Chapter XI: The Rhymed Five-Foot Verse

§ =151.= Among all English metres the five-foot verse may be said to be the metre which has been employed in the greatest number of poems, and in those of highest merit.

Two forms can be distinguished, namely, the rhymed and the rhymeless five-foot verse (the latter being known as _blank verse_), which are of equal importance, though not of equal antiquity.

The rhymed five-foot verse was known in English poetry as far back as the second half of the thirteenth century, and has been a favourite metre from Chaucer's first poetic attempts onward to the present, whilst the blank verse was first introduced into English literature about the year 1540 by the Earl of Surrey (1518-47), and has been frequently employed ever since that time. The rhymed five-foot verse was, and has continued to be, mainly preferred for lyrical and epic, the blank verse for dramatic poetry. The latter, however, has been employed e.g. by Milton, and after him by Thomson and many others for the epic and allied species of poetry; while rhymed five-foot verse was used during a certain period for dramatic poetry, e.g. by Davenant and Dryden, but by the latter only for a short time.

=Rhymed five-accent verse= occurs in Middle English both in poems composed in stanza form and (since Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_, c. 1386) in couplets.

This metre, apart from differences in the length of the line and in number of accents, is by no means to be looked upon as different from the remaining even-stressed metres of that time. For, like the Middle English four-foot verse and the Alexandrine, it derives its origin from a French source, its prototype being the French decasyllabic verse. This is a metre with rising rhythm, in which the caesura generally comes after the fourth syllable, as e.g. in the line:

_Ja mais n'iert tels | com fut as anceisors._ Saint Alexis, l. 5.

To this verse the following line of Chaucer's corresponds exactly in point of structure:

_A kníght ther wás, | and thát a wórthy mán._
Cant. Tales, Prol. 43.

§ =152.= The English verse, like the French decasyllabic, admits feminine caesuras and feminine line-endings, and the first thesis (anacrusis) may be absent; there are, therefore, sixteen varieties theoretically possible.

I. Principal Types.

1. ⏑ – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 syll.
2. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 11 "
3. ⏑ – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 "
4. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 12 "

II. With Initial Truncation
(omission of the first thesis).

5. – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 syll.
6. – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – 10 "
7. – ⏑ – | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 "
8. – ⏑ – ⏑ | ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 "

III. With Internal Truncation
(omission of the thesis after
the caesura).

9. ⏑ – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 syll.
10. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 10 "
11. ⏑ – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 "
12. ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 11 "

IV. With both Initial and Internal
Truncation.

13. – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 8 syll.
14. – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – 9 "
15. – ⏑ – | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 9 "
16. – ⏑ – ⏑ | – ⏑ – ⏑ – ⏑ 10 "

This table at the same time also contains the formal exposition, and indeed possibly the actual explanation (by suppression of the thesis following the epic caesura), of such lines as may be regarded as lines with lyric caesura, and are identical with these in regard to rhythm and number of syllables. To this class belong the forms given under 10, 12, 14, and 16.

The following examples will serve to illustrate these sixteen types:

I. Principal Types.

1. _A kníght ther wás, | and thát a wórthy mán._ Prol. 43.

2. _What schúlde he stúdie, | and máke himsélven wóod?_ ib. 184.

3. _But thílke téxt | held hé not wórth an óystre._ ib. 182.

4. _To Cáunterbúry | with fúl devóut coráge._ ib. 22.

II. With Initial Truncation.

5. _Úpon whích | he wíl auénged bé._
Lydgate, Story of Thebes, 1086.

6. _Óf the wórdes | that Týdeús had sáid._ ib. 1082.

7. _Fró the kíng | he gán his fáce tóurne._ ib. 1068.

8. _Nát astónned, | nor ín his hért aférde._ ib. 1069.

III. With Internal Truncation after the caesura.

9. _A stérne pás | thórgh the hálle he góth._ ib. 1072.

10. _And whích they wéren, | ánd of whát degré._ Chaucer, Prol. 40.

11. _And yét therbý | sháll they néuer thrýve?_
Barclay, Ship of Fooles, p. 20.

12. _And máde fórward | érly fór to rýse._ Chaucer, Prol. 33.

IV. With Initial Truncation and Truncation after the caesura.

13. _Ín al hást | Týdeús to swé._ Lydgate, Story of Thebes, 1093.

