Chapter I: Preface

The reception of the first two volumes of a larger work (since completed) on English Prosody suggested, to the author and to the publishers, that there might be room for a more compressed dealing with the subject, possessing more introductory character, and attempting the functions of a manual as well as those of a history. It did not, however, seem that the matter could be satisfactorily treated in extremely brief form, as a primer or elementary school-book. The subject is one not very well suited for elementary instruction; and in endeavouring to shape it for that use there is a particular danger of too positive and peremptory statement in reference to matters of the most contentious kind. Catechetical instruction has to be categorical; if you set hypotheses, or alternative systems, before young scholars, they are apt either to distrust the whole thing or to become hopelessly muddled. And the opposite danger--of unhesitating adoption of positive statements on doubtful points--must have been found to be only too real by any one who has had to do with education. Schoolboys cannot be too early, or too plentifully, or too variously supplied with good _examples_ of verse; but they should be thoroughly familiar with the practice before they come to the principles.

To the Senior Forms of the higher Secondary Schools, on the other hand, and to students in those Universities which admit English literature as a subject, this function of it is quite suitable and well adapted, and it is for their use that this volume is planned (as well as for that of the general reader who may hardly feel inclined to tackle three large octavos). An effort will be made to include everything that is vital to a clear understanding of the subject; while opportunity will, it is hoped, be found for insertion of some information, both of a historical and of a practical kind, which did not seem so germane to the larger _History_. It has been a main object with me in preparing this book, while reducing prosodic theory to the necessary minimum, but keeping that, to "load every rift" with prosodic fact; and I could almost recommend the student to devote himself to the Contents and the Index, illustrated by the Glossary, all of which have been made exceptionally full, before attacking the text.

The work, like the larger one of which it is not so much an abstract as a parallel with a different purpose, cannot hope to content those who think that prosody should be, like mathematics or music, a science, immutable, peremptory, abstract in the other sense. It will not content those who think--in pursuance or independently of such an opinion--that it should discard appreciation of the actual poetry, on which, from my point of view, it is solely based. It will, from another point, leave dissatisfied those who decline the attempt to reduce this poetry to some general but elastic laws, and who concentrate themselves on the immediate musical or rhetorical values (as they seem to them) of individual poems, or passages, or even (as is not uncommon) lines. Nor will it provide, what some seem to desire, a tabular analysis of every verse-form in the language, for reasons explained in the proper place (_v. inf._ p. 336 _note_). But, from past experience, it seems that it may find some public ready for it; and it is perhaps not wholly fatuous to hope that it may help to create a larger.[1]

GEORGE SAINTSBURY.

EDINBURGH,
ALL SOULS' DAY,
1910.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Note to Second Edition. Christmas 1913._--The opportunity of this second edition[2] has been taken to read the text carefully, and to correct a certain number of errors of pen and press, connected more especially with division of feet and quantification of syllables. How difficult it is to avoid errors here, nobody who has not tried the matter on an extensive scale can well conceive. Few more substantial alterations have been found necessary; but I may mention here an addition to the evidence of distinct, if clumsy, anapæstic metre in the mid.-sixteenth century, which I had not noticed when writing this book, or my larger one. It is a translation of the 149th Psalm, contributed to the "Old Version" (1561-2) by John Pulleyne, Student of Christchurch, Archdeacon of Colchester, and Prebendary of St. Paul's. It may be found in the Parker Society's _Select Poems_, and begins:

Sing unto the Lord with hearty accord
A new joyful song;
His praises resound, in every ground
His saints all among.

[2] And of a third.--BATH, _Sept._ 1919.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

INTRODUCTORY AND DOGMATIC

CHAPTER I

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY 3

CHAPTER II

SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY--THE ACCENTUAL OR STRESS

Classical prosody uniform in theory--English not so--"Accent"
and "stress"--English prosody as adjusted to them--Its
difficulties--and insufficiencies--Examples of its application--Its
various sects and supporters 6

CHAPTER III

SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY--THE SYLLABIC

History of the syllabic theory--Its results--_Note:_ Cautions 14

CHAPTER IV

SYSTEMS OF ENGLISH PROSODY--THE FOOT

General if not always consistent use of the term "foot"--Particular
objections to its systematic use--"Quantity" in English--The
"common" syllable--Intermediate rules of arrangement--Some
interim rules of feet (expanded in note)--The different systems
applied to a single verse of Tennyson's--and their application
examined--Application further to his "Hollyhock" song--Such
application possible always and everywhere 19