—II. Before or very soon after 1200: Earliest Middle English Period—III. Middle and Later Thirteenth Century: Second Early Middle English Period—IV. Earlier Fourteenth Century: Central Period of Middle English—V. Later Fourteenth Century: Crowning Period of Middle English—VI. Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries: The Decadence of Middle English Prosody—VII. Mid-Sixteenth Century: The Recovery of Rhythm—VIII. Late Sixteenth Century: The Perfecting of Metre and of Poetical Diction—IX. Early Seventeenth Century: The further Development of Lyric, Stanza, and Blank Verse; Insurgence and Division of the Couplet—X. Mid-Seventeenth Century: Milton—XI. The Later Seventeenth Century: Dryden—XII. The Eighteenth Century—XIII. The Early Nineteenth Century and the Romantic Revival—XIV. The Later Nineteenth Century | 220 |
| BOOK III
HISTORICAL SURVEY OF VIEWS ON PROSODY | |
| CHAPTER I
BEFORE 1700 | |
| Dearth of early prosodic studies—Gascoigne—His remark on feet— Spenser and Harvey—Stanyhurst—Webbe—King James VI.— Pattenham (?)—Campion and Daniel—Ben Jonson, Drayton, Beaumont—Joshua Poole and "J. D."—Milton—Dryden— Woodford—Comparative barrenness of the whole | 233 |
| CHAPTER II
FROM BYSSHE TO GUEST | |
| Bysshe's Art of Poetry—Its importance—Minor prosodists of the mid-eighteenth century—Dr. Johnson—Shenstone—Sheridan— John Mason—Mitford—Joshua Steele—Historical and Romantic prosody—Gray—Taylor and Sayers—Southey: his importance —Wordsworth—Coleridge—Christabel, its theory and its practice—Prosodists from 1800 to 1850—Guest | 242 |
| CHAPTER III
LATER NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROSODISTS | |
| Discussions on the Evangeline hexameter—Mid-century prosodists —Those about 1870—and since—Summary | 256 |
| BOOK IV
AUXILIARY APPARATUS | |
| CHAPTER I
GLOSSARY | |
| Accent – Acephalous – Acrostic – Alexandrine – Alcaic – Alliteration – Amphibrach – Amphimacer – Note on Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse – Anacrusis – Anapæst – Anti-Bacchic or Anti-Bacchius – Antispast – Antistrophe – Appoggiatura – Arsis and its opposite, Thesis – Assonance – Atonic – Bacchic or Bacchius – Ballad (rarely Ballet) – Ballade – Ballad Metre or Common Measure – Bar and Beat – Blank Verse – Bob and Wheel – Burden – Burns Metre – Cadence – Cæsura – Carol – Catalexis – Catch – Chant-Royal – Choriamb – Coda – Common – Common Measure ("C.M.") – Consonance – Couplet – Cretic – Dactyl – Di-iamb – Dimeter – Dispondee – Distich – Ditrochee – Dochmiac – Doggerel – Duple – Elision – End-stopped – Enjambment – Envoi – Epanaphora – Epanorthosis – Epitrite – Epode – Equivalence – Eye-Rhyme – Feminine Rhyme (Feminine Ending) – "Fingering" – Foot; Table of Feet – Fourteener – Galliambic – Gemell or Geminel – Head-Rhyme – Hendecasyllable – Heptameter – Heroic – Hexameter – Hiatus – Iambic – Inverted Stress – Ionic; Note on Ionic a minore as applicable to the Epilogue of Browning's Asolando – Leonine Verse – Line – Long and Short – Long Measure ("L.M.") – Lydgatian Line – Masculine Rhyme – Metre – Molossus – Monometer – Monopressure – Octave – Octometer – Ode – Ottava Rima – Pæon – Pause – Pentameter – Pindaric – Position – Poulter's Measure – Proceleusmatic – Pyrrhic – Quantity – Quartet or Quatrain – Quintet – Redundance – Refrain – Rhyme – Rhyme-Royal – Rhythm – Riding Rhyme – Rime Couée or Tailed Rhyme – Romance-Six – Rondeau, Rondel – Sapphic – Section – Septenar – Septet – Sestet, also Sixain – Sestine, Sestina – Short Measure ("S.M.") – Single-moulded – Skeltonic – Slur – Sonnet – Spenserian – Spondee – Stanza or Stave – Stress – Stress-Unit – Strophe – Substitution – Synalœpha – Syncope – Synizesis – Syzygy – Tailed Sonnet – Tercet – Terza Rima – Tetrameter – Thesis – Time – Tribrach – Triolet – Triple – Triplet – Trochee – Truncation – Tumbling Verse – Turn of Words – Verse – Verse Paragraph – Vowel-Music – Weak Ending – Wrenched Accent | 265 |
| CHAPTER II
REASONED LIST OF POETS WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO THEIR PROSODIC QUALITY AND INFLUENCE | |
| Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)—Barham, Richard H. ("Thomas Ingoldsby") (1788-1845)—Beaumont, Sir John (1583-1623)—Blake, William (1757-1827)—Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)—Browne, William (1591-1643)—Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)—Browning, Robert (1812-1889)—Burns, Robert (1759-1796)—Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)—Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844)—Campion, Thomas (?-1619)—Canning, George (1770-1827)—Chamberlayne, William (1619-1689)—Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)—Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400)—Cleveland, John (1613-1658)—Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)—Collins, William (1721-1759)—Congreve, William (1670-1729)—Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)—Cowper, William (1731-1800)—Donne, John (1573-1631)—Drayton, Michael (1563-1631)—Dryden, John (1630-1700)—Dixon, Richard Watson (1833-1900)—Dunbar, William (1450?-1513? or -1530?)—Dyer, John (1700?-1758?)—Fairfax, Edward (d. 1635)—Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883)—Fletcher, Giles (1588-1623), and Phineas (1582-1650)—Fletcher, John (1579-1625)—Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)—Gascoigne, George (1525?-1577)—Glover, Richard (1712-1785)—Godric, Saint (?-1170)—Gower, John (1325?-1408)—Hampole, Richard Rolle of (1290?-1347)—Hawes, Stephen (d. 1523?)—Herrick, Robert (1591-1674)—Hunt, J. H. Leigh (1784—1859)—-Jonson, Benjamin (1573?-1637)—Keats, John (1795-1821)—Kingsley, Charles (1819-1875)—Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)—Langland, William (fourteenth century)—Layamon (late twelfth and early thirteenth century)—Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)—Locker (latterly Locker-Lampson), Frederick (1821-1895)—Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882)—Lydgate, John (1370-1450?)—Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-1859)—Maginn, William (1793-1842)—Marlowe, Christopher (1664-1693)—Milton, John (1608-1674)—Moore, Thomas (1779-1852)—Morris, William (1834-1896)—Orm—O'Shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. (1844-1881)—Peele, George (1558?-1597?)—Percy, Thomas (1729-1811)—Poe, Edgar (1809-1849)—Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)—Praed, Winthrop Mackworth (1802-1839)—Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)—Robert of Gloucester (fl. c. 1280)—Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830-1894) and Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)—Sackville, Thomas (1536-1608)—Sandys, George (1578-1644)—Sayers, Frank (1763-1817)—Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)—Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)—Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)—Shenstone, William (1714-1763)—Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586)—Southey, Robert (1774-1843)—Spenser, Edmund (1552?-1599)—Surrey, Earl of (1517-1547)—Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)—Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)—Thomson, James (1700-1748)—Tusser, Thomas (1524?-1580)—Waller, Edmund (1606-1687)—Watts, Isaac (1674-1741)—Whitman, Walt[er] (1819-1892)—Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)—Wyatt, Sir Thomas (1503?-1542) | 298 |
| CHAPTER III
ORIGINS OF LINES AND STANZAS | |
| A. Lines.—I. Alliterative—II. "Short" Lines—III. Octosyllable—IV. Decasyllabic—V. Alexandrine—VI. Fourteener—VII. Doggerel—VIII. "Long" Lines. B. Stanzas, etc.—I. Ballad Verse—II. Romance-Six or Rime Couée—III. Octosyllabic and Decasyllabic Couplet—IV. Quatrain—V. In Memoriam Metre—VI. Rhyme-Royal—VII. Octave—VIII. Spenserian—IX. Burns Metre—X. Other Stanzas | 316 |
| CHAPTER IV
BIBLIOGRAPHY | |
| Abbot, E. A.—Alden, R. M.—[Blake, J. W.]—Brewer, R. F.—Bridges, R. S.—Bysshe, Edward—Calverley, C. S.—Campion, Thomas—Cayley, C. B.—Coleridge, S. T.—Conway, Gilbert—Crowe, William—Daniel, Samuel—Dryden, John—Gascoigne, George—Goldsmith, Oliver—Guest, Edwin—Hodgson, Shadworth—Hood, T. (the younger)—Jenkin, Fleeming—Johnson, Samuel—Ker, W. P.—King James the First (Sixth of Scotland)—Lewis, C. M.—Liddell, Mark H.—Mason, John—Masson, David—Mayor, J. B.—Mitford, William—Omond, T.S.—Patmore, Coventry—Poe, E. A.—[Puttenham, George?]—Ruskin, John—Schipper, J.—Shenstone, William—Skeat, W. W.—Southey, Robert—Spedding, James—Spenser, Edmund—Steele, Joshua—Stone, W. J.—Symonds, J. A.—Thelwall, John—Verrier, M.—Wadham, E.—Webbe, William | 337 |
