English Verse. Raymond Macdonald Alden
day; Come away, come away!
(Matthew Arnold: The Forsaken Merman.)
In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly read.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Transactions of the Philological Society, 1875–76.
[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows: subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong, superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch, weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch, and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist … If the analysis of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for each syllable to be considered." (Chapters on English Metre, p. 69.)
[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie (1589), said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.)
[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's Political Songs, p. 246.
Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe,
a stounde herkneþ to my song
of duel, þat deþ haþ diht vs newe
(þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!)
of a knyht, þat wes so strong,
of wham god haþ don ys wille;
me þuncheþ þat deþ haþ don vs wrong,
þat he so sone shal ligge stille.
The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of the French, being in fact a translation of a French original.
[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by time instead of syllables." (See the entire passage on Christabel, in the Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to Imagination and Fancy. For a criticism of the metrical structure of Christabel, see Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody (ed. 1901, pp. 73–75).)
II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE
English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic. The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an iambus (or iamb) if the unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a trochee if the accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly called an anapest if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented syllable, and a dactyl if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse; the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in predominance in English poetry.
The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis or Truncation (the light syllable at the end—or less frequently at the beginning—being omitted).
In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause ("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as
(a) Anacrusis or feminine ending, (b) Catalexis (or truncation), (c) Substitution of exceptional feet for the typical foot, (d) Pauses other than the cesural.
One-stress iambic.
Thus I
Pass by
And die
As one
Unknown
And gone.
(Herrick: Upon his Departure Hence. 1648.)
(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:)
No more I'll vaunt,
For now I see
Thou only hast the power To find And bind A heart that's free, And slave it in an hour.
(Herrick: His Recantation. 1648.)
Two-stress iambic.
Most good, most fair,
Or things as rare
To call you 's lost;
For all the cost
Words can bestow
So poorly show, …
(Drayton: Amouret Anacreontic. ab. 1600.)
Because I do
Begin to woo,
Sweet singing Lark,
Be thou the clerk,
And know thy when
To say Amen.
(Herrick: To the Lark. 1648.)
The