that is certainly worth remembering, though there may be exceptions in its application. 3. A third means of poetic picturesqueness, or at least of poetic distinction, consists in using words in senses strikingly different from their current acceptation. "It is doubtless the privilege of a poet," says Mr. S. H. Butcher, "to force a word back, along the line of its own development, in the direction of its etymology or of primitive usage." Two or three examples may be given. From Tennyson : Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Here "pathos" is used in the old Greek sense of suffering. where "unhappiness" is used in the sense of unlucky hap or accident. The following is from Bryant : — "Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat." Here the word "apparent " has the sense of making appear or be evident. Such liberty with words is almost the exclusive prerogative of poetry. An example, from Charles Lamb, will show how estranging it is in prose : : "While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood, shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth." This cannot be quoted as a model even from Lamb; its justification in him, if it has any, is due to the "self-pleasing quaintness " which was his avowed idiosyncrasy. IV. Expression modified for the Sake of Sound. As the fundamental form of poetry is based on a regular arrangement of words according to accent and articulation, it is obvious that the element of sound plays a much more prominent part in poetry than in prose. Modifications exacted by metre and rhyme it is not in our province here to discuss; apart from these, however, poetic diction, in its general choice of words, is largely influenced by the desire for easy or musical or descriptive articulation. 1. Regard for euphonious sound is often manifest in the choice or modification of proper names. "Albion" for England, “Erin” for Ireland, "Caledonia" for Scotland, "Columbia" for America, were originally adopted mainly for their imaginative and unworn associations; but their form indicates that the considerations of euphony also were prominent. Tennyson, in the epilogue to the Idyls of the King, changes the name Mallory to Malleor, probably the better to satisfy his ear. Milton's ear was very sensitive to the sound of names; he has "ammiral" for admiral, "Chersoness" for Chersonese, "Oreb" for Horeb, "Chemos" for Chemosh, and many more. He often makes a passage musical by the names he chooses. "From Arachosia, from Candaor east, From Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales; From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains Of Adiabene, Media, and the south Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven." 2. Poetry takes greater liberties than does prose in employing alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is the name given to a near recurrence of the same initial sound. It is a very natural device in English; the early poetry of the language was all alliterative, and no doubt the tendency lives in the genius of the literature. It may be interesting to compare a passage of the old alliterative verse with the refined use of alliteration in our day. The following is from "The Vision of Piers the Plowman " : With this compare the following stanza from Swinburne : "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amorous For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces; The tongueless vigil, and all the pain." In this latter example the alliteration is no more obtrusive, but exists as a half-hidden music in the structure of the verse. Assonance, in its strict technical sense, is the name given to a recurrence of the same vowel sound, irrespective of the consonantal setting in which it is found: as, "The groves of Blarney They are so charming." In a popular sense, however, the word is often used as nearly synonymous with rhyme. In both senses of the word, assonance enters largely into the body of the verse, as well as at the ends; These devices may easily become so noticeable as to make the style trifling and artificial. 3. Poetry is more sensitive and flexible than prose in making the sound answer to the sense. This characteristic, attained partly through the rhythm and partly through the articulate sounds, is the secret of much of its power in word-painting, already men tioned. The subject of the harmony of sound and sense is a broad one; and only a few examples can be given here, principally by way of suggesting how important it is. It will be taken up again, later on, in its relation to prose usage.1 Very natural in poetry, first, is the impulse to make vocal sounds reproduce the movements and sounds of nature. In the following, for instance, the consonant combinations str and sl, which must be pronounced somewhat slowly, are employed to denote slowness and reluctance of movement: "So strode he back slow to the wounded King." Quickness and life are expressed in the following by a change of rhythm from an iambus to a tribrach : "Then would he whistle rapid as any lark." The following is a remarkable imitation of a heavy sound echoing among rocks: — "He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast But secondly, poetry may be equally felicitous in making combinations of vocal sounds portray states of mind, states of nature, or general characters of combined events. In the following, for instance, desolateness, both of mind and weather, is indicated by "the harsh sibilants in the third line, and the intentionally hard alliteration and utter want of rhythm in the last line "2: "He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day." A line without rhythm is similarly employed by Milton to portray the swift and utter rout of the rebellious angels : "headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of heaven; eternal wrath 1 See section on Fundamental Processes, p. 168. 2 Genung, "Tennyson's In Memoriam: a Study," p. 109. Such spontaneous features of the poet's art as these furnish continual illustration of this remark of Thomas Wentworth Higginson : "Words are available for something which is more than knowledge. Words afford a more delicious music than the chords of any instrument; they are susceptible of richer colors than any painter's palette; and that they should be used merely for the transportation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art." SECTION THIRD. THE CHARACTERISTICS AND TYPES OF PROSE DICTION. THE distinctive qualities of prose diction are suggestively indicated in the derivation of the word prose. It comes from the Latin prosa, a contracted form of prorsa, which itself is a contraction of the compound pro-versa; an adjective, feminine in form because the noun to be supplied is the feminine oratio, discourse; the whole meaning, therefore, "straight-forward discourse." The name was first given, no doubt, because, instead of turning and beginning anew when it has reached a certain measured length (its contrast, verse, versus, means a turning), the line keeps straight on, as far as there is room for it. But the characteristic straight-forward is capable also of another application. Prose discourse is straight-forward in two senses: In not changing the natural order of words; In not departing from the common use of words. This is another way of saying that prose is the language of ordinary ideas and sentiments; it is the form that unstudied speech None the less, however, it is open to unlimited study assumes. |