| INDEX | 341 |
Prosody, or the study of the constitution of verse, was, not so long ago, made familiar, in so far as it concerned Latin, to all persons educated above the very lowest degree, by the presence of a tractate on the subject as a conclusion to the Latin Grammar. The same persons were further obliged to a more than theoretical knowledge of it, in so far as it concerned that language, by the once universal, now (as some think) most unwisely disused habit of composing Latin verses. The great majority of English poets, from at least the sixteenth century, if not earlier, until far into the nineteenth, had actually composed such verses; and even more had learnt the rules of them, long before attempting in English the work which has given them their fame. It is sometimes held that this fact—which as a fact is undeniable—has had an undue influence on the way in which English prosody has been regarded; that it must have exercised an enormous influence on the way in which English poetry has been produced may be denied, but hardly by any one who really considers the fact itself, and who is capable of drawing an inference.
It was, however, a very considerable time before any attempt was regularly made to construct a similar scientific or artistic analysis for English verse itself. Although efforts were made early to adjust that verse to the complete forms of Latin—and of Greek, which is in some respects prosodically nearer than Latin to English,— although such attempts have been constantly repeated and are being continued now,—it has always been impossible for any intelligent person to make them without finding curious, sometimes rather indefinite, but extremely palpable differences and difficulties in the way. The differences especially have sometimes been exaggerated and more often mistaken, and it is partly owing to this fact that, up to the present moment, no authoritative body of doctrine on the subject of English prosody can be said to exist. It is believed by the present writer that such a body of doctrine ought to be and can be framed—with the constant proviso and warning that it will be doctrine subject, not to the practically invariable uniformity of Science, but to the wide variations of Art,—not to the absolute compulsion of the universal, but to the comparative freedom of the individual and particular. The inquiries and considerations upon which this doctrine is based will be found, at full, in the larger work referred to in the Preface. In the first Book, here, will be set forth the leading systems or principles which have actually underlain, and do underlie, the conflicting views and the discordant terminology of the subject, and this will be followed by perhaps the most valuable part, if any be valuable, of the whole—a series of selected passages, scanned and commented, from the very beginning to the very end of English poetry. In the second, a survey will be given of that actual history of the actual poetry which ought to be, but has very seldom been, the basis of every discussion on prosody. In the third a brief conspectus will be supplied of the actual opinions which have been held on this subject by those who have handled it in English. The fourth will give, in the first place, a Glossary of Terms, which appears to be very much needed; in the second, a list of poets who have specially influenced the course of prosody, with reasoned remarks on their connection with it; in the third, a selected list of important metres with their origins and affiliations; any further matter which may seem necessary following, with a short Bibliography to conclude. The object of the whole is not merely to inculcate what seems to the author to be the best if not the only adequate general system of English prosody, but to provide the student with ample materials for forming his own judgment on this difficult, long debated, often mistaken, but always, if duly handled, profitable and delectable matter.
