Chapter VII: Recapitulation or Summary View of Stages of English Prosody

I. OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

Prosody rhythmical, not metrical; determined exclusively by alliteration and accent. Combinations of accented and unaccented syllables perhaps classifiable, but seldom, if ever, reducible to any combination corresponding to the flow of later Middle and Modern English verse, though the _principle_ (of syllabic irregularity in corresponding lines) _survives as the most important basis of that verse itself_. Rhyme, except in the piece specially entitled "Rhyming Poem" and other very late examples, practically non-existent; the instances collected from other places being very few and quite possibly accidental.

II. BEFORE OR VERY SOON AFTER 1200

_Earliest Middle English Period._

_No_ pure and unmixed alliterative-accentual verse of the old kind, but a choice between pure syllabic metre of iambic type (_Ormulum_), less regular but clearly metrical (_i.e._ "_foot_-measured") verse, iambic or trochaic (_Paternoster_, _Moral Ode_, etc.), and singular mixtures of the alliterative kind (badly done), and the metrical kind (sometimes done rather better) (_Layamon_, _Proverbs of Alfred_).

III. MIDDLE AND LATER THIRTEENTH CENTURY

_Second Early Middle English Period._

The metrifying process going on, with stronger emphasising of the metrical character and almost complete discarding of the alliterative (_King Horn_, late in the century, has sometimes been claimed as an exception, but without good reason). Definite forms emerge: the two great kinds of octosyllabic couplet--more strictly _syllabic_ (_Owl and Nightingale_), or less so (_Genesis and Exodus_); the fifteener-fourteener or seven-foot iambic (_Robert of Gloucester_); the _rime couée_ or "Romance-six" (_Proverbs of Hendyng_). _Of pure alliterative verse there is no trace whatever._

IV. EARLIER FOURTEENTH CENTURY

_Central Period of Middle English._

The metrical development attains complete predominance in the _Romances_ (chiefly octosyllabic couplet or "Romance-six"), and in lyrics such as those of the Harleian MS. 2253. In both there is considerable _equivalence_, or substitution of trisyllabic (and perhaps also monosyllabic) for dissyllabic feet. The fourteener begins to break itself down into the ballad measure of eight and six, with or without full alternate rhyme. Decasyllabic couplet appears (as it had done even earlier) sporadically. But at an uncertain time--probably about the second third of the century--alliteration again makes its appearance, sometimes alone (_William of Palerne_), sometimes in company with some rhyme-arrangement (_Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_); and the two methods continue side by side (though with the alliteration always in the minority and seldom quite pure) for the best part of two hundred years, till well within the sixteenth century itself.

V. LATER FOURTEENTH CENTURY

_Crowning Period of Middle English._

The tendencies already indicated, and shown after 1350 by Laurence Minot, the writers in the Vernon MS., and others, culminate in three remarkable poets--Langland, Gower, and Chaucer. The first, who is probably the oldest (though the most plausible theory of his work puts it in stages from the sixth or seventh to the last decade of the century), eschews rhyme altogether, and (as far as he can, but not entirely) declines metrical form--preferring a modernised Old English line, strongly middle-paused, and regularly, but not lavishly, alliterated. Gower, with a little rhyme-royal, employs elsewhere, throughout his voluminous English work, octosyllabic couplet, nearer to the French or strictly syllabic norm than that of any other Middle English writer, though with some tell-tale approaches to variety. Chaucer, between the two, represents the true development of English prosody proper. He practises, from the (disputed) _Romaunt of the Rose_, to the (certain) _House of Fame_, the octosyllabic couplet; varies it remarkably and consciously; and gets from it effects excellent in their way, but never, apparently, quite satisfactory to himself. He adopts or imitates from the French, besides minor forms, the great rhyme-royal or _Troilus_ stanza. He has, in his prose, curious "shadows before" of blank verse. But his greatest metrical achievement is the taking up--whether wholly from French or with some consciousness of earlier sporadic attempts in English is disputed, but certainly in the perhaps unconscious line of those attempts--the decasyllabic or heroic couplet, which is first the sole vehicle of his _Legend of Good Women_, and secondly the main vehicle of _The Canterbury Tales_.

VI. FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

_The Decadence of Middle English Prosody._

The prosodic accomplishment of Chaucer, while representing all that Middle English was capable of attaining, represented more than it was capable of maintaining. His followers in Middle Scots, employing not the actual vernacular, but a "made" literary language, carried out his lessons for some time with great success. But those in Southern English appear to have--except in more or less pure folk-poems--succumbed partly to influences of change in pronunciation (which are very imperfectly understood, though the disuse of the final valued _e_ is the certain and central fact), partly to a loss of understanding (which is still more obscure in its nature and causes) of the metres themselves. From Lydgate to Hawes, rhyme-royal most of all, decasyllabic couplet (not so often tried) hardly less, and octosyllabic to a somewhat minor degree, exhibit the most painful irregularity, clumsiness, and prosaic effect, there being sometimes no regular rhythm, and nothing at all but the rhyme to give a poetical character to the composition. The "doggerel" of Skelton is a pretty obvious attempt to escape from this. Only ballad, carol, and the like seem to escape the curse.

