{"id":1464,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:59","slug":"76-on-quantitative-metre-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/05-collected-poems-volume-05\/76-on-quantitative-metre-vol-05-collected-poems-volume-05","title":{"rendered":"-76_On Quantitative Metre.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n
\n

\nIV<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nON QUANTITATIVE METRE<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\nAn Essay<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n


\n
\nOn Quantitative Metre<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n<\/font>T<\/font>HE <\/font>R<\/font>EASON
\nOF <\/font>T<\/font>HE <\/font>P<\/font>AST
\n<\/font>F<\/font>AILURES<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/div>\n

\n            A<\/font><\/span> <\/font>definitive verdict seems to have been pronounced by
\nthe critical mind on the long-continued attempt to introduce quantitative metres
\ninto English poetry. It is evident that the attempt has failed, and it can even
\nbe affirmed that it was predestined to failure; quantitative metre is something
\nalien to the rhythm of the language. Pure quantity, dependent primarily on the
\nlength or brevity of the vowel of the syllable, but partly also on the
\nconsonants on which the vowel sustains itself, quality as it was understood in
\nthe ancient classical languages, is in the English tongue small in its
\nincidence, compared with stress and accent, and uncertain in its rules; at any
\nrate in the most capable hands it has failed to form a practicable basis of
\nmetre. Accentual metre is normal in English poetry, stress metres are possible,
\nbut quantitative meters can only be constructed by a tour de force<\/i>;
\nartificial and capable of normality or of naturalisation, they cannot get a
\ncertified right of citizenship. If quantity has to be understood in that and no
\nother sense, this verdict must stand; all attempts made hitherto have been a
\nfailure, and not usually a brilliant failure. And yet this does not dispose of
\nthe question: an appeal is possible against the sentence of illegitimacy and
\nbanishment on the ground that from the very first the problem has been
\nmisunderstood and misstated, the methods used either a deviation from the true
\nline or, even when close to it, a misfit; a better statement may lead to a
\nsolution that could well be viable.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At the very beginning of these attempts a
\ndouble thesis was raised; two separate problems were closely associated
\ntogether in their nature distinct, although they can be brought into close
\nrelation. There was, first, the problem of the naturalisation of classical
\nmetres in English poetry, and there was, mixed up with it, the problem of the
\nfree creation of quantitative<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-341<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nEnglish verse in its
\nown right, on its own basis, with natural laws, not necessarily identical with
\nthose laid down in the ancient tongues. The main attempt then made was not to
\ndiscover a true English principle of quantitative metre, – what was done was to
\nbring in classical metres built according to the laws of quantity proper to a
\nclassical tongue but of doubtful validity in a modern language. Chaucer,
\ninfluenced by midiaeval French and Italian poetry, had naturalised their
\nmetrical inventions by making accentual pitch and inflexion the basis of
\nEnglish metre. This revolution succeeded because he had called to his aid one
\nof the most important elements in the natural rhythm of the language and it was
\neasy for him by that happy choice to establish a perfect harmony between this
\nrhythm and his new art of metrical building. The metrical movement he perfected
\n– for others before him had attempted it – passed easily into the language,
\nbecause he caught and lifted its native rhythm into a perfect beauty of sound
\ncaptivating to the ear and moving to the inner witness and listener silent
\nwithin us – the soul, to whom all art and all life should appeal and minister.
\nThis great victory was essential for the free flowering of poetry in the
\nEnglish tongue; the absence of any such\u00a0
\n<\/span>coup d’oeil<\/i> of genius was one chief reason of its failure to
\nflower as freely in so many human languages, – no creative genius found for
\nthem the route which leads to the discovery of a perfect plasticity of word and
\nsound a perfect expressiveness, a perfect beauty of rhythm. But with the
\nRenaissance came a new impulse, a new influence; an enthusiasm was vividly felt
\nby many for the greatness of structure and achievement of the Greek and Latin
\ntongues – an achievement far surpassing anything done in the mediaeval Romance
\nlanguages – and a desire arose to bring this greatness of structure and
\nachievement into English poetry. As Chaucer by the success of the accentual
\nstructure in verse and his discovery of its true and natural rhythm was able to
\nbring in the grace and fluidity of the Romance tongues, so they too conceived
\nthat the best way to achieve their aim was to bring in the greatness of
\nclassical harmony and the nobility and beauty of Greek and Latin utterance by
\nnaturalising the quantitative metres of Virgil, Ovid, Horace. It was also
\nnatural that some of these innovators should  <\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 342<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nconcieve that this could be best done imposing the classical laws of quantity
\nwholesale on the English language.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>At the first attempt a difference of view
\non this very point arose; there was a bifurcation of paths, but neither of
\nthese branchings led anywhere near the goal. One led nowhere at all, there was
\na laborious trudging round in a futile circle; the other turned straight back
\ntowards accentual metre and ended in the abandonment of the quantitative
\nprinciple. Spenser in his experiments used all his sovereign capacity to force
\nEnglish verse into an unnatural classical mould, Sidney followed his example.