14. _Twénty bókes, | clád in blák and réed._ Chaucer, Prol. 294.

15. _Spáred nát | wómen gréet with chýlde._
Lydgate, Guy of Warwick, 16.

16. _Fór to délen | wíth no súch poráille._ Chaucer, Prol. 247.

In this five-foot metre all the Germanic licences of the even-beat rhythm may occur in the same way as in the other even-beat metres. The caesura, for instance, may occur in both (or all three) varieties in the five-foot verse of Chaucer and of many other poets, either after or within any of the remaining feet. Hence the structure of this metrical form gains to an extraordinary degree in complexity.

By the mere fact that the variations adduced above may also occur after the first, third, and fourth foot, the number of verse-forms produced by the above-mentioned types of caesura in combination with initial truncation and the different kinds of verse-ending rises to sixty-four, to say nothing of the other metrical licences due to inversion of accent, level stress, and the presence of hypermetrical unaccented syllables at the beginning, or in the middle and the end of the line. At any rate, the varieties of even-beat metres, especially of the five-foot verse, resulting from these metrical licences, are much more numerous than those connected with the five main types of the alliterative hemistich. The great diversity of rhythm allowed by this metrical theory has, indeed, been objected to, but evidently without sufficient reason, and, as it seems, only because of the unfamiliarity of the idea.

§ =153.= This variable position of the caesura is, however, not found in the earliest specimens of this metre presented to us in the two poems in the Harl. MS. 2253 dating from the second half of the thirteenth century, which are edited in Wright's _Specimens of Lyric Poetry_, Nos. xl and xli (wrongly numbered xlii).[149] These are written in tripartite eight-lined, anisometrical stanzas of the form _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ c₅ c₅ d₇ d₅_, in which the fifth, sixth, and eighth lines are evidently of five feet. Ten Brink,[150] it is true, says that he has not been able 'to convince himself that this was a genuine instance of a metre which--whether in origin or character--might be identified with Chaucer's heroic verse, although in isolated instances it seems to coincide with it'. According to my conviction, there is not the slightest doubt as to the structure of these verses as lines of five feet, and Ten Brink has not expressed any opinion as to the nature of the verse to which they must otherwise be referred.[151]

In both these poems there occur only verses of the type indicated by the formulas 3, 4, 7, 12:

3. _His hérte blód | he ȝéf for ál monkúnne._ xl. 35.

4. _Upón þe róde | why núlle we táken héde?_ ib. 27.

7. _Ȝéf bou dóst, | hit wól me réowe sóre._ xli. 20.

12. _Bote héo me lóuye, | sóre hil wól me réwe._ ib. 27.

Among the Germanic licences the presence of a disyllabic initial or internal thesis is most noticeable in these which are, so far as is known, the earliest five-foot verses in English poetry; as, e.g. in xli. 33, 34:

_Ase stérres beþ in wélkne, | and gráses sóur ant suéte;
Whose lóueþ vntréwe, | his hérte is sélde séete._

§ =154.= The main difference between Chaucer's five-foot verse and these early specimens of this metre is that the caesura does not always occupy a fixed place in it, but is liable to shift its position.[152] It is either masculine, epic, or lyric, and occurs chiefly after the second or in and after the third foot, or in the fourth, so that there are thus (in Chaucer's verse and that of most of the following poets) =six main types of caesura=:

1. Masculine (monosyllabic) caesura after the second foot; the principal kind (types 1 and 3):

_Whan Zéphirús | eek wíth his swéte bréethe._ Prol. 5.

2. Feminine (disyllabic) epic caesura after the second foot; far rarer (types 2 and 4):

_To Cáunterbúry[153] | with fúl devóut coráge._ ib. 22.

3. Feminine (disyllabic) lyric caesura in the third foot; more frequent than the preceding (types 10 and 12):

_And máde fórward | érly fór to rýse._ ib. 83.

4. Masculine (monosyllabic) caesura after the third foot (first subordinate type to 1 and 3 = 1a and 3a):

_That slépen ál the níght | with ópen éye._ ib. 10.

5. Feminine (disyllabic) epic caesura after the third foot, rare (first subordinate type to 2 and 4 = 2a and 4a):

_Ther ás he wás ful mérye | and wél át ése._ Nonne Pr. T. 438.

