Chapter V: Rules of the Foot System

§ A. FEET

(_These_ Rules _are not imperative or compulsory precepts, but
observed inductions from the practice of English poets. He
that can break them with success, let him._)

[Sidenote: Feet composed of long and short syllables.]

#1. English poetry, from the first constitution of literary Middle English to the present day, can best be scanned by a system of _feet_, or groups of syllables in two different values, which may be called for convenience _long_ (̄) and _short_ (̆).#

[Sidenote: Not all combinations actual.]

#2. The nature of these groups of syllables is determined by the usual mathematical laws of permutation; but some of them appear more frequently than others in English poetry, and some hardly occur at all.#

[Sidenote: Differences from "classical" feet.]

#3. Although, in the symbols of their constitution, these feet resemble those of the classical prosodies, it does not follow that they are identical with them, except mathematically,[25] the nature of the languages being different; and, in particular, their powers of combining in metre are far from being identical, so that combinations of feet which are successful in Greek and Latin need by no means be successful in English. Success is indeed almost limited to instances where the metrical constituents are restricted to iambs (̆̄]), anapæsts (̆̆̄]), and trochees (̄̆), with the spondee (̄̄) as an occasional ingredient.#

[Sidenote: The three usual kinds--iamb, trochee, anapæst.]

#4. The iamb (̆̄), the trochee (̄̆), and the anapæst (̆̆̄) are by far the commonest English feet; in fact, the great bulk of English poetry is composed of them.#

[Sidenote: The spondee.]

#5. The spondee (̄̄) is not so unusual as has sometimes been thought; but owing to the commonness of most syllables, especially in _thesis_, it may often be passed as an iamb, and sometimes as a trochee.#

[Sidenote: The dactyl.]

#6. The dactyl (̄ ̆ ̆), on the other hand, though observable enough in separate English words, does not seem to compound happily in English, its use being almost limited to that of a substitute for the trochee. Used in continuity, either singly or with other feet, it has a tendency, especially in lines of some length, to rearrange itself into anapæsts with anacrusis. In very short lines, however, this "tilt" has not always time to develop itself.#

[Sidenote: The pyrrhic.]

#7. The pyrrhic (̆̆]) may occur in English, but is rarely wanted (see note above on spondee).#

[Sidenote: The tribrach.]

#8. The tribrach (̆̆̆), however, has become not unusual.#

[Sidenote: Others.]

#9. Other combinations (for names see Glossary) than these are certainly rare, and are perhaps never wanted in English verse, though they are plentiful in prose. (See Rule 41 and Glossary.)#

§ B. CONSTITUTION OF FEET

[Sidenote: Quality or "quantity" in feet.]

#10. The quality, or contrast of quality, called "quantity," which fits English syllables for their places as long or short in a foot, is not uniform or constant.#

[Sidenote: Not necessarily "time,"]

#11. It does not necessarily depend on the amount of time taken to pronounce the syllable; though there is probably a tendency to lengthen or shorten this time according to the prosodic length or shortness required.#

[Sidenote: nor vowel "quantity."]

#12. It does not wholly depend on the usual quantity[26] of the vowel sound in the syllable; for long-sounding vowels are not very seldom shortened, and short-sounding ones are constantly made long.#

[Sidenote: Accumulated consonants,]

#13. An accumulation of consonants after the vowel will lengthen it prosodically, but need not necessarily do so.#

[Sidenote: or rhetorical stress,]

#14. Strong rhetorical stress will almost always lengthen if required.#

[Sidenote: or place in verse will quantify.]

#15. The place in verse, if cunningly managed by the poet, will lengthen or shorten.#

[Sidenote: Commonness of monosyllables.]

#16. All monosyllables are common, the articles being, however, least susceptible of lengthening, and the indefinite perhaps hardly at all.#

§ C. EQUIVALENCE AND SUBSTITUTION

[Sidenote: Substitution of equivalent feet.]

