Chapter CVIII: Section I: Of Verse

Verse, in opposition to prose, is language arranged into metrical lines of some determinate length and rhythm--language so ordered as to produce harmony, by a due succession of poetic feet, or of syllables differing in quantity or stress.

DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES.

The _rhythm_ of verse is its relation of quantities; the modulation of its numbers; or, the kind of metre, measure, or movement, of which it consists, or by which it is particularly distinguished.

The _quantity_ of a syllable, as commonly explained, is the relative portion of time occupied in uttering it. In poetry, every syllable is considered to be either long or short. A long syllable is usually reckoned to be equal to two short ones.

In the construction of English verse, long quantity coincides always with the primary accent, generally also with the secondary, as well as with emphasis; and short quantity, as reckoned by the poets, is found only in unaccented syllables, and unemphatical monosyllabic words.[483]

The quantity of a syllable, whether long or short, does not depend on what is called the long or the short sound of a vowel or diphthong, or on a supposed distinction of accent as affecting vowels in some cases and consonants in others, but principally on the degree of energy or loudness with which the syllable is uttered, whereby a greater or less portion of time is employed.

The open vowel sounds, which are commonly but not very accurately termed _long_, are those which are the most easily protracted, yet they often occur in the shortest and feeblest syllables; while, on the other hand, no vowel sound, that occurs under the usual stress of accent or of emphasis, is either so short in its own nature, or is so "quickly joined to the succeeding letter," that the syllable is not one of long quantity.

Most monosyllables, in English, are variable in quantity, and may be made either long or short, as strong or weak sounds suit the sense and rhythm; but words of greater length are, for the most part, fixed, their accented syllables being always long, and a syllable immediately before or after the accent almost always short.

One of the most obvious distinctions in poetry, is that of rhyme and blank verse. _Rhyme_ is a similarity of sound, combined with a difference: occurring usually between the last syllables of different lines, but sometimes at other intervals; and so ordered that the rhyming syllables begin differently and end alike. _Blank verse_ is verse without rhyme.

The principal rhyming syllables are almost always long. Double rhyme adds one short syllable; triple rhyme, two. Such syllables are redundant in iambic and anapestic verses; in lines of any other sort, they are generally, if not always, included in the measure.

A _Stanza_ is a combination of several verses, or lines, which, taken together, make a regular division of a poem. It is the common practice of good versifiers, to form all stanzas of the same poem after one model. The possible variety of stanzas is infinite; and the actual variety met with in print is far too great for detail.

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Verse, in the broadest acceptation of the term, is poetry, or metrical language, in general. This, to the eye, is usually distinguished from prose by the manner in which it is written and printed. For, in very many instances, if this were not the case, the reader would be puzzled to discern the difference. The division of poetry into its peculiar lines, is therefore not a mere accident. The word _verse_, from the Latin _versus_, literally signifies a _turning_. Each full line of metre is accordingly called a verse; because, when its measure is complete, the writer _turns_ to place another under it. A _verse_, then, in the primary sense of the word with us, is, "A _line_ consisting of a certain succession of sounds, and number of syllables."--_Johnson, Walker, Todd, Bottes_, and others. Or, according to _Webster_, it is, "A poetic _line_, consisting of a certain number of long and short syllables, disposed according to the rules of the species of poetry which the author intends to compose."--See _American Dict._, 8vo.

OBS. 2.--If to settle the theory of English verse on true and consistent principles, is as difficult a matter, as the manifold contrarieties of doctrine among our prosodists would indicate, there can be no great hope of any scheme entirely satisfactory to the intelligent examiner. The very elements of the subject are much perplexed by the incompatible dogmas of authors deemed skillful to elucidate it. It will scarcely be thought a hard matter to distinguish true verse from prose, yet is it not well agreed, wherein the difference consists: what the generality regard as the most essential elements or characteristics of the former, some respectable authors dismiss entirely from their definitions of both verse and versification. The existence of quantity in our language; the dependence of our rhythms on the division of syllables into long and short; the concurrence of our accent, (except in some rare and questionable instances,) with long quantity only; the constant effect of emphasis to lengthen quantity; the limitation of quantity to mere duration of sound; the doctrine that quantity pertains to all _syllables_ as such, and not merely to vowel sounds; the recognition of the same general principles of syllabication in poetry as in prose; the supposition that accent pertains not to certain _letters_ in particular, but to certain _syllables_ as such; the limitation of accent to stress, or percussion, only; the conversion of short syllables into long, and long into short, by a change of accent; our frequent formation of long syllables with what are called short vowels; our more frequent formation of short syllables with what are called long or open vowels; the necessity of some order in the succession of feet or syllables to form a rhythm; the need of framing each line to correspond with some other line or lines in length; the propriety of always making each line susceptible of scansion by itself: all these points, so essential to a true explanation of the nature of English verse, though, for the most part, well maintained by some prosodists, are nevertheless denied by some, so that opposite opinions may be cited concerning them all. I would not suggest that all or any of these points are thereby made _doubtful_; for there may be opposite judgements in a dozen cases, and yet concurrence enough (if concurrence _can_ do it) to establish them every one.