VII. MID-SIXTEENTH CENTURY

_The Recovery of Rhythm._

In the second quarter of the sixteenth century attention seems to have been drawn to the "staggering state" of prosody; by the end of that quarter, or a very little later, we know from positive evidence that it was theoretically felt. But much earlier Sir Thomas Wyatt, and, in his tracks, Henry Howard, Lord Surrey, expressed the fact practically by their imitations of Italian forms. Both tried the sonnet; Wyatt attempted, with little success, _terza rima_; and Surrey, with more, tried blank verse. The regular quantification or accentuation necessary for the reproduction of these forms evidently gave them (and Wyatt more particularly and naturally, as the pioneer) a great deal of trouble; but they managed it--if not universally or perfectly--somehow; and they kept the practice up in lyric measures less strictly imitated. They also popularised--if they did not introduce--a new combination-variation of the old long lines into the so-called "poulter's measure" or couplet of twelve-fourteen syllables, easily breaking down into six, six, eight, six. Their example was followed by many poets between 1550 and 1580, iambic regularity establishing itself rather at the expense of poetic variety, but with an immense gain to the ear. A very important, though not in itself very poetical, development was also made in the regular anapæstics of Tusser; and the drama, taking up at last Surrey's blank verse, in the meantime experimented with all sorts of forms, regular and doggerel.

VIII. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

_The Perfecting of Metre and of Poetical Diction._

This invaluable if not always very stimulating period of drill and discipline (in which Wyatt and Surrey themselves, with Sackville later, are the chief and almost the only poets who transcend experiment) passes, a little before 1580, into one of complete poetic and proportionately complete prosodic accomplishment, with Spenser and his companions and followers for non-dramatic poetry, with Peele and Marlowe preluding Shakespeare in dramatic blank verse. The greatest pioneer, one who not only explores but attains, is Spenser; and he, after presenting in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ the most remarkable record of experiment in the history of English poetic form, proceeds to the perfect structure and exquisite diction of the _Faerie Queene_. He, however, hardly touches blank verse, and, after the _Calendar_, eschews the lighter lyric. But both these are taken up by others; and while lyric attains all but the highest possible stage of that diversity in harmony which is especially required by it, the possibilities of blank verse are more than suggested in Shakespeare's predecessors, and are, in the dramatic range, exhausted by Shakespeare himself. Outside the drama, however, and blank verse, the abiding fear of doggerel keeps back the due development of regularised substitution: verse is mostly iambic. But here also Shakespeare pierces the heart of the mystery, and the songs in his plays are as prosodically complete as his blank verse itself. There is much practice in sonnet, and, towards the end of the century, "riding rhyme" or heroic couplet, which had fallen into some disuse, is revived, chiefly for satiric or semi-satiric purposes (as by Spenser in _Mother Hubberd's Tale_, by Hall, Donne, and Marston in their definite satires, etc., and for "history" by Drayton).

IX. EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

_The further Development of Lyric, Stanza, and Blank Verse. Insurgence and Division of the Couplet._

Between the latest years of the sixteenth and the earliest of the seventeenth century there is naturally little difference, but the total transformation is rather rapid. Blank verse no sooner attains its absolute perfection in Shakespeare than it begins to show signs of overripeness, in the great tendency to redundance which even he shares in his latest plays, and which distinguishes Beaumont and Fletcher. Stanza does not, after the similar consummateness of Spenser, show a similar formal decline; but there arises a distaste for it. Only lyric perseveres in practically full flourishing; and even exhibits a certain further quintessence of beauty, though some loss of strength. Meanwhile, the decasyllabic couplet revives in a complicated fashion. It does not yet make much recovery of drama, but is very largely practised by Drayton, is declared (at least on Drummond's authority) to be "the bravest sort of verse" by Jonson, and made, towards the end of James the First's reign, the subject of a formal critical-poetical encomium by Sir John Beaumont. But it is a house divided against itself, and it is not till the "stopped" form (in which the rhymes sharply punctuate the sense) conquers the "enjambed" (which in _this_ sub-period is the favourite) that it attains complete popular favour.

X. MID-SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

_Milton._

The period, or sub-period, which may be called "mid-seventeenth century," on one side continues the developments described in the last section, and on another begins those which will be described in the next. But it contains almost the whole work of Milton, who belongs in one sense to both, in another to neither. If he had written no blank verse, he would still be of the first rank as a practical prosodist, in virtue of his stanza-forms, such as that in the "Hymn on the Nativity"; of his remarkably varied octosyllabic couplet in _L'Allegro_, _Il Penseroso_, _Arcades_, and _Comus_; of the almost unique strophes, with irregular rhyme, in _Lycidas_; of the _Sonnets_, adjusted not to the Elizabethan-English, but to the commoner Italian forms; and of the peculiar choric arrangements of _Samson Agonistes_. But it is undoubtedly as the introducer of blank verse for general poetic practice, and as the modulator of that verse in the directions previously described, that he stands as one of the very greatest masters of English prosody. For, on the one hand, he rescues "blanks" from the chaos into which, by the laches of the dramatists, they were falling; and, on the other, he establishes for ever (though it may sometimes be mistaken by individuals and periods) the principle of foot-equivalence and substitution in the individual line, with that of combination of several lines into a verse-paragraph.