6. Feminine lyric caesura in the fourth foot (first subordinate type to 10 and 12 = 10a and 12a):

_An ánlas ánd a gípser | ál of sílk._ Prol. 357.

Besides these six principal caesuras we also find all the three types occurring in rarer instances in the corresponding remaining positions of the verse, namely, after the first or in the second foot, and after the fourth or in the fifth foot. Enjambement often gives rise to logical caesuras in unusual positions, alongside of which another metrical caesura is generally noticeable in one of the usual positions:

_Byfél, || that ín that sésoun | ón a dáy._ Prol. 18.

_In Sóuthwerk | át the Tábard || ás I láy._ ib. 20.

_Farwél, || for Í ne máy | no lénger dwélle._ Kn. T. 1496.

_O régne, || that wólt no félawe | hán with thé._ ib. 766.

_Now cértes, || Í wol dó | my díligénce._ Prioresse T. 1729.

_Is ín this lárge | wórlde ysprád || --quod shé._ ib. 1644.

_To Médes ánd | to Pérses yíuen || quod hé._ Monkes T. 3425.

_And sófte untó himsélf | he séyde | : Fý._ Kn. T. 915.

By the various combinations of such principal and subordinate caesuras the number of the varieties of this metre is increased to an almost unlimited extent. Many lines also are devoid of the caesura completely, or, at most, admit, under the influence of the general rhythm, a light metrical caesura without any strict logical need, as, for instance, when it occurs after a conjunction or a preposition, as in the verses:

_By fórward ánd | by cómposícióun._ Prol. 848.

_That Í was óf | here félaweschípe anón._ ib. 32.

§ =155.= The end also of the line may be either masculine or feminine. Both kinds occur side by side on a perfectly equal footing, the feminine endings probably somewhat oftener in Chaucer's verse owing to the numerous terminations consisting of _e_ or _e_ + consonant which were still pronounced at his time. Besides the variety in the caesura and the end of the verse, the well-known licences of even-beat rhythm play a considerable part; as, for instance, inversion of accent, ordinary and rhetorical, at the beginning of the verse and after the caesura: rédy _to wénden_ Prol. 21; Sýngynge _he wás_ ib. 91; Schórt _was his góune_ ib. 93; Tróuthe _and honóur_, frédom _and cóurteisíe_ ib. 46.

Although omission of the anacrusis is on the whole unfrequent, it yet undoubtedly occurs (cf. p. 137, footnote):

_Ál besmótered | wíth his hábergeóun._ Prol. 76.

_Gýnglen ín a | whístlyng wýnd as clére._ ib. 170.

Disyllabic theses are often found initially and internally.

_With a thrédbare cópe | as is a póure schóler._ Prol. 262.

_Of Éngelónd, | to Cáunterbúry they wénde._ ib. 16.

Similar rhythmical phenomena are caused by the slurring of syllables, such, e.g., as _Many a, tharray_ from _the array_, &c., &c., in regard to which reference should be made to the chapter on the metrical value of syllables.

Level stress occurs most frequently in Chaucer in rhyme: _f+i+ft+é+ne_: _Trámasséne_ 61-2; _d+a+gg+é+re_: _spere_ 113-14; _thing_: _wr+i+t+ý+ng_ 325-6. Enjambement and rhyme-breaking are used by him with great skill (cf. §§ 92, 93).

§ =156.= In later Middle English this metre on the whole retained the same character, and individual poets vary from one another only in a few points.

Of Gower's five-foot verse only short specimens are preserved. Like his four-foot verse, they are very generally regular. Inversion of accent is the licence he most often employs. Gower uses almost exclusively the masculine caesura after the second foot and the lyric caesura in the third foot. But epic caesura also occasionally occurs in his verse:

_Fór of batáille | the fínal énde is pés._ Praise of Peace, 66.

A decline in the technique of the five-foot verse begins with Lydgate and Hoccleve.

These writers deprived the caesura of its mobility and admitted it almost exclusively after the second beat. Hoccleve uses hardly any caesuras but the masculine and lyric, whilst in Lydgate's verse epic caesura is often met with (cf. p. 211). Both indulge in the licences of initial truncation and omission of the unaccented syllable after the caesura (cf. l. c.) as well as level stress and the admission of several unaccented syllables at the beginning of the verse and internally; there are even cases of the omission of unaccented syllables in the middle of the verse:

_Of hárd márble | they díde anóther máke._ Min. P., p. 85, 24.

