The Principles of English Versification Part 7

_Pitch._ Pitch appears to be sometimes a determining element in rhythm, as has been shown above; but since its chief function in verse is that of supporting the recognized determinants and adding grace-notes to the music, it is omitted here and discussed in Chapter V, below.

_Balance of Forces._ It is not to be inferred from the foregoing sections that the basis of English metre is time. For the basis of English metre is dual: time and stress are inextricable. Beneath all metrical language runs the invisible current of time, but the surface is marked by stress. The warp of the metrical fabric is time; stress is the woof. And from the surface, of course, only the woof is visible.

Moreover, the poet's point of view in composing and generally the reader's point of view in reading has always been that of the 'stresser.' No poet ever wrote to a metronome accompaniment; extremely few readers are fully conscious--few can be, from the nature of our human sense of time--of the temporal rhythm that underlies verse. Thus it has come about, historically, that modern English verse is written and regarded as a matter of stress only, because to the superficial view stress is predominant.[32] Probably the truth is that most poets compose verse with the ideal metrical scheme definitely in mind and trust (as they well may) to their rhythmical instinct for the rest. Whatever device they employ for keeping the pattern always before them, they do keep it distinctly before them--except perhaps in the simpler measures which run easily in the ear--and build from it as from a scaffolding.

They may not know and may not need to know that this metrical scheme does itself involve equal time units as well as equal stresses. They vary and modulate both time and stress according to the thought and feeling the words are asked to express. And though it is a point on which no one can have a dogmatic opinion, one inclines to the belief that usually the finest adaptations of ideas and words to metre are spontaneous and intuitive. Skill is the result of habit and training, and metrical skill like any other; but there is also the faculty divine.

One is suspicious of the

Laborious Orient ivory sphere in sphere;

for when we can see how the trick is done we lose the true thrill.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [32] Modern English verse theory may be dated from Coleridge's famous manifesto in the prefatory note to Christabel in 1816: "I have only to add that the metre of Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless, this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or pa.s.sion." Even here there is implied a vague perception of the time unit, but Coleridge was apparently unaware of its significance. See Leigh Hunt's comments in "What is Poetry?" in Imagination and Fancy. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

It would be absurd to imagine a prosody which was independent of its own materials. It would be absurd therefore not to find in all language the elements out of which verse is made. Indeed, M. Jourdain, having recovered from his first shock on learning that he had actually been talking prose, must prepare for a second: that he has actually been talking potential verse. The three acoustic properties of speech--duration, intensity, pitch--modified by the logical and emotional content of which the sounds are symbolic, combine to produce an incredibly subtle and elastic medium which the poet moulds to his metrical form. In this process of moulding and adjustment, each element, under the poet's deft handling, yields somewhat to the other, the natural rhythm of language and the formal rhythm of metre; and the result is a delicate, exquisite compromise. When we attempt to a.n.a.lyze it, its finer secrets defy us, but the chief fundamental principles we can discover, and their more significant manifestations we can isolate and learn to know. In all the arts there is a point at which technique merges with idea and conceals the heart of its mystery. The greatest poetry is not always clearly dependent upon metrical power, but it is rarely divorced from it. No one would venture to say how much the metre has to do with the beauty of the

magic cas.e.m.e.nts opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

CHAPTER IV

METRICAL FORMS

I. THE LINE

_Line Length._ A line of English verse may contain from one to eight feet. Theoretically, of course, more than eight feet would be possible; but just as there are sounds which the human ear cannot hear and colors which the eye cannot see, so there appears to be a limit beyond which we do not recognize the line as a unit. The most frequently used lines are of four and five feet, most conveniently called, respectively, 4-stress and 5-stress lines;[33] those of one, two, and three feet tend to become jerky, those of more than five to break up into smaller units.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [33] The expression '4-foot line' is too suggestive of fis.h.i.+ng or surveying; 'tetrameter' is confusing because of its different usage in cla.s.sical prosody; '4-stress line' is open to objection because it seems to overlook the temporal quality of the foot. On the whole, however, the last seems preferable. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

_Line Movement._ The movement of a line is determined primarily by the foot of which it is composed. It is iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic, according as the metrical pattern is made up of iambs, trochees, etc. Thus

That time of year them mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs that shake against the cold-- Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 73.

is plainly iambic.

You and I would rather see that angel, Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.

You and I will never see that picture.

While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he soften'd o'er his outlined angel, In they broke, those "people of importance": We and Bice bear the loss forever.

BROWNING, One Word More.

is plainly trochaic.

I have found out a gift for my fair, I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.

SHENSTONE, Pastoral Ballad.

is plainly anapestic.

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fas.h.i.+on'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair!

HOOD, Bridge of Sighs.

is plainly dactylic.

But very few poems conform exactly to the metrical pattern. For example, Blake's

Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

seems clearly to be trochaic; yet the last trochee of each line lacks its unstressed element, and the fourth line has an extra-metrical syllable, _Could_. By itself the fourth line would be called iambic: in this context it is called trochaic with 'anacrusis,' i. e., with one or more extra-metrical syllables at the beginning.[34] Or again in Clough's stanza,

And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

'Say Not, the Struggle Naught Availeth.'

the movement is clearly iambic, yet the first and third lines have an extra-metrical syllable at the end. This is called 'feminine ending.'

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [34] From the point of view of stanzaic rhythm _Could_ may be said to complete the final trochee of the previous line: What immortal hand or eye Could Frame, etc. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

Moreover, sometimes the word or phrase rhythm clashes with the metrical rhythm and makes the resultant seem doubtful. Thus

Of hand, of foot, of lips, of eye, of brow.

SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 106.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance.

TENNYSON, The Brook.

are unmistakably iambic, and Wordsworth's

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies.

To the Small Celandine.

is unmistakably trochaic; but in Tennyson's

This pretty, puny, weakly little one.

Enoch Arden.

With rosy slender fingers backward drew.

none.

there are metrically five iambs in each line, but also in each four words that are trochaic. The result is a conflict of rhythms, a kind of syncopation, which produces a very pleasing variant of the formal rhythm.

Furthermore, in a pa.s.sage like the following, which everyone recognizes as exquisitely musical, it is not obvious whether the rhythm is iambic or anapestic or trochaic.