#17. The most important law of English prosody is that which permits and directs the interchange of certain of these feet with others, or, in technical language, the substitution of equivalent feet.#

[Sidenote: Its two laws.]

#18. This process of substitution is governed by two laws: one in a manner _a priori_, the other the result of experience only.#

[Sidenote: Confusion of base must be avoided.]

#19. Substitution must not take place in a batch of lines, or even (with rare exceptions) in a single line, to such an extent that the base of the metre can be mistaken.#

[Sidenote: (Of which the ear must judge.)]

#20. Even short of this result of confusion the ear must decide whether the substitution is allowable.#

[Sidenote: Certain substitutions are not eligible.]

#21. As a result of experience we find that the feet most suitable--if not alone suitable--as substitutes for the iamb--the commonest foot-staple--are the trochee, the anapæst, and the tribrach; that the dactyl substitutes well, if not too freely used, for the trochee.[27] These equivalences are reciprocal.#

§ D. PAUSE

[Sidenote: Variation of pause.]

#22. Next to equivalence, the most important and valuable engine in the constitution of English verses is the variation of the middle or internal pause.#

[Sidenote: Practically at discretion.]

#23. Except in very long lines--which always tend to pause themselves either at the middle or at _two_ places more or less equidistant--there is no reason why the pause of an English line should not be at any syllable from the first to the penultimate, and none why it should or should not occur at the end of a line, couplet, or even stanza--though in the last-named case rather special reasons are required for its omission. Not every line need necessarily have any pause at all.#

[Sidenote: Blank verse specially dependent on pause.]

#24. The effect of blank verse depends more upon pause-variation than upon anything else; and by this variation, accompanied by stop or overrun ("enjambment") at the end of the line, _verse-paragraphs_ are constituted, which can contain _verse-clauses_ or _sentences_, in like manner brought into existence by pauses.#

§ E. LINE-COMBINATION

[Sidenote: Simple or complex.]

#25. Lines, composed as above of feet, can be used in English either continuously on the same or equivalent patterns, or in batches of two or more.#

[Sidenote: Rhymes necessary to couplet.]

#26. The batches of two almost necessarily require rhyme to indicate and isolate them, especially if the individual lines are of the same length. Other batches [stanzas] might, as far as any _a priori_ objection goes, consist of unrhymed lines, symmetrically correspondent, or irregular [Pindaric].#

[Sidenote: Few instances of successful unrhymed stanza.]

#27. It is, however, found in practice, despite the examples of Campion, Collins, and one or two others, that rhymeless batching or stanza-making is very seldom successful.#[28]

[Sidenote: Unevenness of line in length.]

#28. There is neither _a priori_ objection nor _a posteriori_ inconvenience to be urged against the construction of stanzas or batches in lines of very uneven length.#

[Sidenote: Stanzas to be judged by the ear.]

#29. Every stanza-scheme must undergo, and is finally to be judged by, the test of the ear, and that only.#

[Sidenote: Origin of commonest line-combinations.]

#30. The commonest and oldest line-combinations--octosyllabic couplet, "common" or "ballad" measure, "long" and "short" measure, etc.--in some cases demonstrably, in all probably, result from the breaking up of the old long line ("fifteener" or "fourteener"), which itself came from the metricalising of the O.E. double stave.#

§ F. RHYME

[Sidenote: Rhyme natural in English.]

#31. It is natural to English poetry--_i.e._ Middle and Modern English, or English poetry proper--to rhyme; and, except in the case of blank verse, no unrhymed measure for the last seven centuries has ever produced large quantities of uniformly satisfactory quality.#

[Sidenote: It must be "full,"]

#32. Rhyme in English must be "full," _i.e._ consonantal (on the vowel _and_ following consonant or consonants), not merely assonantal (on the vowel only). Assonance by itself is insufficient.#

[Sidenote: and not identical.]

