5. Dramatic Lyric. suggests human action. A single character, located by the poet, speaks to an imaginary audience, and, by his suggestive words, pictures a scene, the actors, and what they did. To the imagination of the reader, it is as if a drama were being enacted. Browning's The Patriot, The Bishop Orders His Tomb, are examples.

This is a lyric which vividly

6. Simple Lyric. - A great many lyrics lack the specific aims and characteristics mentioned under the foregoing heads. They are simple lyrics: Wordsworth's Cuckoo, Tennyson's St. Agnes' Eve, Burns's To a Mouse.

Didactic Poetry.

168. Epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry aim to give refined pleasure; they work on the imagination and the feelings. In their lower forms, however, an element of instruction, an aim to teach, an address to the intellect or reason sometimes enters. To describe this element, the adjective didactic is used. Spenser's Faery Queene is a metrical romance with a didactic element expressed in allegory. Wordsworth's Excur

sion is epic in plan and style, but is didactic in much of its philosophical reflection. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is didactic allegory in prose. When the didactic becomes too prominent, and the principal aim is evidently to teach, the high title "poetry" is withheld. Pope's Moral Essays and the Essay on Man appeal to the reason and intellect, and not to the imagination at all.

Satire assumes the form of poetry (verse) merely to increase its sharpness. Satire aims to belittle men and

events, to expose vice, weakness, folly, and to effect political or social reforms. Examples, Johnson's London, Butler's Hudibras, Lowell's Biglow Papers, Dryden's Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel, Byron's English Bards and Scottish Reviewers.

A. Name your favorite poem. To which of the preceding classes does it belong?

B. Turn over a volume of Tennyson's poems and see how many examples you can find of each kind of poetry. Make a complete list of them, classifying them under the divisions and subdivisions given above.

C. In a volume of Longfellow's, or Whittier's, or Bryant's poems find two poems the materials of which are drawn, respectively, from (1) external nature, (2) human life.

D. Assign each of the following poems to its proper class: (1) Bryant's Thanatopsis; Holmes's Last Leaf, and Nautilus; Longfellow's Golden Legend, Spanish Student, Excelsior, Paul Revere, and Psalm of Life; Whittier's Barbara Frietchie, and Tent on the Beach; Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal, and The Cathedral.

E. Find in Longfellow's poems examples of all the different varieties of lyric.

F. Select the lyric of Whittier's (or Bryant's, or Tennyson's) that you like best. To which class does it belong?

G. Taking some tragedy of Shakespeare's that you have read, point out (1) what its theme is, (2) whose “mortal will” is represented as "at odds with fate," (3) in what part of the play you feel pity and terror, and (4) for what characters you have such feelings.

H. Is Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew farce or comedy proper? To which of these two classes does Goldsmith's The GoodNatured Man belong?

I. Could the story of Marmion be used for a tragedy?

Versification.

170. Versification is the art of making verses; it deals with the mechanical side of poetry. In reading poetry aloud we notice a regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables. This is called rhythm. Prose has rhythm, but prose rhythm is not so regular and uniform. Metre is the measure of rhythm. The smallest recurring combination of accented and unaccented syllables is called a foot. The smallest recurring combination of feet is called a verse. A verse is a line of poetry. The number of feet in English verse varies from one to eight. The number of feet in a line of verse determines its metre; the kind of foot employed determines the rhythm.

The principal feet occurring in English verse are dissyllabic and trisyllabic. Dissyllabic feet are (1) the Iambus, consisting of an unaccented followed by an accented syllable, as suppose; it is the favorite foot in English poetry. (2) The Trochee, consisting of an accented followed by an unaccented syllable, as mórning. Trisyllabic feet are (1) the Dactyl, consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented, as édify; (2) the Anapest, consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented, as persevére. A foot may take in parts of two words. The accent of a foot coincides with the English word-accent.

Metre is doubly named; first from the kind of foot; secondly, from the number of feet in the line. Thus a line of one iambic foot is called iambic monometer; of two iambic feet, iambic dimeter; of three iambic feet, iambic trimeter; of four iambic feet, iambic tetrameter.

In the following examples we use to indicate an unaccented syllable, and' to indicate an accented syllable. The vertical lines mark off the feet.

She can | both false | and friend | ly be, (iambic tetrameter) Beware! | Beware!

(iambic dimeter) His hair | is crisp and black | and long, (iambic tetrameter) His face is like | the tan (iambic trimeter)

A line of five iambic feet is called iambic pentameter. It is also known as heroic measure.

We live | in deeds, | not years: | in thoughts, not breaths.

A line of six iambic feet is called iambic hexameter. It is also known as Alexandrine measure.

The things | which I | have seen | I nów | can see | no more

A line of seven iambic feet is called iambic heptameter. Now glory to the Lord of Hosts | from whom | all | glories are.

A line of eight iambic feet is called iambic octameter. Ŏ all ye péo | ple, clap | your hands | and with | triuin | |

phant voices sing.

The words monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, etc., are also used with the adjectives trochaic, dactylic, and anapestic, to tell how many trochaic, dactylic, or anapestic feet there are in a line. The following illustrate some of these:

Do not | shoot me, | Hia | wá tha!

Like a high-born | máiden
Turning

(trochaic tetrameter) (trochaic trimeter)

Burning (trochaic monometer)
Changing

Once upon a midnight | dreary | as I póndered | weák

There's a bliss | beyond all that the mín | strel has told

(anapestic tetrameter) And we came to the Boun teous Isle | where the heavens lean low | on the land (anapestic hexameter)

Separating lines into the feet of which they are composed (as we have been doing) is called Scansion. Each line that we have scanned has consisted of only one kind of foot. Such lines are called Pure. Some lines show two kinds of feet. Such lines are said to be Mixed.

One of those lit | tle pía | ces that | have run

(first foot, trochee; the rest iambic) Meanwhile a mid the gloom by the church Evangeline |

lingered.