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[page 1, Wakeman fragment:]
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THE RATIONALE OF VERSE.*
BY EDGAR A. POE.
The word "Verse" is here used not in
its strict
or
primitive sense, but as the term most convenient for expressing
generally
and without pedantry all that is involved in the consideration of
rhythm,
rhyme, metre, and versification.
There is, perhaps, no topic in polite
literature
which has been more pertinaciously discussed, and there is certainly
not
one about which so much inaccuracy, confusion, misconception,
misrepresentation,
mystification, and downright ignorance on all sides, can be fairly said
to exist. Were the topic really difficult, or did it lie, even, in the
cloudland of metaphysics, where the doubt-vapors may be made to assume
any and every shape at the will or at the fancy of the gazer, we should
have less reason to wonder at all this contradiction and perplexity;
but
in fact the subject is exceedingly simple; one tenth of it, possibly,
may
be called ethical; nine tenths, however, appertain to the mathematics;
and
the whole is included within the limits of the commonest common sense.
"But, if this is the case, how", it
will be
asked,
"can so much misunderstanding have arisen? Is it conceivable that a
thousand
profound scholars, investigating so very simple a matter for centuries,
have not been able to place it in the fullest light, at least, of which
it is susceptible?" These queries, I confess, are not easily answered:
—
at all events a satisfactory reply to them might cost more trouble
than
would, if properly considered, the whole vexata quæstio to
which
they have reference. Nevertheless, there is little difficulty or danger
in suggesting that the "thousand profound scholars" may have
failed,
[page 2, Leavitt fragment:]
first because they were scholars, secondly because they were
profound,
and thirdly because they were a thousand — the impotency of the
scholarship
and profundity having been thus multiplied a thousand fold. I am
serious
in these suggestions; for, first again, there is something in
"scholarship"
which seduces us into blind worship of Bacon's Idol of the Theatre —
into
irrational deference to antiquity; secondly, the proper "profundity" is
rarely profound — it is the nature of Truth in general, as of some ores
in particular, to be richest when most superficial;
thirdly, the
clearest
subject may be overclouded by mere superabundance of talk. In
chemistry,
the best way of separating two bodies is to add a third; in
speculation,
fact often agrees with fact and argument with argument, until an
additional
well-meaning fact or argument sets every thing by the ears. In one case
out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is
obscure;
in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because excessively
discussed.
When a topic is thus circumstanced, the readiest mode of investigating
it is to forget that any previous investigation has been attempted.
But, in fact, while much has been
written on the
Greek and Latin rhythms, and even on the Hebrew, little effort has been
made at examining that of any of the modern tongues. As regards the
English,
comparatively nothing has been done. It may be said, indeed, that we
are
without a treatise on our own verse. In our ordinary grammars and in
our
works on rhetoric or prosody in general, may be found occasional
chapters,
it is true, which have the heading, "Versification", but these are, in
all instances, exceedingly meagre. They pretend to no analysis; they
propose
nothing like system; they make no attempts at even rule; every thing
depends
upon "authority." They are confined, in fact, to mere exemplification
of
the supposed varieties of English feet and English lines; —
although
[page 3, Valentine fragment:]
in
no work with which I am acquainted are these feet correctly given or
these
lines detailed in anything like their full extent. Yet what has been
mentioned
is all — if we except the occasional introduction of some
pedagogue-ism,
such as this borrowed from the Greek Prosodies: — "When a syllable is
wanting,
the verse is said to be catalectic; when the measure is exact, the line
is acatalectic; when there is a redundant syllable it forms
hypermeter."
Now whether a line be termed catalectic or acatalectic is, perhaps, a
point of no vital importance; — it is even possible that the student
may
be able to decide, promptly, when the a should be employed and
when
omitted, yet be incognizant, at the same time, of all that is
worth
knowing in regard to the structure of verse.
A leading defect in each of our
treatises, (if
treatises
they can be called,) is the confining the subject to mere Versification,
while Verse in general, with the understanding
given <to>
the
term in the heading of this paper, is the real question at issue. Nor
am
I aware of even one of our Grammars which so much as properly defines
the
word versification itself. "Versification", says a work now before me,
of which the accuracy is far more than usual — the
"English Grammar" of
Goold Brown — "Versification is the art of arranging words into lines
of
correspondent length, so as to produce harmony by the regular
alternation
of syllables differing in quantity." The commencement of this
definition
might apply, indeed, to the art of versification, but not to
versification
itself. Versification is not the art of arranging &c., but the
actual
arranging — a distinction too obvious to need comment. The error here
is
identical with one which has been too long permitted to disgrace the
initial
page of every one of our school grammars. I allude to the definitions
of
English Grammar itself. [[. . . .]]
