Chapter II: Systems of English Prosody--The Accentual or Stress

[Sidenote: Classical prosody uniform in theory.]

The great difficulty attending the study of English prosody, and the cause of the fact that no book hitherto published can be said to possess actual authority on the subject, arises from the other fact that no general agreement exists, or ever has existed, on the root-principles of the matter.[3] Classical writers on metre, of whom we possess a tolerable stock, differed with each other on many minor points of opinion, and from each other in the ways in which they attacked the subject. But they were practically agreed that "quantity" (_i.e._ the difference of technical "time" in pronunciation of syllables) and "feet"--that is to say, certain regular mathematical combinations of "long" and "short" quantity--constituted metre. They had indeed accent--the later Greeks certainly and the Latins probably--which was independent of, and perhaps sometimes opposed to, quantity; but except in what we call the ante-classical times of Latin and the post-classical times of both Latin and Greek, it had nothing to do with metrical arrangement. They had different values of "long" and "short"; but these did not affect metre, nor did the fact that in both languages, but especially in Greek, a certain number of syllables were allowed to be "common"--that is to say, capable of taking the place of "long" or "short" alike. The central system of prosodic arrangement (till the flooding of the later Empire with "barbarians" of various nationality and as various intonation and modes of speech broke it down altogether) remained the same. "Longs" and "shorts" in the various combinations and permutations possible, up to three syllables most commonly, up to four in fewer cases, and possibly up to five in still fewer, made up _lines_ which experiment discovered to be harmonious, and practice adopted as such. These lines were sometimes used continuously (with or without certain internal variations of feet, considered equivalent to each other), as in modern blank verse; sometimes arranged in batches corresponding more or less to each other, as in modern couplet or stanza poetry.

[Sidenote: English not so.]

On the other hand, though English prosodists may sometimes agree on details, translated into their different terminologies, the systems which lie at the root of these terminologies are almost irreconcilably different. Even the reduction of these systems to three types may excite protest, though it is believed that it can be made out without begging the question in favour of any one.

[Sidenote: "Accent" and "stress."]

The discord begins as early as possible; for there are some who would maintain that "accentual" systems and "stress" systems ought not to be identified, or even associated. It is quite true that the words are technically used[4] with less or more extensive and intensive meaning; but definitions of each are almost always driven to adopt the other, and in prosodic systems they are practically inseparable. The soundest distinction perhaps is that "accent" refers to the habitual stress laid on a syllable in ordinary pronunciation; "stress" to a syllable specially accented for this or that reason, logical, rhetorical, or prosodic purely.

[Sidenote: English prosody as adjusted to them.]

According to this system (or systems) English poetry consists of syllables--accented or unaccented, stressed or unstressed--arranged on principles which, whatever they may be in themselves, have no analogy to those of classical feet. According to the more reckless and thorough-going accentualists--the view is expressed, with all but its utmost crudity, in Coleridge's celebrated Preface to _Christabel_[5]--all you have got to do is to look to the accents. Cruder advocates still have said that "accents take the place of feet" (which is something like saying that points take the place of swords), or that unaccented syllables are "left to take care of themselves." It has also been contended that the number and the position of accents or stresses give a complete and sufficient scheme of the metre. And in some late forms of stress-prosody the regularity, actual or comparative, which used to be contended for by accentualists themselves, is entirely given up; lines in continuous and apparently identical arrangement may have two, three, four, five, or even more stresses. While yet others have gone farther still and deliberately proposed reading of verse as a prose paragraph, the natural stresses of which will give the rhythm at which the author aimed.[6] Some again would deny the existence of any normal form of staple lines like the heroic, distributing them in "bars" of "beats" which may vary almost indefinitely.

On the other hand, there are some accentualists who hardly differ, in more than terminology, from the upholders of a foot-and-quantity system. They think that there is no or little time-quantity in English; that an English "long" syllable is really an accented one only, and an English short syllable an unaccented. They would not neglect the unaccented syllables; but would keep them in batches similar to, if not actually homonymous with, feet. In fact the difference with them becomes, if not one of mere terminology, one chiefly on the previous question of the final constitution and causation of "long" and "short" syllables. Of these, and of a larger number who consciously or unconsciously approach nearer to, though they do not actually enter, the "go-as-you-please" prosody of the extreme stressmen, the majority of English prosodists has nearly always consisted. Gascoigne, our first writer on the subject, belonged to them, calling accent itself "emphasis," and applying the term "accent" only to the written or typographical symbols of it; while he laid great stress on its observance in verse. With those who adopt this system, and its terminology, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb in the heroic line is "inversion of accent," the raising or lowering of the usual pronounced value of a syllable, "wrenching of accent," and so on. And the principal argument which they advance in favour of their system against the foot-and-quantity scheme is the very large prevalence of "common" syllables in English--an undoubted fact; though the inference does not seem to follow.

[Sidenote: Its difficulties]

The mere use of the word "unaccented" for "short" and "accented" for "long" does no particular harm, though it seems to some clumsy, irrational, and not always strictly correct even from its own point of view, while it produces unnecessary difficulty in the case of feet, or "sections," with _no_ accent in them--things which most certainly exist in English poetry. But the moment that advance is made upon this mere question of words and names, far more serious mischief arises. There can be no doubt that the insistence on strict accent, alternately placed, led directly to the monotonous and snip-snap verse of the eighteenth century. In some cases it leads, logically and necessarily, to denial of such feet as those just mentioned--a denial which flies straight in the face of fact. Although it does not necessarily involve, it most frequently leads also to, the forbidding, ignoring, or shuffling off of trisyllabic feet, which are the chief glory and the chief charm of English poetry, as substituted for dissyllabic. And, further still, it leads to the most extraordinary confusion of rhythms--accentualists very commonly, if not always, maintaining that, inasmuch as there are the same number of accented syllables, it does not matter whether you scan

Whēn | thĕ Brī|tĭsh wār|rĭŏr quēen |

iambically or

Whēn thĕ | Brītĭsh | wārrĭŏr | quēen

trochaically,

Īn thĕ hĕx|āmĕtĕr | rīsĕs thĕ | fōuntāin's | sīlvĕry̆ | cōlūmn

dactylically or

Īn | thĕ hĕxām|ĕtĕr rī|sĕs thĕ fōun|tāin's sīl|vĕry̆ cōl|ūmn

anapæstically.

