Chapter II

THE RHYME AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT
OF THE STANZA

§ =220.= On the model of the Provençal and Northern French lyrics, where the rhyme was indispensable in the construction of stanzas, rhyme found a similar employment in Middle English poetry. Certain simple kinds of stanzas, however, were in their formation just as much influenced by the Low Latin hymn forms, in which at that time rhyme had long been in vogue.

But the rules prescribed for the formation of stanzas by the Provençal poets in theory and practice were observed neither by the Northern French, nor by the Middle English poets with equal rigour, although later on, it is true, in the court-poetry greater strictness prevailed than in popular lyrical poetry.

One of the chief general laws relating to the use of rhyme in the formation of stanzas has already been mentioned in § 214 (at the end). A few other points of special importance require to be noticed here.

Both in Middle English and in Romanic poetry we find stanzas with a single rhyme only and stanzas with varied rhymes. But the use of the same rhymes throughout all the stanzas of one poem (in German called _Durchreimung_), so frequent in Romanic literature, occurs in Middle English poetry only in some later poems imitated directly from Romanic models. As a rule, both where the rhyme in the same stanza is single and where it is varied, all the stanzas have different rhymes, and only the rhyme-system, the arrangement of rhymes, is the same throughout the poem. It is, however, very rarely and only in Modern English literary poetry that the several stanzas are strictly uniform with regard to the use of masculine and feminine rhyme; as a rule the two kinds are employed. Sometimes, it is true, in the anisometrical 'lays', as they are called, as well as in the later popular ballads (e.g. in _Chevy Chace_ and _The Battle of Otterbourne_), we find single stanzas deviating from the rest in rhyme-arrangement as well as in number of lines, the stanzas consisting of Septenary lines with cross-rhymes and intermittent rhymes (_a b a b_, and _a b c b_) being combined now and then with tail-rhyme. This is found to a still greater extent in lyrical poetry of the seventeenth century (e.g. Cowley, G. Herbert, &c.) as well as in odic stanzas of the same or a somewhat later period.

§ =221.= It does not often happen in Middle English poetry that a line is not connected by rhyme with a corresponding line in the same stanza to which it belongs, but only with one in the next stanza. In Modern English poetry this peculiarity, corresponding to what are called _Körner_ in German metres, may not unfrequently be observed in certain poetic forms of Italian origin, as the terza rima or the sestain. Of equally rare occurrence in English strophic poetry are lines without any rhyme (analogous to the _Waisen_--literally 'orphans'--of Middle High German poetry), which were strictly prohibited in Provençal poetry. In Middle English literature they hardly ever occur, but are somewhat more frequent in Modern English poetry, where they generally come at the end of the stanza. On the other hand the mode of connecting successive stanzas, technically called _Concatenatio_ (rhyme-linking), so frequently used by the Provençal and Northern French poets, is very common in Middle English verse. Three different varieties of this device are to be distinguished, viz.:

1. The repetition of the rhyme-word (or of a word standing close by it) of the last line of a stanza, at the beginning of the first line of the following stanza.

2. The repetition of the whole last line of a stanza, including the rhyme-word, as the initial line of the following stanza (not very common); and

3. The repetition of the last rhyme of a stanza as the first rhyme of the following one; so that the last rhyme-word of one stanza and the first rhyme-word of the next not only rhyme with the corresponding rhyme-words of their own stanzas, but also with one another. Such 'concatenations' frequently connect the first and the last part (i.e. the _frons_ and the _cauda_) of a stanza with each other. They even connect the single lines of the same stanza and sometimes of a whole poem, with each other, as e.g. in the 'Rhyme-beginning Fragment' in Furnivall's _Early English Poems and Lives of Saints_, p. 21 (cf. _Metrik_, i, p. 317).

§ =222.= Another and more usual means of connecting the single stanzas of a poem with each other is the =refrain= (called by the Provençal poets _refrim_, i.e. 'echo'; by German metrists sometimes called _Kehrreim_, i.e. recurrent rhyme). The refrain is of popular origin, arising from the part taken by the people in popular songs or ecclesiastical hymns by repeating certain exclamations, words, or sentences at the end of single lines or stanzas. The refrain generally occurs at the end of a stanza, rarely in the interior of a stanza or in both places, as in a late ballad quoted by Ritson, _Ancient Songs and Ballads_, ii. 75.

In Old English poetry the refrain is used in one poem only, viz. in _Deor's Complaint_, as the repetition of a whole line. In Middle and Modern English poetry the refrain is much more extensively employed. Its simplest form, consisting of the repetition of certain exclamations or single words after each stanza, occurs pretty often in Middle English. Frequent use is also made of the other form, in which one line is partially or entirely repeated. Sometimes, indeed, two or even more lines are repeated, or a whole stanza is added as refrain to each of the main stanzas, and is then placed at the beginning of the poem (cf. Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 51).

