stress nor between different vowels. It is even doubtful whether the same consonants can be compared with each other in view of the different form of the breath curve under varying stress. On the whole I think it sensible frankly to admit the impossibility of any exact analysis of verse with respect to either loudness or intensity in the more psychologically correct connotation which embraces all the factors that give a stressed syllable weight or impressiveness. We can determine by ear roughly the syllable stressed by a reader and I have simply made measurements from the beginning of one such syllable to the beginning of the next on the assumption that the stress wherever it lies is not far from the beginning of the syllable. That this assumption is not scientific can not be denied. The result is that what I shall have to say about the position of the stress will necessarily lack such precision as is aimed at in the case of the measurement of the durations and proportions of syllables. The graphic method is peculiarly adapted to the determination of time intervals, hence its applicability to the measurement of the duration of speech sounds. In view of the fact that our interest is primarily in the time relations of the verses which are to be studied the results which our method yields in this respect more than compensate for its inadequacy in recording pitch and intensity. Scripture1 has published a few records of complete verses carefully measured off from enlarged gramophone records. Such records are of great value but the excessive amount of time and work involved in obtaining them prohibits their employment in any great number. Stetson11 also publishes measurements from one entire stanza of verse. Meyer12 has measured all the English vowel sounds stressed and unstressed, and many of the consonants in words of different lengths and in different positions, initial, medial and terminal. His records are taken with a modification of the pneumatic voice recorder of Rousselot, but invented by himself. The instrument is like that used in the present investigation except that the breath is allowed to escape through a gap which is left between two sections of the connecting tube.13 The records obtained are clear and the time values given for the different letters seem to 10 Yale Studies, 10; "Elements of Exp. Phonetics"; "Researches in Experimental Phonetics." "Psychol. Rev. Mon. Sup., Vol. IV. 12 Skrifter Kongl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet Upsala, 8, 1903. 13 The advantage of allowing free egress for the air is that the pen recovers very quickly from the sharp rise due to an explosive consonant. This results in a more jagged curve and the apparent advantage is, in my opinion, overbalanced by the loss of characteristic slopes. be accurate to at least one one-hundredth of a second. Such accuracy is not required for ordinary rhythm work. The importance of having actual measurements of the duration. of verse sounds will be realized by any one who has even a superficial acquaintance with the long arguments of the metrists on the place of classical or quantitative verse in English. The present investigation was undertaken with the end in view of either justifying one or the other of the prominent views of theorists on this subject or else of dismissing all of them from the position of prominence which they now occupy in the discussion of verse rhythm. Before taking up the actual results of experiment it will be well to review some of the more important theories on this point of the importance of the factor of duration. CHAPTER IV TIME RELATIONS IN THE THEORIES OF THE METRISTS AND POETS THIS is no place to go into details of literary disputes, but the opinions of some of the best writers and critics of verse deserve notice because they are the opinions of exceptional observers; and while their method was faulty their conclusions are often deserving of consideration. Verse, says Poe, is inferior or less capable music. "Verse originates in the human enjoyment of equality," and man derives enjoyment from his perception of equality. A hypothetical history of the development of verse would begin with the spondee, "words of two syllables equally accented." This becoming monotonous would lead to the collection "of two or more words formed each of two syllables differently accented (that is to say, short and long) but having the same order in each word-in other terms of collecting two or more iambuses or two or more trochees. And here let me pause to assert that more pitiable nonsense has been written on this topic of long and short syllables than on any other subject under the sun. general a syllable is long or short, just as it is easy or difficult of enunciation. The natural long syllables are those encumbered, the natural short syllables are those unencumbered, with consonants; all the rest is mere artificiality and jargon." "Of course it is not the vowel that is long but the syllable of which the vowel is a part." "It will be seen that the length of a syllable, depending on the difficulty or facility of its enunciation, must have great variety in various syllables; but for purposes of verse we suppose a long syllable equal to two short ones, and the natural deviations from this relativeness we correct in perusal. The more closely our long syllables approach this relation with our short ones the better, ceteris paribus, will be our verse; but if the relation does not exist of itself we force it by emphasis, which can, of course make any