The slight license of inversion of accent is also taken advantage of.

Stephen Hawes and Barclay again imparted to this line greater freedom with regard to the caesura. And yet the metre exhibits under their hands, in consequence of the frequent occurrence of disyllabic initial and internal theses, a somewhat uneven rhythm.

The ablest of the successors of Chaucer, in technique as in other respects, are the Scots: Blind Harry, Henrysoun, King James I, Douglas, and Dunbar. The verse of Dunbar, in particular, stands on an equality with Chaucer's in rhythmical euphony, while David Lyndesay often struggles with difficulties of form, and, by frequent use of level stress, offends against the first principle of even-beat rhythm, viz. the coincidence of the metrical accent with the natural accentuation of the word and sentence.

§ =157.= In Modern English the rhymed five-foot verse remains essentially the same as in the Middle English period. Feminine rhymes are indeed rarer than in Middle English poetry in consequence of the disuse of flexional endings.

For the same reason, and owing to the advance in technical execution, the epic caesura is also rarer. Still, examples of this as well as of the other kind of caesuras employed by Chaucer are found in Modern English:

I. _The níghtingále | with féathers néw she síngs._ Sur. p. 3.

II. _The sóte séason | that búd and blóom forth bríngs._ ib. p. 3.

III. _Itsélf from trávail | óf the dáys unrést._ ib. p. 2.

IV. _The sún hath twíce brought fórth | his ténder gréen._

V. _He knóweth how gréat Atrídes, | that máde Troy frét._
Wyatt, 152.

VI. _At lást she ásked sóftly, | whó was thére._ ib. 187.

In positions nearer to the beginning or the end of the line the different kinds of caesura are also rare in Modern English, and occur mostly in consequence of enjambements.

In Wyatt's poems epic caesuras are found in comparatively large number; in Spenser, on the other hand, they are probably entirely lacking, owing to a finer feeling for the technique of the verse.

Inversions of accent occur in the usual positions and at all times with all the poets. Level stress, on the other hand, is more frequently detected in such poets as do not excel in technical skill, as, for instance, in Wyatt and Donne, who also admit initial truncation, and more rarely the omission of a thesis in the middle of the line. In their poems disyllabic theses also often occur initially and internally, while more careful poets more rarely permit themselves these licences. To Wyatt's charge must be laid further the unusual and uncouth licence of unaccented rhyme, such rhymes, for example, as _begínnìng: eclípsìng_, p. 56, 1-3; _dréadèth: séekèth_, _inclósèd: oppréssèd_ 54, &c. In other poets this peculiarity is hardly ever found.

§ =158.= In narrative poetry the five-foot verse rhyming in couplets, _heroic verse_, was a favourite metre. As a close in the sense coincides with that of each couplet, this metre tends to assume an epigrammatic tone, especially since enjambement seldom occurs after the Restoration. To avoid the monotony thus occasioned, many Restoration poets linked three verses together by one and the same rhyme, whereby the regular sequence of couplets was then interrupted wherever they pleased. Sometimes such threefold rhymes (_triplets_) serve the purpose of laying a special stress on particular passages, a practice which is, moreover, to be observed as early as in some contemporaries of Shakespeare, e.g. in Donne. A somewhat freer structure than that of the heroic verse is, as a rule, exhibited by the five-foot line when employed in poems in stanza form. In this verse a considerable part is played by enjambement. This also holds good for the rhymed five-foot verse employed in dramatic poetry, which usually rhymes in couplets, though alternate rhymes are occasionally used.

After Lyly's _The Maid's Metamorphosis_, entirely written in heroic verse, this metre was chiefly employed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries for prologues and epilogues. Rhymed five-foot verses frequently occur in Shakespeare's earlier dramas, e.g. in _Romeo and Juliet_, where their technical structure is found to be fairly strict. In his later dramas, on the other hand, e.g. in the Prologue and Epilogue to _Henry VIII_, the heroic verse is, on the analogy of the freer treatment of his later blank verse, also more loosely constructed. Enjambement, and the caesuras connected with it after the first and fourth accents, are often met with.