In English the refrain is also called _burthen_, and consists (according to Guest) of the entire or at least partial repetition of the same words. Distinct from the burthen or refrain is the _wheel_, which is only the repetition of the same rhythm as an addition to a stanza. In Middle English poetry especially a favourite form was that in which a stanza consisting mostly of alliterative-rhyming verses or half-verses (cf. §§ 60, 61, 66) is followed by an addition (the _cauda_), differing very much from the rhythmical structure of the main part (the _frons_) of the stanza, and connected with it by means of a very short verse consisting of only one arsis and the syllable or syllables forming the thesis. This short verse is called by Guest _bob-verse_, and the _cauda_, connected with the chief stanza by means of such a verse, he calls _bob-wheel_, so that the whole stanza, which is of a very remarkable form, might be called the _bob-wheel stanza_. The similar form of stanza, also very common, where the chief part of the stanza is connected with the 'cauda', not by a 'bob-verse' but by an ordinary long line, might be called the _wheel-stanza_. These remarks now bring us to other considerations of importance with regard to the formation of the stanza, which will be treated of in the next section.

§ =223. The structure and arrangement of the different parts of the stanza= in Middle English poetry were also modelled on Low Latin and especially on Romanic forms.

The theory of the structure of stanzas in Provençal and Italian is given along with much interesting matter in Dante's treatise _De vulgari eloquentia_[186], where the original Romanic technical terms are found. Several terms used in this book have also been taken from German metrics.

In the history of Middle English poetry two groups of stanzas must be distinguished: _divisible_ and _indivisible_ stanzas (the _one-rhymed_ stanzas being included in the latter class). The divisible stanzas consist either of two equal parts (_bipartite equal-membered stanzas_) or of two unequal parts (_bipartite unequal-membered stanzas_) or thirdly of two equal parts and an unequal one (_tripartite stanzas_). Now and then (especially in Modern English poetry) they consist of three equal parts. These three types are common to Middle and Modern English poetry. A fourth class is met with in Modern English poetry only, viz. stanzas generally consisting of _three_, sometimes of _four_ or more _unequal parts_.

All the kinds of verse that have been previously described in this work can be used in these different classes of stanzas, both separately and conjointly. In each group, accordingly, _isometrical_ and _anisometrical_ stanzas must be distinguished. Very rarely, and only in Modern English, we find that even the rhythm of the separate verses of a stanza is not uniform; iambic and trochaic, anapaestic and dactylic, or iambic and anapaestic verses interchanging with each other, so that a further distinction between _isorhythmical_ and _anisorhythmical_ stanzas is possible.

§ =224.= The =bipartite equal-membered= stanzas, in their simplest form, consist of two equal periods, each composed of a prior and a succeeding member. They are to be regarded as the primary forms of all strophic poetry.

The two periods may be composed either of two rhyming couplets or of four verses rhyming alternately with each other. Specimens of both classes have been quoted above (§ 78). Such equal-membered stanzas can be extended, of course, in each part uniformly without changing the isometrical character of the stanza.

§ =225.= The =bipartite unequal-membered= stanzas belong to a more advanced stage in the formation of the stanza. They are, however, found already in Provençal poetry, and consist of the 'forehead' (_frons_) and the 'tail' or veer (_cauda_). The _frons_ and the _cauda_ differ sometimes only in the number of verses, and consequently, in the order of the rhymes, and sometimes also in the nature of the verse. The two parts may either have quite different rhymes or be connected together by one or several common rhymes. As a simple specimen of this sort of stanza the first stanza of Dunbar's _None may assure in this warld_ may be quoted here:

frons: {_Quhome to sall I complene my wo,
{ And kyth my kairis on or mo?_

{ _I knaw nocht, amang riche nor pure,
cauda: { Quha is my freynd, quha is my fo;
{ For in this warld may non assure._

In literary poetry, however, the tripartite stanzas are commoner than the bipartite unequal-membered stanzas just noticed; they are as much in favour as the bipartite, equal-membered stanzas are in popular poetry. In Provençal and Northern French poetry the principle of a triple partition in the structure of stanzas was developed very early. Stanzas on these models were very soon imported into Middle English poetry.

§ =226.= The =tripartite= stanzas generally (apart from Modern English forms) consist of two equal parts and one unequal part, which admit of being arranged in different ways. They have accordingly different names. If the two equal parts precede they are called _pedes_, both together the _opening_ (in German _Aufgesang_ ='upsong'); the unequal part that concludes the stanza is called the _conclusion_ or the _veer_, _tail_, or _cauda_ (in German _Abgesang_ ='downsong'). If the unequal part precedes it is called _frons_ (='forehead'); the two equal parts that form the end of the stanza are called _versus_ ('turns,' in German _Wenden_). The former arrangement, however, is by far the more frequent.