#33. It should not, according to modern usage, be _identical_--that is to say, the rhyming syllables should not consist of exactly the same vowels and consonants. But exceptions to this may be found in good poets, especially when the _words_ are not the same.#

[Sidenote: General rule as to it.]

#34. Good rhyme has necessarily varied, at different times, with pronunciation; but a certain rough rule may be seen prevailing not uncommonly, that vowels in rhyme may take the value which they have in words other than those actually employed.[29]#

[Sidenote: Alliteration.]

#35. What is sometimes called "_head_-rhyme" (_i.e._ "alliteration") has now no place in English as rhyme at all, nor does it constitute either metre or stanza; but it is a permissible, and often a very considerable, ornament to verse.#

[Sidenote: Single, etc., rhyme.]

#36. Rhyme is either single (on the last syllable only), double (on the two last), or triple (on the three last). Beyond three the effect would be burlesque, and this is hard to keep out of triple rhyme, and even sometimes seems to menace the double.#

[Sidenote: Fullness of sound.]

#37. In serious poetry the fuller in sound the single rhyme is the better.#

[Sidenote: Internal rhyme permissible,]

#38. Rhyme is usually at the end of the line; but it may be "internal"; that is to say, syllables at one or even more than one place within the line may rhyme to the syllable at the end or to each other, and syllables within one line may rhyme to those at corresponding places within another.#

[Sidenote: but sometimes dangerous.]

#39. But this has a dangerous tendency to break the lines up.#

§ G. MISCELLANEOUS

[Sidenote: Vowel-music.]

#40. The effect of English poetry at all times, but especially for the last hundred years, has been largely dependent on _Vowel-music_. This is by no means limited to the practice of what used to be called "making the sound suit the sense," though the two sometimes coincide. Vowel-music, not without occasional assistance from consonants, establishes a sort of _accompaniment_ to the intelligible poetry--a prosodic _setting_.#

[Sidenote: "Fingering."]

#41. In the management of this, as of rhyme, pause, enjambment, and even the selection and juxtaposition of feet themselves, the poet often, if not as a rule in the best examples, uses particular sleights of fingering and execution parallel to those of the musical composer and performer. The results of this may appear to constitute verse-sections different from the feet. But these, however, never supersede feet, and are always resolvable into them; nor do they ever supply criteria for anything except the individual line or passage. They stand to prosody proper very much as delivery or elocution does to rhetoric. The conveniences of this "fingering," or poetic elocution, as well as sense and other things, may sometimes bring about _alternative_ scansions, but all these connect themselves with and are obedient to the general foot system.#[30]

[Sidenote: Confusion of rhythms intolerable.]

#42. Despite this possibility of alternative scansion, and the other and commoner possibility of substitution of individual feet, iambic and trochaic, dactylic and anapæstic, metre or rhythm remain entirely distinct. Any system which regards these as merely different names for the same thing is self-condemned as disregarding the evidence, or rather verdict, of the ear.#

FOOTNOTES:

[25] See above, Rule 2. It should be hardly necessary to remark that the explanations and exemplifications of these rules are to be furnished by the whole book, and that the Glossary in particular should be in constant use.

[26] _E.g._ "fāte" or "fāst" as opposed to "făt"; "mēet" to "dĕter"; "rīte" to "fĭt"; "ōmen" to "ŏtter"; "dūpe" to "bŭt."

[27] The combination of dactyl and trochee in English, however, will not produce the same effect as the combination of dactyl and spondee in Latin or Greek.

[28] Rules 26 and 27 do not apply to _un_metrical verse, such as the old alliterative couplet-line, or the rhythmed prose-verse of _Ossian_, Blake, and Whitman.

[29] Thus Dryden rhymes "travell_er_" to "st_ar_," giving the _er_ the value it has in "cl_er_k."

[30] For elucidation and example see below, in Glossary, as above noted, p. 8. The "sections" referred to are not those of Guest.