\nHarvey thought, rightly enough, that an adaptation to ,the natural rhythm of
\nEnglish was indispensable, but he failed to take more than a first step towards
\nthe right path; after him, those who followed his line could not get any
\nfarther, – in the end, in place of the attempt at quantitative verse, there was
\nan adaptation of classical metres to the accentual system. Some who still
\nexperimented with quantity, feeling the necessity of making their verse
\nnormally readable, did this by taking care that their long quantities and stress
\nor accentual pitch, wherever these came in, coincided as far as possible. But
\nthe result was not encouraging; it made the verse readable indeed, but stiff
\nbeyond measure. Even Tennyson in his lines on Milton, where he attempts this
\ncombination, seems to be walking on stilts, – very skilfully and nobly, but
\nstill on stilts and not on his own free God-given feet. As for other attempts
\nwhich followed the Spenserian line of approach, they can best be described in
\nTennyson’s own language \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\u201c Barbarous hexameters, barbarous pentameters"<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n– and the alcaics, sapphics and galliambics were no better. A metre which
\ncannot be read as normal English is read, in which light syllables are forced
\nto carry a voice-weight which they have no strength to bear and strong stresses
\nare compelled to efface themselves while small insignificant sounds take up
\ntheir burden, is not a real and natural verse movement; it is an artificial
\nstructure which will never find an agreed place in the language.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 343<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nNo make-believe can reconcile, us
\nto such rhythms as<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>Sidney’s<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In wīnd | ōr wā|tēr’s | streām dŏ rĕ|quīre tŏ bĕ | wrīt. |<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHere two intractable
\niambic feet followed by a resolutely short syllable are compelled to dance a jig
\ngarbed as two spondees followed by a solitary long syllable; so disguised, they
\npretend to be the first half of a pentameter, – the second half with its
\nfaultless and natural metre and rhythm is of itself a<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\ncondemnation of its predecessor. Neither can one accept Bridges’<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n       <\/span>Flōwerў dŏ|maīn thĕ flŭsh|īng sōft | crōwdīng | lōvelĭnĕss |<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>ōf Sprīng | <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nwhere length is
\nforced on an inexorable short like the "ing\u201d of \u201cflushing" and
\n"crowding" and a pretence is made that an accentual iamb, "of Spring",
\ncan be transformed into a quantitative spondee. Still worse, still more
\nimpossible to digest or even to swallow, is his forced hexameter ending,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>thĕ sĕ|rēnelў sŏ|lēmn spēlls. | <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere two successive
\naccentual trochees and a terminal long syllable are turned by force or by farce
\ninto a closing dactyl and spondee. Such are the ungainly antics into which the
\nnatural movements of verse have to be compelled in this game of thristing the
\nlaws of quantity of an ancient language upon a modern tongue which has quite
\nanother spirit and body. What is possible and natural in a clear-cut ancient
\nlanguage where there is a more even distribution of the voice and both the
\nshort and long syllables can get their full sound-value, is impossible or
\nunnatural in the Engish tongue; for there the alternation of stresses with
\nunstressed short and light sounds is a constant and inescapable feature. That
\nmakes all the difference; it turns this kind of verse into a frolic of false
\nquantities. In any case, the method has invariably resulted in failure from
\nSpenser to Bridges; the greatness of some of the poets who have made this too
\ndaring and<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page \u2013 344<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nunnatural effort has not been great enough to bring success to an impossible
\nadventure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>There remains the alternative way, the
\nadaptation of classical metres to the accentual mould, of which the accentual
\nhexameter is the not too successful consequence; but this is not a solution to
\nthe problem of English quantitative verse. Even if successful, in every field and
\nnot only in the treatment of the hexameter, it would have only solved the other
\nquite distinct problem of naturalising Greek and Latin metres in English. But
\neven in this direction success has been either nil or partial and defective.