There are various ways of separating the first from the last part of the stanza: (a) by a pause, which, as a rule, in Romanic as well as in Middle English poetry occurs between the two chief parts; (b) by a difference in their structure (whether in rhyme-arrangement only, or both in regard to the kinds and the number of verses). But even then the two chief parts are generally separated by a pause. We thus obtain three kinds of tripartite stanzas:

1. Stanzas in which the first and the last part differ in _versification_; the lines of the last part may either be longer or shorter than those of the 'pedes'. Difference in rhythmical structure as well as in length of line is in Middle English poetry confined to the _bob-wheel_ stanzas, and is not otherwise common except in Modern English poetry.

2. Stanzas in which the parts differ in _number of verses_. The number may be either greater or smaller in the last part than in the two 'pedes', which, of course, involves at the same time a difference in the order of the rhymes. Change of length, however, and change of versification in the last part in comparison with the half of the first part are generally combined.

3. Stanzas in which the parts agree in versification but _differ in the arrangement of the rhymes_; the number of verses in the _cauda_ being either the same as that of one of the _pedes_, or (as commonly the case) different from it.

In all these cases the first and the last part of the stanza may have quite different rhymes, or they may, in stanzas of more artistic construction, have one or several rhymes in common.

If the _frons_ precedes the _versus_, the same distinctions, of course, are possible between the two chief parts.

§ =227.= The following specimens illustrate first of all the two chief kinds of arrangement; i.e. the _pedes_ preceding the _cauda_, and the _frons_ preceding the _versus_:

{_With longyng y am lad_,
I. pes: {_On molde y waxe mad_,
{ _A maide marreþ me_;

{_Y grede, y grone, vnglad_,
II. pes: {_For selden y am sad_
{ _Þat semly for te se_.

{ _Leuedy, þou rewe me!_
cauda: {_To rouþe þou hauest me rad_,
{_Be bote of þat y bad_,
{ _My lyf is long on þe_.

Wright's Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 29.

{_Jesu, for þi muchele miht_,
frons: { _Þou ȝef vs of þi grace,
{Þat we mowe dai and nyht
{Þenken o þi face._

{_In myn herte hit doþ me god_,
I. versus: {_When y þenke on iesu blod_,
{ _Þat ran doun bi ys syde_,

{_From is herte doun to is fot_;
II. versus: {_For ous he spradde is herte blod_,
{ _His woundes were so wyde_.

ib. p. 83.

Theoretically, the second stanza might also be regarded as a stanza consisting of two _pedes_ and two _versus_, or, in other words, as a four-part stanza of two equal parts in each half. Stanzas of this kind occur pretty often in Middle and Modern English poetry. They mostly, however, convey the effect of a tripartite stanza on account of the greater extent of the one pair of equal parts of the stanza.

The tripartition effected only by a difference in the arrangement of rhymes either in the _pedes_ and the _cauda_, or in the _frons_ and the _versus_, will be illustrated by the following specimens:

I. pes: {_Take, oh take those lips away_,
{ _That so sweetly were forsworne_;

II. pes: {_And those eyes, the breake of day_,
{ _Lights that doe mislead the morne_.

cauda: {_But my kisses bring againe_,
{_Seales of love, but seal'd in vaine_.

Shak., Meas. IV. i. 4.

frons: {_As by the shore, at break of day_,
{_A vanquish'd Chief expiring lay_,

I. versus: { _Upon the sands, with broken sword_,
{_He traced his farewell to the Free_;

II. versus: { _And, there, the last unfinish'd word_
{_He dying wrote was 'Liberty'_.

Moore, Song.

A very rare variety of tripartition that, as far as we know, does not occur till Modern English times, is that by which the _cauda_ is placed between the two _pedes_. This arrangement, of course, may occur in each of the three kinds of tripartition. A specimen of the last kind (viz. that in which the _cauda_ is distinguished from the _pedes_ by a different arrangement of rhymes) may suffice to explain it:

I. pes: {_Nine years old! The first of any_
{_Seem the happiest years that come_:

cauda: {_Yet when I was nine, I said_
{_No such word! I thought instead_

II. pes: {_That the Greeks had used as many_
{_In besieging Ilium_.

Mrs. Browning, ii. 215.

Lastly, it is to be remarked that the inequality of Modern English stanzas, which may be composed of two or three or several parts, admits, of course, of many varieties. Generally, however, their structure is somewhat analogous to that of the regular tripartite stanzas (cf. below,