The Principles of English Versification Part 5

The _stanza_ or _strophe_ is a combination of two or more lines of the same or varying lengths, according to a regular pattern chosen by the poet. 'Irregular' stanzas sometimes occur, in which the thought rhythm is said to control and determine the stanzaic rhythm; that is, the length of line and position of rimes are regulated by the logical and emotional content of the words. On the various kinds of stanzaic structure, see pages 88 ff., below.

_Metrical Patterns._ It must be fully understood that these metrical patterns of line and stanza are purely formal. They are the bottles into which the poet pours his liquid meaning, or better, the sketched-in squares over which the painter, copying from an old masterpiece, draws and paints his figures. They have no literal or concrete existence. They are no more the music of verse than

[Ill.u.s.tration: Waltz rhythm]

is the music of a waltz. They are absolutely fixed and predetermined (though the poet may invent new patterns if he chooses). But he uses them _only as forms_ on which he arranges his words and phrases. For the rhythm of language is extremely soft and malleable: by skilful handling it can be moulded into an infinite variety of shapes. Perhaps the comparison of a stanza by John Donne with a stanza by W.B. Yeats, both based on the same metrical scheme, will help to make this clear. The formal scheme is

?_??_?_??_??_?

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so: For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.

JOHN DONNE, Death.

When you are old and gray and full of sleep And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.

W. B. YEATS, When You are Old.

Even more striking is the difference of rhythmical effect observable in reading, one after the other, a page of Pope's heroic couplets in the Essay on Man, of Keats's same couplets in Endymion, and Browning's same couplets in My Last d.u.c.h.ess.

While the formal pattern remains fixed and inflexible, over its surface may be embroidered variations of almost illimitable subtlety and change; but _always the formal pattern must be visible, audible_. The poet's skill lies largely in preserving a balance of the artistic principles of variety in uniformity and uniformity in variety. Once he lets go the design, he loses his metrical rhythm and writes mere prose. Once we cease to hear and feel the faint regular beating of the metronome we fail to get the enjoyment of sound that it is the proper function of metre to give. On the other hand, if the mechanical design stands out too plainly, if the beat of the metronome becomes for an instant more prominent than the music of the words, then also the artistic pleasure is gone, for too much uniformity is as deadly to art as too much variety.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

These verses are regular (as is appropriate for the theme), and vary comparatively little from the formal metrical pattern. The coincidence of prose rhythm and metrical rhythm is almost complete. Yet by means of small subtleties of variation in pause, word order, long and short syllables, Gray always saves the poem from monotony. How far the variations may be carried, how much the ear may be depended upon for rhythmic subst.i.tution and syncopation, is determined by many things.

Certain lines are unmistakably metrical to all ears and in all positions--such as these verses of Gray's Elegy. Certain lines are generally felt to contain daring variations and yet be successful and effective--such as

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay.

Sh.e.l.lEY, Ode to the West Wind.

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn.

TENNYSON, Small Sweet Idyl, in The Princess.

Other lines stretch our metrical sense to the breaking point, and according to individual taste we judge them bold or too bold--such as Tennyson's

Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.

Enoch Arden.

or Milton's

Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.

Paradise Lost, VI, 866.

In all of these examples the metrical pattern is the same: five consecutive iambs. The modifications ill.u.s.trate plainly the extraordinary flexibility of language.

_Time and Stress._ Probably the most disputed point in all prosodic theory is the relative importance of time (duration, syllabic length) and stress (accent) in English verse. Some writers have attempted to explain all the phenomena entirely by stress; others entirely by time.

Neither side, of course, has been very successful.[25] The difficulty is partly one of theory and partly one of correct a.n.a.lysis of the facts.

Thanks, now, to the attention paid in recent decades by the experimental psychologists to rhythm and metre, we are in a position to reach at least approximate clearness on this vexed point. Since the older theorists have mostly started either from the traditional conceptions of cla.s.sical prosody or from examination of but a part of the phenomena, their work may be left out of account here. Certainly no great blame attaches to them; they are the Bacons and Harveys and Newtons of metrical science. A more nearly correct a.n.a.lysis of the facts is possible now because with the minutely accurate instruments of the scientists to aid us we need no longer trust to the uncertainties of perception and statement of separate individuals. Of course no one today holds the extreme belief that science explains everything; and of course the scientific experiments on the nature and effect of rhythm must have a starting point in the personal equations of those who have submitted themselves to the scientific tests. With all its patience and thoroughness of investigation, experimental psychology is only now establis.h.i.+ng itself. But it does offer, on this one mooted point of versification, invaluable help.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [25] An historical survey of the problems and theories, somewhat colored by the author's own theory, may be found in English Metrists, Oxford, 1921, by T. S. Omond. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