\nThe experiments have always remained experiments; there has been no opening of
\nnew paths, no new rhythmic discoveries or triumphant original creations. The
\nwriters carry with them evidently the feeling of being experimenters in an
\nabnormal kind; they achieve an artificial rhythm, their very language has an
\nartificial ring: there is always a stamp of manufacture, not free outflow of
\nsignificant sound and harmonious word from the depths of the spirit. A poet
\ntrying to naturalise in English the power of the ancient hexameter or to
\nachieve a new form of its greatness or beauty natural to the English tongue
\nmust have absorbed its rhythm into his very blood, made it a part of himself,
\nthen only could he bring it out from within him as an expression of his own
\nbeing, realised and authentic. If he relies not on this inner inspiration, but
\nsolely on his technical ability for the purpose, there will be a failure; yet
\nthis is all that has been done. There have been a few exceptions like
\nSwinburne’s magnificent sapphics; but these are isolated triumphs, there has
\nbeen no considerable body of such poems that coul stand out in English
\nliterature as a new form perfectly accomplished and accepted. This may be
\nperhaps because the attempt was always made as a sort of leisure exercise and
\nno writer of great genius like Spenser, Tennyson or Swinburne has made it a
\nmain part of his work; but more probably, there is a deeper cause inherent in
\nthe very principle and method of the endeavour.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Two poets, Clough and Longfellow,
\nhave ventured on a considerable attempt in this kind and have succeeded in
\ncreating something like an English hexameter; but this was only a half<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 345<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\naccomplishment. The rhythm that was so great, so beautiful or, at the lowest,
\nso strong or so happy in the ancient toungues, the hexameter of Homer and
\nVirgil, the hexameter of Theocritus, the hexameter of Horace and Juvenal
\nbecomes in their hands something poor, uncertain of itself and defective. There
\nis here the waddle and squawk of a big water-fowl, not the flight and challenge
\nof the eagle. Longfellow was an admiral literary craftsman in his own limits,
\nthe limits of ordinary metre perfectly executed in the ordinary way, but his
\ntechnique like his poetic inspiration had no subtlety and no power. Yet both
\nsubtlety and power, or at the very least one of these greater qualities, are
\nimperatively called for in the creation of a true and efficient English
\nhexameter; it is only a great care and refinement or a great poetic force that
\ncan overcome the obstacles. Longfellow had his gift of a certain kind of small
\nperfection on his level; Clough had energy, some drive of language, often a
\nvigorous if flawed and hasty force of self-expression. It cannot be said that
\ntheir work in this line was a total failure; the "Bothie of Toberna-Vuolich",
\n"Evangeline" and the "Courtship of Miles Standish" have
\ntheir place, though not a high place; in English poetry. But the little they
\nachieved was not enough to acclimatise the hexameter permanently in English
\nsoil; nor did their work encourage others to do better, on the contrary the
\nimperfection of its success has been a deterrent, not an incentive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It is probable indeed that the real
\nreason of the failure went much deeper; it lay in the very character of the
\nmould they invented. The accentual hexameter was a makeshift and could not be
\nthe true thing; its false plausibility could not be an equivalent for the great
\nauthentic rhythms of old, its mechanically regular or common uninspiring beat,
\nsometimes stumbling or broken, is something quite different from the powerful
\nsweep, the divine rush or the assured truth of tread of that greater
\nworld-music. The hexameter is a quantitative verse or nothing; losing the
\nelement of quantity, it loses also its quality. Admitting that quatity as it is
\nordinarily understood cannot be the sole basic element in any English metre,
\nyet for the hexameter, perhaps for any classical rhythm, the discovery and
\nmanagement of true quantity is art intimate part of its technique; to neglect
\nor to omit it is to<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 346<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nneglect or omit something essential, indispensable. Accentual pitch gives beat,
\nbut its beat does not depend on quantity except in so far as the stress ictus
\ncreates a genuine length valid for anyrhythm which is native to the language.
\nTo find out what does constitute true quantity is the first need, only then can
\nthere be any solution of the difficulty. Tennyson, like Harvey, missed this
\nnecessity; he was content to fuse long syllable and stress and manage carefully
\nhis short quantities conceived according to the classical law; this he did
\nadmirably, but two or three efforts in this kind of tight-rope acrobatics were
\nas much as he cared to manage. But true quantity in English must be something
\nelse; it must be something inherent in the tongue, recognisable everywhere in
\nits rhythm, – not an artifice or convention governing its verse forms alone,
\nbut a technique of Nature flowing spontaneously through the very texture of the
\nlanguage as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMETRE AND THE THREE
\nELEMENTS OF ENGLISH RHYTHM<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere are three
\nelements which constitute the general exterior forms of rhythm in the English
\nlanguage, -accent, stress, quantity. Each of them can be made in theory the one
\nessential metre, relegating the other indispensable elements to the position of
\nsubordinate factors which help out the rhythm but are not counted in the
\nconstitution of the metrical basis. But in practice accent and stress combining
\nwith it and aiding it have alone successfully dominated English verse-form;
\nintrinsic quantity has been left to do what it can for itself under their rule.