The great difficulty attending the study of English prosody, and the cause of the fact that no book hitherto published can be said to possess actual authority on the subject, arises from the other fact that no general agreement exists, or ever has existed, on the root-principles of the matter.[3] Classical writers on metre, of whom we possess a tolerable stock, differed with each other on many minor points of opinion, and from each other in the ways in which they attacked the subject. But they were practically agreed that "quantity" (i.e. the difference of technical "time" in pronunciation of syllables) and "feet"—that is to say, certain regular mathematical combinations of "long" and "short" quantity—constituted metre. They had indeed accent—the later Greeks certainly and the Latins probably—which was independent of, and perhaps sometimes opposed to, quantity; but except in what we call the ante-classical times of Latin and the post-classical times of both Latin and Greek, it had nothing to do with metrical arrangement. They had different values of "long" and "short"; but these did not affect metre, nor did the fact that in both languages, but especially in Greek, a certain number of syllables were allowed to be "common"—that is to say, capable of taking the place of "long" or "short" alike. The central system of prosodic arrangement (till the flooding of the later Empire with "barbarians" of various nationality and as various intonation and modes of speech broke it down altogether) remained the same. "Longs" and "shorts" in the various combinations and permutations possible, up to three syllables most commonly, up to four in fewer cases, and possibly up to five in still fewer, made up lines which experiment discovered to be harmonious, and practice adopted as such. These lines were sometimes used continuously (with or without certain internal variations of feet, considered equivalent to each other), as in modern blank verse; sometimes arranged in batches corresponding more or less to each other, as in modern couplet or stanza poetry.
On the other hand, though English prosodists may sometimes agree on details, translated into their different terminologies, the systems which lie at the root of these terminologies are almost irreconcilably different. Even the reduction of these systems to three types may excite protest, though it is believed that it can be made out without begging the question in favour of any one.
The discord begins as early as possible; for there are some who would maintain that "accentual" systems and "stress" systems ought not to be identified, or even associated. It is quite true that the words are technically used[4] with less or more extensive and intensive meaning; but definitions of each are almost always driven to adopt the other, and in prosodic systems they are practically inseparable. The soundest distinction perhaps is that "accent" refers to the habitual stress laid on a syllable in ordinary pronunciation; "stress" to a syllable specially accented for this or that reason, logical, rhetorical, or prosodic purely.
According to this system (or systems) English poetry consists of syllables—accented or unaccented, stressed or unstressed—arranged on principles which, whatever they may be in themselves, have no analogy to those of classical feet. According to the more reckless and thorough-going accentualists—the view is expressed, with all but its utmost crudity, in Coleridge's celebrated Preface to Christabel[5]—all you have got to do is to look to the accents. Cruder advocates still have said that "accents take the place of feet" (which is something like saying that points take the place of swords), or that unaccented syllables are "left to take care of themselves." It has also been contended that the number and the position of accents or stresses give a complete and sufficient scheme of the metre. And in some late forms of stress-prosody the regularity, actual or comparative, which used to be contended for by accentualists themselves, is entirely given up; lines in continuous and apparently identical arrangement may have two, three, four, five, or even more stresses. While yet others have gone farther still and deliberately proposed reading of verse as a prose paragraph, the natural stresses of which will give the rhythm at which the author aimed.[6] Some again would deny the existence of any normal form of staple lines like the heroic, distributing them in "bars" of "beats" which may vary almost indefinitely.
On the other hand, there are some accentualists who hardly differ, in more than terminology, from the upholders of a foot-and-quantity system. They think that there is no or little time-quantity in English; that an English "long" syllable is really an accented one only, and an English short syllable an unaccented. They would not neglect the unaccented syllables; but would keep them in batches similar to, if not actually homonymous with, feet. In fact the difference with them becomes, if not one of mere terminology, one chiefly on the previous question of the final constitution and causation of "long" and "short" syllables. Of these, and of a larger number who consciously or unconsciously approach nearer to, though they do not actually enter, the "go-as-you-please" prosody of the extreme stressmen, the majority of English prosodists has nearly always consisted. Gascoigne, our first writer on the subject, belonged to them, calling accent itself "emphasis," and applying the term "accent" only to the written or typographical symbols of it; while he laid great stress on its observance in verse. With those who adopt this system, and its terminology, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the heroic line is "inversion of accent," the raising or lowering of the usual pronounced value of a syllable, "wrenching of accent," and so on. And the principal argument which they advance in favour of their system against the foot-and-quantity scheme is the very large prevalence of "common" syllables in English—an undoubted fact; though the inference does not seem to follow.