The theory presented in the previous pages states that sound rhythm consists of a succession of points of emphasis separated by equal time divisions. This is the ideal rhythm. When subjected to the conditions of metrical language it suffers two alterations. In the first place, our notions of time are extremely untrustworthy. Days vanish in a moment and they drag like years. Very few of us can estimate correctly the pa.s.sage of five minutes: syllables are uttered in a few hundredths of a second.

We are satisfied with the accuracy shown by an orchestra in keeping time; but if we took a metronome to the concert we should find the orchestra very deficient in its sense of time. The fact is that the orchestra knows better than the metronome, that perfectly accurate time intervals become unpleasantly monotonous, that we rebel at 'mechanical'

music. Thus the time divisions of pleasurable rhythm are not mathematically equal, nor even necessarily approximately equal, but are such as are _felt to be equal_. The second alteration of ideal rhythm is that which results from the conformity of fluid language to its metrical mould. This metrical scheme, based theoretically on equal time units marked by equal stresses, becomes a compromise of uneven stresses and apparently equal time divisions.

Almost every line of verse is a proof of this: both the fact and the explanation are clear when approached from the right angle, and may be tested by carefully prepared statistics. In the following examples the figures beneath each syllable give the time of utterance in tenths and one-hundredths of a second; the figures in parentheses represent pauses.[26] The first, from Paradise Lost, II, 604-614, is in blank verse, with five iambic feet to a line; the second, from Sh.e.l.ley's The Cloud, is apparently irregular, but the basis is clearly anapestic. The ideal rhythm or metrical pattern of the first is

?_??_??_??_??_?

regularly repeated. The ideal rhythm of the second is

??_???_???_???_?

??_???_?(??_?)

six times repeated.[27]

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [26] I take these figures from the two articles by Professor Ada L. F. Snell in the Publications of the Modern Language a.s.sociation for September, 1918, pp. 396-408, and September, 1919, pp. 416-435. For the first example I have made an average from the records of three different readers; for the second Miss Snell gives only one set of figures. [27] The second and fourth lines have two feet each, the alternate lines throughout the rest of the poem have three feet each; but it is noteworthy that the average length of these two short lines (1.61) is only .37 less than the average of the four longer lines (1.98). The first, third, fifth, etc., lines have four feet each. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

They fer-ry o - ver this Le-the-an sound .29 .36 .15 .24 .13 .26 .23 .23 .23 .62 (.18)

Both to and fro, their sor-row to aug-ment, .41 .27 .2 .63 (.36).26 .4 .16 .24 .32 .43 (.6)

And wish and strug-gle, as they pa.s.s, to reach .2 .47 .25 .33 .25 (.13) .21 .21 .57 (.4) .24 .35

The tempt-ing stream, with one small drop to lose .14 .32 .3 .69 (.44) .24 .37 .53 .47 (.09).21 .47

In sweet for-get-ful-ness all pain and woe, .2 .37 .19 .28 .17 .25 (.1) .39 .53 .17 .52 (.59)

All in one mo-ment and so near the brink; .42 .2 .21 .34 .3 (.47) .27 .28 .37 .11 .57 (.49)

But Fate with-stands, and, to op - pose the attempt .23 .39 .28 .66 (.49).22 .18 .11 .48 .23 .52 (.33)

Me - du - sa with Gor-go-nian ter-ror guards .15 .33 .15 .21 .3 .3 .23 .28 .21 .51

The ford, and of it-self the wa - ter flies .14 .6 (.3) .27 .2 .2 .48 .13 .25 .22 .64

All taste of liv-ing wight, as once it fled .26 .48 .16 .19 .18 .43 (.5) .29 .39 .16 .43

The lip of Tan - ta -lus.

.1 .32 .14 .33 .15 .3

I bring fresh showers for the thirst-ing flowers, .25 .35 .15 .8 (.15) .15 .15 .3 .2 .6 (.2)

From the seas and the streams; .2 .18 .42 .15 .15 .62 (.75)

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid .2 .35 .3 .5 .18 .18 .34 .4 .45