It is instructive to note how Shakespeare shows his fine sense of the different regions to which thought of different kinds belongs, by the alternation of verse and prose dialogue in his dramas. For common and clownish characters, and for details of everyday life, he employs colloquial prose; but from this, and not infrequently in the same scene, the expression rises spontaneously, as sentiment and speakers are nobler, into dramatic verse. Poetic diction and colloquial diction have each their well-defined sphere.

NOTE. The following, from The Merchant of Venice, will illustrate how Shakespeare on occasion intersperses prose and verse :—

"Lorenzo. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.

Launcelot. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

Lorenzo. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner.

Launcelot. That is done too, sir; only 'cover' is the word.

Lorenzo. Will you cover then, sir?

Launcelot. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.

Lorenzo. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows; bid them cover the tables, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

Launcelot. For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.

Lorenzo. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
The fool hath planted in his memory

An army of good words; and I do know

A many fools, that stand in better place,
Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word
Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?
And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,

How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?
Jessica. Past all expressing. It is very meet

The Lord Bassanio live an upright life;

For, having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
And if on earth he do not mean it, then
In reason he should never come to heaven."

[Exit.

III.

Expression heightened for the Sake of Picturesqueness.With this feature of poetic diction we enter upon the characteristics found in the more fervid and ambitious types of poetry. Being of such nature, these types naturally seek such words as will yield the utmost obtainable of beauty or suggestiveness. The reader's imagination is directly appealed to, by language adapted to make it active, that he may, as it were, coöperate with the poet in creating a picture of the object or idea portrayed.

The following are the chief means employed to give language that heightened quality here called by the general name of picturesqueness.

1. Poetic picturesqueness is sought first of all by imagery or word-painting. Words that contain figurative suggestiveness are preferred to plain, specific terms to general; similes and descriptive comparisons are freely introduced, and often revelled in apparently for their own sake merely, and followed out at length whenever the beauty or boldness of the design may be enhanced thereby.

NOTE.

-The picturing power of words, so much better felt than described, may here be illustrated by an example, from Tennyson's "Lotos Eaters."

"'Courage!' he said, and pointed toward the land,
'This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.'

In the afternoon they came unto a land

In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flush'd: and dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse."

Of course prose employs imagery too, but only for an ulterior object, to illustrate or emphasize thought that already exists in literal form. Poetry goes farther, and employs imagery to give substance to the thought; it is frequently the case that the thought is the image, and cannot exist without it. We find accordingly that many ideas are introduced into poetry that but for their imaginative or picturesque suggestiveness would never find place in literature. As a consequence, poetic imagery is not always easy to reduce to motive; there seems no logical necessity calling for it, nor any explanation why it is so and not otherwise, except the poet's free creative impulse.

2. A second means of poetic picturesqueness is the employment of epithet. An epithet may be defined as a descriptive adjective; that is to say, an adjective not essential to the understanding of its substantive, but (as the derivation of the word, from πí and τílŋμ, to add to, implies) added in order to give some descriptive or characterizing feature, some coloring, or striking accompaniment. Epithet belongs therefore to the more vivid agencies of expression; its presence indicates that vigor and keenness of perception which is most distinctive of the poetic mood.

Three kinds of epithets may here be defined and exemplified.

First, what are called essential epithets are used to express some quality already involved in the noun; as "wet waves,” “white milk," "green pastures," "the sharp sword." These, naming a thing by its characterizing quality, simply bring out into prominence what would otherwise be unthought of from its obvious

ness.

In the same class with these may be mentioned a peculiar use of epithets, notably in Homer and the early ballads, as a constant accompaniment of their nouns, without special reference to their fitness on any given occasion. Thus, Achilles is "swift-footed " when he is sitting in council or sleeping, as well as when he is running. So too we have "bright-eyed Athené," "white-armed Juno,"

merry England," "the doughty Douglas," "the bold Sir Bedivere '; adjective and noun making one term indivisible for the purpose and tone of the poem in which they occur.

Secondly may be mentioned what we may name decorative epithets. These, which comprise by far the greatest proportion, and especially in modern poetry, are employed to give elements of life and color not necessarily involved in the object; they enrich the idea by adding picturesque qualities. In the lines, "with bossy beaten work of mountain chains," and "they roamed the daisied fields together," both of which are from prose works, we recognize such superadded features in the epithets. It is in poetry, however, that expressions like these are more natural; and when they occur in prose it is some exceptional prose, akin in sentiment and feeling to poetry. How rich poetic literature often is in epithet, may be illustrated by the following, from Keats's "Lamia" :—

"Upon a time, before the faery broods

Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,

Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns,

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:

From high Olympus had he stolen light,

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight
Of his great summoner, and made retreat

Into a forest on the shores of Crete.".

Such epithets may sometimes, by a license very rare in prose, be used without their substantives; thus, Milton has "the dank," "the dry," for water and land. Sometimes also an epithet may be used substantively and be modified by a second epithet; as, "the breezy blue," "the sheeted dead," "the dead vast of the night."

Thirdly may be mentioned what are called phrase epithets,— epithets employed, by way of condensation, to suggest or imply an idea whose full expression would require a phrase or clause. epithets are tested by inquiring how much they involve.

The following examples will illustrate them.

“Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot

The last and greatest art, the art to blot."

Here the epithet is equivalent to "though he was copious,” implying that in his great wealth of expression Dryden could have afforded to strike out the poorer passages, being able to supply their place with better. Consider how much that well-chosen word

"Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main,”

the full sense implied in the epithet is "which had not time, as she passed over it, to bend beneath her." Notice that the mere descriptive epithet "swift," in the first line of the couplet, is not susceptible of such expanded sense. The following, from Keats, is a very bold and striking example:

"So those two brothers, with their murdered man

Rode past fair Florence,"

where by the word "murdered," as the context shows, the poet means "whom they were about to murder," or "murdered in anticipation."

Phrase epithet belongs more to poetic brevity than to poetic picturesqueness; but it is discussed here, in order that it may appear with the other kinds of epithet. It is the kind most naturally used in prose.

The management of epithet furnishes one of the most delicate indications, especially in prose style, of a writer's taste or lack of taste. A very effective instrument of picturesqueness, it is also a precarious one, and requires much caution and restraint in prose, or the style may easily be loaded down and become tawdry.1 It is the recognition of this fact that has led some writers to give the somewhat sweeping advice, "Never use two adjectives where one will do; never use an adjective at all where a noun will do"; advice

1 See Fundamental Processes, p. 155.