[[. . . .]]
[about page 8, Tane fragment:]
Verse originates in the human
enjoyment of
equality,
fitness. To this enjoyment, also, all the moods of verse, rhythm,
metre,
stanza, rhyme, alliteration, the refrain, and other analagous
effects,
are to be referred. As there are some readers who habitually confound
rhythm
and metre, it may be as well here to say that the former concerns the character
of feet (that is, arrangements of syllables) while the
latter has to
do with the number of these feet. Thus by "a dactylic rhythm"
we express a sequence of dactyls. By "a dactylic
hexameter" we
imply
a line or measure consisting of six of these dactyls.
[[about page 8, continued, Pleadwell fragment:]]
To return to equality. Its
idea embraces
those
of similarity, proportion, identity, repetition, and adaptation or
fitness.
It might not be very difficult to go even behind the idea of equality,
and show both how and why it is that the human nature takes pleasure in
it, but such an investigation would, for any purpose now in view, be
supererogatory.
It is sufficient that the fact is undeniable — the fact that
man
derives enjoyment from his perception of equality. Let us examine a
crystal.
We are at once interested by the equality between the sides and between
the angles of one of its faces; the equality of the sides pleases us,
that
of the angles doubles the pleasure. On bringing to view a second face
in
all respects similar to the first, this pleasure seems to be squared;
on
bringing to view a third it appears to be cubed, and so on. I [[.
. . .]]
[[. . . .]]
[page 11, Self fragment:]
The second step we can easily suppose to
be
the comparison, that is to say, the collocation of two spondees — or
two
words composed each of a spondee. The third step would be the
juxta-position
of three of these words. By this time the perception of monotone would
induce farther consideration: and thus arises what Leigh Hunt so
flounders
in discussing under the title of "The Principle of Variety in
Uniformity".
Of course there is no principle in the case — nor in maintaining it.
The
"Uniformity" is the principle: — the "Variety" is but the
principle's
natural safeguard from self-destruction by excess of self.
"Uniformity",
besides, is the very worst word that could have been chosen for the
expression
of the general idea at which it aims.
The perception of monotone having
given rise to
an
attempt at its relief, the first thought in this new direction would be
that of collating two or more words formed each of two syllables
differently
accented (that is to say, short and long) but having the same order in
each word: — in other terms, of collating two or more iambuses, or two
or
more trochees. And here let me pause to assert that more pitiable
nonsense
has been written on the topic of long and short syllables
than on any other subject under the sun. In general, a syllable is long
or short, just as it is difficult or easy of enunciation. The natural
long syllables are those encumbered — the natural short
ones
are those unencumbered, with consonants; all the rest is mere
artificiality
and jargon. The Latin Prosodies have a rule that "a vowel before two
consonants
is long". This rule is deduced from "authority" — that is, from the
observation
that vowels so circumstanced, in the ancient poems, are always in
syllables
long by the laws of scansion. The philosophy of the rule is untouched,
and lies simply in the physical difficulty of giving voice to such
syllables
— of performing the lingual evolutions necessary for their utterance.
Of
course, it is not the vowel that is long (although the rule
says
so) but the syllable of which the vowel is a part. It will be seen
that
the length of a syllable, depending on the facility or difficulty of
its
enunciation, must have great variation in various syllables; but for
the
purposes of verse we suppose a long syllable equal to two short ones: —
and
the natural deviation from this relativeness
[[. . . .]]