syllable as long as desired; or by an effort we can pronounce with unnatural brevity a syllable that is not too long. Accented syllables are, of course, always long, but when unencumbered with consonants must be classed among the unnaturally long." "In fine every long syllable must of its own accord occupy in its utterance, or must be made to occupy, precisely the time demanded for two short ones. 971 A very The only exception to this rule is found in the cæsura. full bibliography of the "pitiable nonsense" to which our great American poet refers can now be found in Omond's "English Metrists." Much that has been written on the subject is certainly foolish; yet we find as early as 1776 that Joshua Steele was proposing the scansion of verse by musical feet. Poe's proposal amounts practically to the same thing except that he limits his verse to notes of only two lengths. The real difference between this and the classical notion of verse is important; for the Poe theory, which I shall hereafter call the musical theory, starts out with an assumption of equal time values for the feet, that is, for the rhythmic units, in the verse. The theory of verse descended from classical times and which has been fighting always for a place in English versification, did not go beyond a statement of the ratio said to hold between the long and short syllables in any single foot. Both the classical theory and that of Poe are interesting for us in that they place such great stress on the time element in the rhythm. Neither Poe nor Lanier whose "Science of English Verse" contains the ablest and most satisfactory exposition of the music theory of verse, says what he would measure as the length of a foot or syllable. But, as they do not provide for any vacant spaces between their syllables, I presume that they would measure as I have done from the beginning of one syllable to the beginning of the next. This is what we do in music, but in that case there is no gap. As a rule the flow of the voice is practically continuous. In fact it is often difficult to tell where to dismember two syllables and in such cases the experimenter has to rely on his ear as the court of last resort. In some words like "porridge" (Table XIV.) it is quite impossible to divide the syllables and I have had to measure the two syllables together.3 A very few cases of actually measured verses (see tables) are sufficient to show the artificiality of such a system as that of Lanier. So far as the equality of feet and the equivalence of syllables to musical notes is concerned his theorizing is utterly unwarranted. And in this case we see how easy it is for a serious student and a good poet to make observations about time values which bear no faintest resemblance to the facts. It is seldom that the method of mere observation and of introspection can be so plainly convicted; yet doubtless many of our ordinary judgments are as far from the 'All from the first few pages of "The Rationale of Verse." 2.66 Prosodia Rationalis." 3 Cf. Meyer, Die neueren Sprachen, 6, 479, 1899. truth in cases where there is no way of securing experimental evidence. One of the more recent exponents of the music theory is Dabney.* Verse, he holds, is measured by accent as music is divided into feet of equal length. "The basic principle of verse is time; measurements of time; uniform measurements of time; which measurements are represented by words." (p. 27). Another elaborate treatise is that of Raymond. Rhythm in verse according to him is "an effect. produced by a consecutive series of sounds, or multiples of sounds, which, in themselves, may be varied and complex; but each series of which is of like duration" (p. 53). But for Raymond as well as Dabney accent is fundamental in marking off the measures. Even so their introspection is no better than Lanier's for our figures come very far off from the equalities upon which they insist. Some question may arise at this point about the marking on the graphic record of the point of accent. It is doubtful whether such writers as Raymond mean the beginning of the accented syllable as the point of greatest stress of voice. As has been said already, the latter point can not be satisfactorily determined. On the whole I have decided to consider only the beginning of the syllables. By doing this a great amount of work is avoided-work not only laborious but of an extremely unreliable sort. There are certain theories as we have seen which require measurements from the beginning of the syllables; if other measurements must be made from some hypothetical "Arsengipfel" the work of measuring would be doubled. But this consideration would not have affected me had it been possible to find any such Arsengipfel or top point of stress. It has not been possible to do so and I am convinced that the beginning of the sound is a safer place to measure from than any other one point. The maximal point is bound to lie very close to it either before or after and the amount of error in taking this point is small compared with the amount of the irregularity of total feet. Other exponents of the equal time theory are Barham and Omond. The latter's book is particularly sane as regards everything but his insistence on the temporal equality of all units. Omond, however, does not insist on a strict equality of formal feet (p. 80), and admits that a syllable may be on the border line between "The Musical Basis of Verse," 1901. 566 Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music," 1895. "A Study of Metre," 1903. |