OBS. 3.--An ingenious poet and prosodist now living,[484] Edgar Allan Poe, (to whom I owe a word or two of reply,) in his "Notes upon English Verse," with great self-complacency, represents, that, "While much has been written upon the structure of the Greek and Latin rhythms, comparatively _nothing_ has been done as regards the English;" that, "It may be said, indeed, we are _without a treatise_ upon our own versification;" that "The very best" _definition_ of versification[485] to be found in any of "_our ordinary treatises_ on the topic," has "_not a single point_ which does not involve an error;" that, "A _leading deft_ in each of these treatises is the confining of the subject to mere _versification_, while metre, or rhythm, in general, is the real question at issue;" that, "Versification is _not_ the art, but the _act_'--of making verses;" that, "A correspondence in the _length_ of lines is by no means essential;" that "_Harmony_" produced "by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity," does not include "_melody_;" that "A _regular alternation_, as described, forms _no part_ of the principle of metre:" that "There is no necessity of _any regularity_ in the succession of _feet_;" that, "By consequence," he ventures to "dispute the _essentiality_ of any alternation, regular or irregular, of _syllables_ long and short:" that, "For _anything more intelligible_ or _more satisfactory_ than this definition [i. e., G. Brown's former definition of versification,] we shall look in vain in _any published_ treatise upon the subject;" that, "So general and _so total a failure_ can be referred only to some _radical misconception_;" that, "The word _verse_ is derived (through _versus_ from the Latin _verto, I turn_,) and * * * * it can be nothing but _this derivation_, which has led to _the error_ of our writers upon prosody;" that, "_It is this_ which _has seduced them_ into regarding the _line_ itself--the _versus_, or turning--as an essential, or principle of metre;" that, "Hence the term _versification_ has been employed as sufficiently general, or inclusive, for treatises upon rhythm in general;" that, "Hence, also, [comes] the precise catalogue of a few varieties of English _lines_, when these varieties are, in fact, almost without limit;" that, "_I_," the aforesaid Edgar Allan Poe, "_shall dismiss entirely_, from the consideration of the principle of _rhythm_, the idea of _versification_, or the construction of verse;" that, "In so doing, _we_ shall avoid _a world of confusion_;" that, "_Verse_ is, indeed, an _afterthought_, or an _embellishment_, or an _improvement_, rather than an element of rhythm;" that, "_This fact_ has induced the easy admission, into the realms of Poesy, of _such works_ as the 'Télémaque' of Fenelon;" because, forsooth, "In the elaborate modulation of their sentences, THEY FULFIL THE IDEA OF METRE."--_The Pioneer, a Literary and Critical Magazine_ (Boston, March, 1843,) Vol. I, p. 102 to 105.