XI. THE LATER SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

_Dryden._

For the moment, however, the work of Milton produces no effect, and though Dryden, his younger contemporary, uses, with great effect, a large variety of metres, his main importance, in the general history of prosody, consists in the establishment of the stopped heroic couplet as at once the most popular and the most dignified of English metres. But he does not at once make it into the strictly decasyllabic, strictly middle-paused kind which dominates the following century. On the initiation (partly at least) of Cowley, he varies it with the Alexandrine, which he sometimes includes in a triplet, while the same extension to three similarly rhymed lines, in decasyllable only, is still more frequent. If he does not exactly introduce, he popularises and for a time maintains, the same couplet in drama, but uses it most successfully in satiric and didactic verse, of extraordinary weight and vigour, while entirely destitute of monotony. He himself and his minor but more lyrical contemporaries, Rochester, Sedley, Afra Behn, etc., continue the older Caroline tradition of song in varied measures, but it dies out. On the other hand, his practice (suggested, doubtless, by Davenant's _Gondibert_) of the decasyllabic quatrain, and the majestic if not fully Pindaric strophes of his _Odes_, supply models which serve to vary the unbroken prevalence of the couplet, and are followed by Gray and others, during the succeeding century, with exceptionally fine results.

XII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The summary of the history of eighteenth-century prosody has been foreshadowed in the above lines. Addison, Garth, and others follow Dryden; and Pope further "corrects" him in a couplet which becomes polished to the extreme, but, when handled without almost supreme genius, is distinctly monotonous. And this couplet, with almost complete and definite acceptance by theorists and little overt protest on the part of practitioners, assumes the position of premier metre in English for long poems, continuing to hold it throughout the hundred years. Lyric, too, confines itself to relatively few forms, chiefly iambic--the "common" and "long" measure, the Romance-six, the decasyllabic quatrain, the regular or irregular Pindaric ode. There are, however, certain privileged exceptions to the uniformity. Two poets not in their first youth at the beginning of the century--Prior and Swift--secure a position for the light octosyllable and for anapæstic measures; Gray and Collins raise the ode; Thomson--preceded by one or two minor poets, and followed by a considerable number, some of whom are not so minor--takes up "the manner of Milton," that is to say, blank verse. Even in the first half of the century Shenstone timidly pleads for trisyllabic substitution, while in the second half Chatterton and Blake boldly practise it; and that study of old (and especially ballad) English verse, of which Percy's _Reliques_ is the central example, slowly but surely leads the way to a restoration of its principles.

XIII. THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AND THE ROMANTIC REVIVAL

In no department of poetic practice does the great Romantic revival, after forerunnings in Chatterton and Blake, show itself, in the latest years of the eighteenth century, and the earliest of the nineteenth, more perceptibly than in that of prosody. Only one of its masters--Wordsworth--slights this revival in theory, while he is not of the first mark in practice. But Coleridge, in _The Ancient Mariner_ and _Christabel_, restores and perfects equivalence on a doubtful principle, but with consummate practical effect. Southey, less effective practically, is both sounder and more original in theory; Scott takes up Coleridge's example in all his verse-romances, and completely vindicates the freedom of lyric; Byron, affecting admiration of the couplet, achieves his own best work in Coleridge-Scott octosyllables, in Spenserians, in octaves, and in lyric; Shelley pushes the various and unfettered lyrical movement to its almost inconceivable farthest; and Keats revives (after Leigh Hunt) the enjambed couplet in decasyllable, recovers an octosyllabic form unknown since Gower and only partially utilised by him, writes exquisite Spenserians and beautiful octaves, comes perhaps nearest Milton in blank verse and nearest Dryden in the other kind of couplet, and achieves forms of ode, classical and Romantic, of astonishing flexibility and charm. By and in these, and in many minors from Moore downwards, the freedom of prosody, and the great instrument of that freedom, the equivalenced foot, are championed and practised with almost all the variety possible.

XIV. THE LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY

The process of varying and extending the forms of prosody, by the special instrument above noticed and others, and under the direction of a general effort to give those forms a wider visual and audible appeal to the mind's senses, continues in the two later groups or stages--of which the chief representatives are, in the first case, Tennyson and Browning; in the second, Mr. Swinburne, the Rossettis, and William Morris--with constant recovery or fresh invention of prosodic effect.

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It is on the continuity of this history that the student should keep his eye. Looked at partially, it may seem to lack this continuity; looked at as a whole, it will be seen to exhibit exactly the alternate or successive predominance of different tendencies and developments in which all healthy life-history consists. No partial and inconsecutive explanations as to widely differing pronunciation of vowels at different times, none of "quantity" having the preference at one time and "accent" at another, or of certain feet inclining to these things respectively, are necessary, or should be entertained. The birth, progress, and perfecting of the foot under the guidance of equivalent substitution, now vividly present, now apparently in abeyance, but always potentially existing--this is "the mystery of this wonderful history," the open secret of English prosodic life.