§ =159.= Dryden's dramatic heroic verse does not differ essentially from that of his satirical poems and translations. After Dryden returned to blank verse for dramatic writing, heroic verse ceased to be employed for this purpose. Rhymed verse, rhyming in couplets and stanzas, however, still continued to be in vogue in lyrical, satirical, didactic, and narrative poetry.

Pope's heroic verse is still more uniformly constructed than that of Dryden. Both poets hardly ever employ any caesura but the masculine and the lyric after the second and third beat, and the end of the line is almost exclusively masculine. Initial truncation or the absence of an unaccented syllable internally is hardly to be met with in their poems. The earlier diversity in the structure of this line was (under the influence of the French models whom they closely imitated) considerably restricted. Even transposition of accent occurs comparatively seldom, so that the word-accent generally exactly coincides with the rhythmical accent. Enjambement is, however, employed more frequently by Dryden than by Pope; and the former, moreover, occasionally admits at the close of a triplet a verse of six feet, while Pope, in his original poems, completely avoids triplets as well as six-accent lines. The breaking of rhyme both poets purposely exclude.

A similar uniform character is exhibited by the heroic verse of most of the poets of the eighteenth century. It is not before the nineteenth century that this metre, in spite of the persistence of individual poets, e.g. Byron, in adhering to the fashion set by Pope, again acquires greater freedom. Shelley and Browning, for instance, are fond of combining lines of heroic verse by enjambement so as to form periods of some length. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and others again admit couplets and triplets with occasional six-foot lines at the close. But the caesura remains nearly always restricted to the places which it occupies in Pope's verse, and the close of the line is masculine. Keats only often indulges in feminine rhymes.

It is, however, remarkable that such rhymes more often occur in five-foot verses combined in stanzas when employed for satirical and comic compositions, as e.g. in Byron's _Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. In these poems the disyllabic thesis, the slurring of syllables, and other rhythmical licences, also more frequently occur.

NOTES:

[141] See ten Brink, _The Language and Metre of Chaucer_ (English
transl.), § 280, where the metrical treatment of these words
is described. The German term used by ten Brink is
_Anlehnungen_.

[142] _Old English Homilies_, ed. R. Morris, First Series, Part I,
E.E.T.S., No. 29, pp. 55-71.

[143] Cf. Charles L. Crow, _On the History of the Short Couplet in
Middle English_. Dissert., Göttingen, 1892.

[144] Cf. _John Heywood als Dramatiker_, von Wilh. Swoboda, 1888, p.
83 ff.

[145] Cf. our metrical notes ('Metrische Randglossen') in _Engl.
Studien_, x, p. 192 seq.

[146] In _Old English Homilies_, ed. R. Morris, pp. 190ff.

[147] Trautmann, _Anglia_, v, Anz., p. 124; Einenkel, ibid., 74;
Menthel, _Anglia_, viii, Anz., p. 70.

[148] According to Guest (ii. 233) 'because the poulterer, as
Gascoigne tells us, giveth twelve for one dozen and fourteen
for another'.

[149] These poems are also printed in Böddeker, _Altengl.
Dichtungen_, Geistl. Lieder, xviii, Weltl. Lieder, xiv.

[150] _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, § 305, note.

[151] The verses he calls five-foot lines have, on the other hand,
decidedly not this structure, but are four-foot lines with
unaccented rhymes; for a final word in the line, such us
_wrécfúl_, as is assumed by Ten Brink, with the omission of an
unaccented syllable between the last two accents, would be
utterly inconsistent with the whole character of this metre.

[152] According to Ten Brink, _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_,
§ 305, the shifting character of Chaucer's caesura was chiefly
caused by his acquaintance with the Italian _endecasillabo_.
This influence may have come in later, but even in Chaucer's
early _Compleynt to Pitee_ (according to Ten Brink,
_Geschichte der englischen Literatur_, ii. p. 49, his first
poem written under the influence of the French decasyllabic
verse) the caesura is here moveable, though not to the same
extent as in the later poems. The liability of the caesura to
shift its position was certainly considerably increased by the
accentual character of English rhythm. On the untenableness of
his assertion, that in Chaucer's five-accent verse the epic
caesura is unknown, cf. p. 145 (footnote), _Metrik_, ii. 101-3
note, and Schipper in Paul's _Grundriss_, ed. 2, II. ii, pp.
217-21.

DIVISION III

VERSE-FORMS OCCURRING IN MODERN ENGLISH
POETRY ONLY