CHAPTER I PRELIMINARY There are people, even intelligent people, who read verse so that it sounds like prose with obtruding rimes; the meaning is all they care about. I have heard people read even their own verses in this way, although the verses themselves had rhythmic possibilities. Other readers completely sacrifice the meaning of the words to satisfy a too mechanical sense of rhythm. They read such lines as these from Shelley's Alastor with a rigid alternation of emphasis, And wasted fór fond love of his wild éyes. In thé deaf aír to thé blind earth and heaven. They may find these lines agreeable, or they may call them bad verse, but they do not question the correctness of their reading. They are willing, if necessary, to change the emphasis on the same word when it occurs in two successive lines, as in, I know not aúght that Béatrice designed, This wrenching of accent from what would be normal in prose they call "poetic license." A third class of readers preserve a distinct feeling of rhythm in such lines, and yet give the words their usual accents. They read, And wasted for fónd love of his wild éyes. In the deaf air to the blind earth and heaven. The writer on versification commonly ignores these differences among readers, dogmatically asserts what he thinks the only correct reading for a given line, and formulates his theories of verse accordingly. The intention of the poet might be taken as the criterion, but how shall we be sure of this intention? Each reader thinks that he himself is interpreting it. Such questions must be matters of taste; people with an appreciation of literature are to be found among all three classes of readers just mentioned. A dogmatic attitude in matters of taste is prejudicial to any scientific study. Our first approach to the study of verse should be scientific; only when we have agreed on certain fundamentals can we profitably discuss differences in taste. Verse depends upon the ear, not the eye; therefore it must be read before it can be discussed.1 Let our first point of view be that anyone may read verse as he will, and that the task of the student is to observe and record how verse has been read. Taste, of course, must determine good reading, but the principles of versification should hold for any reading. The student should train his ear to hear accurately both his own and other people's rendering of a passage. Whenever a reading is marked in the following pages it is presented as a possible one-that which the author prefers-but not the only correct one. Another preliminary point to be mentioned is the necessity for agreement in the use of terms. Since there is an unfortunate confusion of meaning over frequently used words like rhythm, meter, stress, accent, etc., the student must keep his discussions clear by adopting one definition for each and strictly adhering to it. In a recent article on vers libre occurred the statement that fixed verse depended upon rhythm and free verse upon cadence, but no definition was given for either of these words, which are sometimes used synonymously. The mathematician demands that 1 See C. W. Cobb: "A Scientific Basis for Metrics," Modern Language Notes, May, 1913; and Verrier: Principes de la Métrique Anglaise, I, 118. his reader accept certain assumptions and agree to certain definitions throughout a given discussion; you cannot logically follow his argument unless you accept his meaning of the terms number, straight line, or parallelopipedon Metrical discussions to be at all fruitful require a similar agreement on the meaning of terms like stress, accent, or foot, throughout the same argument. CHAPTER II METER STRESS-ACCENT Most readers will agree that the first obvious difference between verse and prose is that verse is divided into certain units called lines, and that these lines must be "metrical." It is the definition of "metrical" that causes disagreement. Let us try to form a definition which may be one basis for a study and classification of verse. Suppose we grant that the following indicates a possible metrical reading of the opening lines of Henry IV, Part I: So sháken ás we are so wán with cáre Find we a tíme for fríghted peace to pánt And breathe short-winded áccents of néw bróils To bé comménc'd in stránds afár remote. No móre shall trénching wár channel her fields . The first and fourth lines might be explained as metrical because every other syllable receives emphasis, but this will not explain why the second, third and fifth, when read as indicated, are also metrical. Furthermore, the following lines from Shelley and Tennyson, though they seem quite different in the distribution of emphasis from the first quoted above, occur in contexts of the same kind of verse: When night makes a weird soúnd of its own stillness. The little innocent soúl flitted away. (Tennyson: Enoch Arden.) One listening to the indicated metrical reading of the passage from Henry IV can detect a huddling of the syllables "Find we a," "accents of," and "channel her" and also a |