[page 18, Griswold fragment:]
the several
stanzas
of a poem, one word or phrase is repeated; and of
alliteration,
in whose simplest form a consonant is repeated in the
commencements
of various words. This effect would be extended so as to embrace
repetitions
both of vowels and of consonants, in the bodies as well as in the
beginnings
of words; and, at a later period, would be made to infringe on the
province
of rhyme, by the introduction of general similarity of sound between
whole
feet occurring in the body of a line: — all of which modifications I
have
exemplified in the line above,
| Made in
his image a mannikin
merely
to madden
it. |
Farther cultivation would improve also the refrain by
relieving
its monotone in slightly varying the phrase at each repetition, or,
(as I have attempted to do in "The Raven") in retaining the phrase and
varying its application — although this latter point is not strictly a
rhythmical
effect alone. Finally, poets when fairly wearied with
following
precedent — following it the more closely the less they perceived it in
company with Reason — would adventure so far as to indulge in positive
rhyme
at other points than the ends of lines. First, they would put it in the
middle of the line; then at some point where the multiple would be less
obvious; then, alarmed at their own audacity, they would undo all their
work by cutting these lines in two. And here is the fruitful source of
the infinity of "short metre" by which modern poetry, if not
distinguished,
is at least disgraced. It would require a high degree, indeed, both of
cultivation and of courage, on the part of any versifier, to enable him
to
place his rhymes — and let them remain — at unquestionably their best
position,
that of unusual and unanticipated intervals.
On account of the stupidity of some
people, or
(if
talent be [[. . . .]]
[[. . . .]]
[page 23, Barrett fragment:]
through forty or fifty vague pages, solely because of his inability to
show how and why it is a grace — by which showing the
question
would have been settled in an instant.
About the trochee used for an iambus, as we see in
the
beginning of
the line,
| Whēthĕr thou choose Cervantes'
serious air, |
there is little that need be said. It brings me to the general
proposition
that, in all rhythms, the prevalent or distinctive feet may be varied
at
will, and nearly at random, by the occasional introduction of
equivalent
feet — that is to say, feet the sum of whose syllabic times is equal to
the sum of the syllabic times of the distinctive feet. Thus the
troches whēthĕr, is equal, in the sum of
the times of its
syllables, to
the
iambus, thŏu chōōse, in the sum of the times of its
syllables;
each foot being, in time, equal to three short syllables. Good
versifiers
who happen to be, also, good poets, contrive to relieve the monotone of
a
series of feet, by the use of equivalent feet only at rare intervals,
and
at such points of their subject as seem in accordance with the startling
character of the variation. Nothing of this care is
seen in the
line
quoted above — although Pope has some fine instances of the duplicate
effect.
Where vehemence is to be strongly expressed, I am not sure that we
should
be wrong in venturing on two consecutive equivalent feet —
although
I cannot say that I have ever known the adventure made, except in the
following
passage, which occurs in "Al Aaraaf", a boyish poem, written by myself
when
a boy. I am referring to the sudden and rapid advent of a star:
Dim was its
little disk,
and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
Whĕn fīrst thĕ phāntǒm's cōurse
wǎs
fōund tǒ bē
Hēadlǒng hīthĕrward o'er
the
starry sea.
|
[[. . . .]]
[page 27, Karpeles fragment:]
by the Greek Prosodies (māny ăre thĕ) and would be
called
by them [[Greek text:]] αστρολογος [[:Greek text]]. The Latin books
would
style the foot Pæon Primus,
and both Greek and Latin would swear that it was composed of a trochee
and what they term a pyrrhic — that is to say a foot of two short
syllables
— a thing that cannot be, as I shall presently show.
But now, there is an obvious difficulty. The astrologos,
according to the Prosodies' own showing, is equal to five short
syllables, and the trochee to three — yet, in the line quoted,
these
two feet are equal. They occupy precisely the same time. In
fact,
the whole music of the line depends upon their being made to
occupy the
same time. The Prosodies then, have demonstrated what all
mathematicians
have stupidly failed in demonstrating — that three and five are one and
the same thing.
After what I have already said, however, about the
bastard
trochee and the bastard iambus, no one can have any trouble in
understanding
that many are the is of similar character. It is merely a
bolder
variation
than usual from the routine of trochees, and introduces to the bastard
trochee one additional syllable. But this syllable is not short.
That
is,
it is not short in the sense of "short" as applied to the final
syllable
of the ordinary trochee, where the word means merely the half of
long. In this case (that of the additional syllable)
"short,"
if used at all, must be used in the sense of the sixth of long.
And all the three final syllables can be called short only
with
the same understanding of the term. The three together are equal only
to
the one short syllable (whose place they supply) of the ordinary
trochee.
It follows that there is no sense in thus ( ˘ ) accenting these
syllables.
We must devise for them some new character which shall denote
[[. . . .]]
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