OBS. 4.--"Holding these things in view," continues this sharp connoisseur, "the prosodist who rightly examines that which constitutes the external, or most immediately _recognisable_, form of Poetry, will commence with the definition of _Rhythm_. Now _rhythm_, from the Greek [_Greek: arithmos_], _number_, is a term which, in its present application, very nearly _conveys its own idea_. No more _proper_ word could be employed to present _the conception intended_; for _rhythm_, in prosody, is, in its _last analysis_, identical with _time_ in music. _For this reason_," says he, "I have used, throughout this article, as synonymous with _rhythm_, the word _metre_ from [Greek: metron], _measure_. Either the one or the other may be defined as _the arrangement of words into two or more consecutive, equal, pulsations of time_. These pulsations are _feet_. Two feet, at least, are requisite to constitute a _rhythm_; just as, in mathematics, two units are necessary to form [a] _number_.[486] The syllables of which the foot consists, when the foot is not a syllable in itself, are subdivisions of the pulsations. No equality is demanded in these subdivisions. It is only required that, so far as regards two consecutive feet at least, the sum of the times of the syllables in one, shall be equal to the sum of the times of the syllables in the other. Beyond two pulsations there is no necessity for equality of time. All beyond is arbitrary or conventional. A third or fourth pulsation may embody half, or double, or any proportion of the time occupied in the two first. Rhythm being thus understood, the prosodist should proceed to define _versification_ as _the making of verses_, and _verse_ as _the arbitrary or conventional isolation of rhythm into masses of greater or less extent_."--_Ib._, p. 105.

OBS. 5.--No marvel that all usual conceptions and definitions of rhythm, of versification, and of verse, should be found dissatisfactory to the critic whose idea of _metre_ is fulfilled by the pompous _prose_ of Fenelon's Télémaque. No right or real examination of this matter can ever make the most immediately _recognizable_ form of poetry to be any thing else than the form of _verse_--the form of writing in _specific lines_, ordered by number and chime of syllables, and not squared by gage of the composing-stick. And as to the derivation and primitive signification of _rhythm_, it is plain that in the extract above, both are misrepresented. The etymology there given is a gross error; for, "the Greek [_Greek: arithmos_], _number_," would make, in English, not _rhythm_, but _arithm_, as in _arithmetic_. Between the two combinations, there is the palpable difference of three or four letters in either six; for neither of these forms can be varied to the other, but by dropping one letter, and adding an other, and changing a third, and moving a fourth. _Rhythm_ is derived, not thence, but from the Greek [_Greek: rhythmos_]; which, according to the lexicons, is a primitive word, and means, _rhythmus, rhythm, concinnity, modulation, measured tune_, or _regular flow_, and _not "number_."

OBS. 6.--_Rhythm_, of course, like every other word not misapplied, "conveys _its own idea_;" and that, not qualifiedly, or "_very nearly_," but _exactly_. That this idea, however, was originally that of arithmetical _number_, or is nearly so now, is about as fanciful a notion, as the happy suggestion added above, that _rhythm_ in lieu of _arithm_ or _number_, is the fittest of words, _because_ "rhythm in prosody is _time_ in music!" Without dispute, it is important to the prosodist, and also to the poet or versifier, to have as accurate an idea as possible of the import of this common term, though it is observable that many of our grammarians make little or no use of it. That it has some relation to _numbers_, is undeniable. But what is it? Poetic numbers, and numbers in arithmetic, and numbers in grammar, are three totally different sorts of things. _Rhythm_ is related only to the first. Of the signification of this word, a recent expositor gives the following brief explanation: "RHYTHM, _n._ Metre; verse; _numbers_. Proportion applied to any motion whatever."--_Bolles's Dictionary_, 8vo. To this definition, Worcester prefixes the following: "The consonance of measure and time in poetry, _prose composition_, and music;--also in dancing."--_Universal and Critical Dict._ In verse, the proportion which forms rhythm--that is, the chime of quantities--is applied to the _sounds_ of syllables. Sounds, however, may be considered as a species of _motion_, especially those which are rhythmical or musical.[487] It seems more strictly correct, to regard rhythm as a _property_ of poetic numbers, than to identify it with them. It is their proportion or modulation, rather than the numbers themselves. According to Dr. Webster, "RHYTHM, or RHYTHMUS, in _music_ [is] variety in the movement as to quickness or slowness, or length and shortness of the notes; or _rather_ the proportion which the parts of the motion have to each other."--_American Dict._ The "_last analysis_" of rhythm can be nothing else than the reduction of it to its _least parts_. And if, in this reduction, it is "identical with _time_," then it is here the same thing as _quantity_, whether prosodical or musical; for, "The _time_ of a note, or syllable, is called _quantity_. The time of a _rest_ is also called quantity; because _rests_, as well as notes are a constituent of rhythm."--_Comstock's Elocution_, p. 64. But rhythm is, in fact, neither time nor quantity; for the analysis which would make it such, destroys the relation in which the thing consists.