Further still, and almost worst of all, it leads to the enormities of fancy stress above referred to, committed by people who decline to regard as "long" syllables not accented in ordinary pronunciation.

[Sidenote: and insufficiencies.]

But its greatest crime is its hopeless inadequacy, poverty, and "beggarly elementariness." At best the accentual prosodist, unless he is a quantitative one in disguise, confines himself to the mere skeleton of the lines, and neglects their delicately formed and softly coloured flesh and members. To leave unaccented syllables "as it were to take care of themselves" is to make prosody mere singsong or patter.

Finally, it may be observed that, in all accentual or stress prosodies which are not utterly loose and desultory, there is a tendency to multiply exceptions, provisos, minor classifications to suit particular cases, and the like, so that English prosody assumes the aspect, not of a combination of general order and individual freedom, but of a tangle of by-laws and partial regulations. Unnecessary when it is not mischievous, mischievous when it is strictly and logically carried out, the accentual system derives its only support from the fact above mentioned (the large number of common syllables to be found in English), from the actual existence of it in _Old_ English before the language and the poetry had been modified by Romance admixture, and from an unscientific application of the true proposition that the classical and the English prosodies are _in some respects_ radically different.

[Sidenote: Examples of its application.]

It will, however, of course be proper to give examples of the manner in which accentual (or stress) scansion is worked by its own partisans and exponents. Their common formula for the English heroic line in its normal aspect is 5^_xa_:[7]

What òft | was thòught, | but nè'er | so wèll | exprèst.

If they meet with a trisyllabic foot, as in

And ma|ny an am|orous, ma|ny a hu|morous lay,

they either admit _two_ unaccented syllables between the accents, or suggest "slur" or _synalœpha_ or "elision" ("man-yan"), this last especially taking place with the definite article "the" ("th'"). But this last process need not be insisted on by accentualists, though it must by the next class we shall come to.

It is common, if not universal, for accentual prosodists to hold that two accents must not come together, so that they are troubled by that double line of Milton's where the ending and beginning run--

Bòth stòod
Bòth tùrned,

They admit occasional "inversion of accent" (trochaic substitution)--especially at the opening of a verse,--as in the line which Milton begins with

Màker;

but, when they hold fast to their principles, dislike it much in other cases, as, for instance, in

fàlls to | the gròund.

And they complain when the accent which they think necessary falls, as they call it, on one of two weak syllables, as in

And when. |

This older and simpler school, however, represented by Johnson, has been largely supplemented by another, whose members use the term "stress" or _ictus_ in preference to "accent," and to a greater or less extent give up the attempt to establish normality of line at all.

[Sidenote: Its various sects and supporters.]

Some of them[8] admit lines of four, three, or even two stresses, as, for instance--

His mìn|isters of vèn|geance and pursùit. |

Others[9] break it up into "bars" or "sections" which need not contain the same or any fixed number of "beats" or "stresses," while some again[10] seem to regard the stresses of a whole passage as supplying, like those of a prose paragraph, a sufficient rhythmical skeleton the flesh of which--the unaccented or unstressed part--is allowed to huddle itself on and shuffle itself along as it pleases.

This school has received large recent accessions; but even now the greater number of accentualists do little more than eschew the terms of quantity, and substitute for them those of accent, more or less consistently. Many of them even use the classical names and divisions of feet; and with these there need not, according to strict necessity, be any quarrel, since their error, if it be one, only affects the constitution of prosodic material before it is verse at all, and not the actual prosodic arrangement of verse as such.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Or, it may be added, on its terminology; whence it results that there is no subject on which it is so difficult to write without being constantly misunderstood. It is perhaps not surprising that some people almost deny the existence of English prosody itself, and decline at any rate to take it seriously; while others talk about it in ways which half justify the sceptics.

[4] It is inevitable, in dealing with this subject, that technicalities, historical and literary references, etc., should be plentifully employed. To explain them always in the text would mean endless and disgusting delay and repetition; to give notes of cross-reference in every case would bristle the lower part of the page unnecessarily and hideously. Not merely the Contents and Index, but the various Glossaries and Lists in the Fourth Book have been expressly arranged to supply explanation and assistance in the least troublesome and most compendious manner. But special references will be given when they seem absolutely necessary.

[5] See on this in Book III.

[6] See the article in Glossary on "Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse," and Rule 41, _infra_, p. 35.

[7] This formula seems due to Latham, the compiler of a well-known work on Language. The foot-division mark | has been sometimes adopted (by Guest) and defended (by Professor Skeat, who, however, does not personally employ it) as a substitute for the accent mark. For arguments against this which seem to the present writer strong, see _H. E. P._ i. 8, and iii. 276, 544-545.

[8] Of whom the most important by far is Mr. Bridges, though he has never, I think, reduced the number to two, or increased it above five. Others, however, have admitted _eight_!

[9] _E.g._ Mr. Thomson, Sir W. M'Cormick, M. Verrier.

[10] _E.g._ Mr. J. A. Symonds, Mr. Hewlett.