Historical Manual of English Prosody. Saintsbury George
a group of consonants of different kinds after it—the vowel-sound running, as it were, under the penthouse of consonants till it emerges. Extreme loudness and sharpness would have the same effect in conversation, but, unless very obviously suggested by sense, would escape notice in silent reading. Not very seldom, the mere art of the poet will get weight enough on a short syllable to fit it for its place as "long," or conjure away from a long one length enough to enable it to act as "short."
At any rate, it is with these two values, and with syllables endowed with them by custom, incidental effect, place, sense, the poet's sleight of hand, or otherwise, that the English poet deals; and has dealt, ever since a period impossible to nail down with exactness to year or decade, but beginning, perhaps, early in the twelfth century and perfecting itself in the thirteenth and later. And impartial examination of the whole facts from that period shows that he deals with them on a system, in early times no doubt almost or quite unconsciously adopted, but perfectly recognisable. In still earlier or "Old" English verse this system is not discernible at all; in the earliest period of "Middle" English it is discernible, struggling to get itself into shape. Later, with advances and relapses, it perfects itself absolutely. Its principles are as follows:—
Intermediate rules of arrangement.
Every English verse consists of a certain number of feet, made up of long and short syllables, each of which is of equal consequence in the general composition of the line.
The correspondence of the foot arrangements between different lines constitutes the link between them, and determines their general character.
Some interim rules of feet (expanded in note).
But this correspondence need not be limited to repetition of feet composed of a fixed and identical number of syllables in the same order; on the contrary, the best verse admits of large substitution of feet of different syllabic length, provided—(1) that these are equal or nearly equal in prosodic value to those for which they are substituted; (2) that the substituted feet go rhythmically well with those next to which they are placed.[18]
A fuller list of observed rules for English verse generally will be found in the next chapter, but between the two a set of remarks, specially on the foot, may be extracted from the larger History, vol. i. pp. 82–84.
Every English verse which has disengaged itself from the versicle[1] is composed, and all verses that are disengaging themselves therefrom show a nisus towards being composed, of feet of one, two, or three syllables.
The foot of one syllable is always long, strong, stressed, accented, what-not. [19]
The foot of two syllables usually consists of one long and one short syllable, and though it is not essential that either should come first, the short precedes rather more commonly.
The foot of three syllables never has more than one long syllable in it, and that syllable, save in the most exceptional rhythms, is always the first or the third. In modern poetry, by no means usually, but not seldom, it has no long syllable at all.
The foot of one syllable is practically not found except
a, In the first place of a line.
b, In the last place of it.
c, At a strong cæsura or break, it being almost invariably necessary that the voice should rest on it long enough to supply the missing companion to make up the equivalent of a "time and a half" at least.
d, In very exceptional cases where the same trick of the voice is used apart from strict cæsura.
The foot of two syllables and that of three may, subject to the rules below, be found anywhere.
But:
These feet of two and three syllables may be very freely substituted for each other.
There is a certain metrical and rhythmical norm of the line which must not be confused by too frequent substitutions.
In no case, or in hardly any case,[20] must such combinations be put together so that a juxtaposition of more than three short syllables results.
But, for the purpose of this present book, illustration and example are of much more value than abstract exposition; and to them we shall now turn.
Here, for instance, is a line from Tennyson's "Brook":
Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail.
The different systems applied to a single verse of Tennyson's,
Now the system which regards syllabic precision first of all, with a minor glance at accent, but rejects "feet," surveys this line and pronounces it passable with the elision
Twinkled th' innumerable ear and tail,
but rather shakes its head at the absence of accent, or the slight and weak accent, in "innumerable," and the "inversion" of accent in "twìnkled."
The system which looks at accent first of all pronounces that there are only four proper accents [stresses] here:
Twìnkled the innùmerable èar and tàil.
Both these systems, moreover—the syllabic, as far as it recognises accent; the accentual, of necessity—regard "twinkled" as the admittance (pardonable, censurable, or quite condemnable, according to individual theory) of "wrenched accent," "inverted stress," or something of the kind—as a thing abnormal and licentious.
The foot system simply scans it—
Twīnklĕd | thĕ ĭnnū|mĕrā|blĕ ēar | ănd tāil;
regarding "twinkled" as a trochee substituted in full right for an iamb, and "the innu-" as an anapæst in like case; "merā" as raised, by a liberty not out of accordance with the actual derivation, to a sufficiently long quantity for its position, and the other two feet as pure iambs.
and their application examined.
Now let us examine these three views.
In the first place, the bare syllabic view (which, it is fair to say, is almost obsolete, save among foreigners, though in consistency it ought to find defenders at home) takes no account of any special quality in the line at all. It is turned out to sample; the knife is applied at "th'" to fit specification; and there you are. It differs only from Southey's favourite heroic ejaculation
Aballiboozabanganorribo!
in being less "pure."
The syllabic-plus-accentual view passes it; but with certain reservations. "Twinkled" is an "aberration," a "licence" perhaps (in some views certainly), a more or even less venial sin, while "-āble" with a in a stressed or accented place is a case for more head-shaking still. The line is saved; yet so as by fire.
So is it under the looser stress-accentual system, but by a fire more devouring still. According to this latter, all rhythmical similarity with its companion five-stress lines is lost on the one hand, and on the other a jumble, with difficulty readable and absolutely heterogeneous, is created in the line itself. Your first rhythmical mouthful is "twink-," then you gabble over "led the innū-" till you rest on this last; then you repeat the process (as soon as you have breath enough) with "-merable ear," and finally you reach "and tail." But you never find your fifth stress, and instead of continuous blank verse you make the context a sort of clumsy Pindaric.[21]
Even if this last description be regarded as exaggerated, it will remain a sober fact that, in all these handlings, either the beauty of the line is