CHAPTER VII.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

BOTH poetry and prose, the latter no less imperatively than the former, must have rhythm; that is, a more or less even and regular flow of syllables long and short, accented and unaccented. In both the same principles of rhythm obtain, and to an extent run parallel; only, in poetry one more element is operative than in prose, the element of measure or systematic recurrence; wherefore the rhythm of poetry is called metre, from the Greek word μéтpov, "a measure.”

Metre, this measured rhythm, is the basal and determining principle of English verse. As such it is merely a conventional law, evolved from the genius of the language, according to which the elevated sweep of poetic diction is made orderly and musical. It is, however, not the only active rhythmical motive, nor does the introduction of it in any sense supplant another element still more fundamental. Moving over the same field there is also an unmeasured, constantly varied, exceedingly flexible grouping of syllables, which may be called the rhythm of the phrase. This latter, interwoven with the metrical, works in poetry to impart a graceful variety to its uniformity; while, moving unconventionally by itself, it constitutes that sonority and largeness of phrase which we call prose rhythm.

1" Verse may be rhythmical; it may be merely alliterative; it may, like the French, depend wholly on the (quasi) regular recurrence of the rhyme; or, like the Hebrew, it may consist in the strangely fanciful device of repeating the same idea. It does not matter on what principle the law is based, so it be a law." STEVENSON, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works (Thistle edition), Vol. xxii, p. 250.

It is the design of the present chapter to define these two kinds of rhythm, as they appear by themselves, and as they work together.

I. ELEMENTS OF POETIC RHYTHM.

In its progressive organization of articulate sounds metre observes according to its own system the grammatical analogy of the phrase, the clause, and the sentence: it groups syllables into feet, feet into verses or lines, and lines into stanzas. Farther than this we need not follow it here; as indeed farther than this, and in some types from the verse onward, poetry coincides in organism with prose.

I.

The Metrical Unit: the Foot. Every kind of measure must have a unit of measurement. The unitary procedure from which poetic metre starts is the grouping of syllables into twos or threes, each group being called a foot. Thus the standard types of metre take their rise, the kinds of feet being distinguished from one another by their various arrangements of accented and unaccented syllables.

NOTE. The names and definitions of the feet are derived from classical prosody, which estimates syllables not by accent but by quantity, as short, long, and neutral. Quantity also plays an appreciable part in English syllabication, enough perhaps to justify defining in terms of quantity, as we shall do here; though the prosody of our language is more accentual than quantitative, more like speech, less like a kind of sing-song or chant.

The very different genius of our prosody from that of Latin and Greek can best be illustrated from musical rhythm. Take for instance the opening verse of Longfellow's Evangeline, which poem is written to imitate the dactylic hexameter; and the natural musical measure into which it falls is

not at all the dactylic long and two shorts (__~ ~), but a galloping rhythm in triple time:

The real quantitative dactyl, such measure as is represented in

"Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris,"

is expressed rather in the rhythm of the Andante to Schubert's posthumous quartette:

b

Here the beat is stately and chant-like; flowing, not rattling. Another celebrated example of this solemn dactylic measure in music is the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.1

In all kinds of English verse a definite scheme and type of metre exists; that is, a unit of measure is traceable, according to which the verse flows in an ordered tune. The generally accepted system of feet, however, suffers to a degree from the fact that it is derived not from the native English but from the classic languages: it does not fit all English cases without some awkwardness, or at least accommodation. This is more apparent as the verse grows in intensity from recitative to lyrical, and thus takes on more sweep and freedom of movement. The modulations thus occasioned will come up for discussion later; meanwhile we need to determine the standard unmodified rhythms.

1 See the remarks on this movement, and on the dactylic measure in general in LANIER, Science of English Verse, p. 226.

This

The Classical or Recitative Measures. For verse of the more subdued tone, designed to be read or recited, the classical system of prosody is convenient and sufficiently lucid. system builds feet by grouping syllables in double or triple combinations of longs and shorts; the quantity, which in the classical languages is intrinsic, being estimated in English partly by the accent and partly by the natural stress in reading.

NOTE. - The conventional way of marking the quantity of syllables is by the signs ordinarily used to mark the pronunciation of vowels : a macron over the vowel (-) indicating the long, a breve (~), the short. A syllable of indifferent or neutral value may be represented by the two signs combined ().

Dissyllabic Feet.

The feet formed from groups of two are more stable and distinct, more capable of maintaining their individuality without blending with one another, than the trisyllabic; an indication, perhaps, that they answer more deeply to the rhythmical genius of the language.

1. The IAMBIC foot, or IAMBUS, is a short and a long (~ _). Being by far the most common, it may be regarded as the standard English measure. All the serious and sustained types of poetry-the epic, the drama, the ode, the elegy-are written in iambic metre; no other foot indeed is so well adapted to be the measure of all work.

ILLUSTRATION.

Our language, being so largely monosyllabic, and with a wealth of unaccented symbolic words, falls into dissyllabic rhythm by the very frequency of accentual change; while the tendency to drive the stress to the end of a phrase makes the standard dissyllabic rhythm iambic instead of trochaic. This may be seen in the following from Shakespeare:

"to die | to sleep - |

No mōre;- | ǎnd by | ǎ sleep | to sãy | wě ẽnd |

The heart ache."

Nor is it less suited to the dignity and sweep of the polysyllable; as in

"The multitudinous seas | încăr|nǎdīne." |

2. The TROCHAIC foot, or TROCHEE, is a long and a short (_ ~). Its effect is lighter and more tripping than that of the iambic; it is used accordingly for verse of a more rapid movement and less strenuous sentiment; occasional trochaic feet are used also as relief to the austerity and monotony of the iambic.

EXAMPLES. -1. For the general movement and effect of the trochaic the well-known poem of Hiawatha may be quoted :

"Should you ask mě, | whence these | stories? |
Whence these | legends | and traditions;" |

or, for a longer line and somewhat weightier effect, Browning's poem One Word More :

“There they | äre, mỹ | fifty | mēn ănd | wõměng

Naming me thě | fifty | põěms | finished." |

2. In any passage of blank verse not many lines will pass without occasional trochaic feet slipping in among the iambics; as,

Athens, | the eye | of Greece, | mōther | of arts." |

Here the first and fourth feet are trochaic; and they relieve, while they do not impair, the general iambic flow of the verse.

3. The SPONDAIC foot, or SPONDEE, is two long (——). It cannot well be used in English as a prevailing or determining measure, as this would require that every syllable have a stress. Its use is for occasional offset to iambic or trochaic feet.

EXAMPLES. -In the following stanza from Tennyson we detect the spondaic feet from the natural stress of the word in reading and its weight in the sense. It will be noted that the spondees give an added weight, just as the trochee gives an effect of lightness:

'Ĭ hēld | ĭt truth, | with him | who sings |

To one clear hārp | în divers tōnes,
That men may rise | on stepping-stōnes |
Of their dead selves | to higher things." |

Here the words "clear hārp" and "dead selves " must be read as spondees; while the words "Of their " are so nearly trochaic, at least, that the second