\nThe basis commonly adopted in most English poetry since Chaucer is the
\naccentual rhythm, the flow of accentual pitch and inflexion which is so
\nall-important an element in the intonation of English speech. In any common
\nform of English poetry we find all based on pitch and inflexion; the feet are
\naccentual feet, the metrical \u201clength\u201d or "shortness" of syllables –
\nnot their inherent quantity – is determined by natural or willed location of a
\npitch of accent or some helping inflexion falling on the main supporting
\nsyllable of the foot and by the absence of any such pitch or accentual
\ninflexion on those that are subordinate and supported: the main accented
\nsyllables are supposed to be metrically long,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page \u2013 347<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nthe subordinate unaccented short, there is no other test or standard. To take a
\nfamiliar example:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n(The
\nsign I indicates the accentual high pitch, the sign sive and without stress or
\nwith only a half-stress.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere there is a
\nregular iambic beat determined by the persistent accentual high pitch or low
\npitch falling on the second syllable of the foot. In a stress scansion the
\nsecond foot of the second line would rank not as an iamb but as a pyrrhic, for
\nit is composed of two short unstressed syllables; but there is the minor
\naccentual inflexion which commonly occurs as a sort of stepping-stone helping
\nthe voice across a number of unstressed syllables; that, slight as it is, is
\nsufficient to justify in accentual theory the description of this foot as an iamb.
\nStress usually coincides with the high accentual pitch and is indispensable as
\nthe backbone of the rhythm, but it was not treated until recently either as an
\nindependent or as the main factor. Inherent quantity is not at all regarded;
\nlong-syllable quantity sometimes coincides with both high pitch and stress,
\nsometimes it stands by itself as a rhythmic element, but that makes no
\ndifference to the metre.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe instance given is an example of the iambic verse with an extreme, an
\nalmost mechanical regularity of beat; so, for completeness, we may turn to
\npoetry of a freer and larger type.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHere there are two
\nglide anapaests in the first line, an initial dactyl in the second, – three
\ndepartures from the regular iambic beat. Such liberty of variation can always
\nbe indulged in English verse and it is sometimes pushed to much greater lengths
\n\u2013 as the line-<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n


\nPage-348<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nwhere there is only one iamb in the five feet of the line; the other four feet
\nare respectively a trochee, a bacchius, a pyrrhic and a closing spondee.
\nNevertheless the basic system of the metre or at least some form of its spirit
\nasserts itself even here by a predominant beat on the final syllable of most of
\nthe feet: all the variations are different from each other, none predominates
\nso as to oust and supplant the iamb in its possession of the metric base. In
\nWebster’s line this forceful irregularity is used with a remarkable skill and
\nfreedom; the two first feet are combined in a choriamb to bring out a vehemence
\nof swift and abrupt unexpressed emotion; in the rest intrinsic quantitative
\nlongs combined with short-vowel stress lengths to embody a surcharged feeling –
\nstill unexpressed – in a strong and burdened movemet: all is divided into three
\nbrief and packed word-groups to bring out by the subtly potent force of the
\nrhythm the overpowering yet suppressed reactions of the speaker. The language
\nused, however vivid in itself, could not have done as much as it does, if it
\nwere deprived of this sound-effect; it would have given the idea by its
\nexternal indices, but it is the rhythm that brings out the concealed feeling.
\nEach word-group has a separate rhythm, an independent life, yet it is by
\nfollowing each other rapidly in a single whole that the three together achieve
\na complete force and beauty. If the three clauses of this line were cut up into
\nsuccessive lines in modern free-verse fashion, they would lose most of their
\nbeauty; it is the total rhythmic power of these three hammer-strokes that
\nbrings to the surface all that underlies the worlds. But without the aid of the
\nunusual arrangements of stress and quantity it could not have been done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>This shows up the true nature of the
\naccentual system as distinguished from its formal theory. It becomes clear that
\nthe supposed longs and shorts constituting its feet are not real quantities,
\nthey are not composed of long and short syllables, – on the contrary, a very
\nshort sound can be made to bear the weight of the whole foot while longer ones
\ntrail after it in dependence on their diminutive leader. What we really have is
\na system of recurrent strokes or beats intervening at a fixed place in each
\nfoot, while the syllables which are not hammered into prominent place by this
\nkind of stroke or beat fill the interspaces. A regular metrical<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 349<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nbase is thus
\nsupplied, but the rhythm can be varied or modulated by departures from the base
\n– from it but always upon it: for these departures, variations or modulations,
\nrelieve its regularity which might otherwise become monotonous, but do not
\nreplace or frustrate the essential rhythm. If the modulations overlay too much
\nthe basic sound-system so as to obliterate it or if they are so ill-managed as
\nto substitute another rhythm for it then we have a rhythmic mixture; or else
\nthere is a break of the metrical movement which can be legitimate only if it is
\ndone with set purpose and justified by the success of that purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>In
\nall these instances it will be seen that inherent quantity combined with
\ndistribution of stress – which is also, as we shall see, a true
\nquantity-builder – plays always the same role; it is used as an accessory or
\nimportant element of the rhythm, to give variety, subtlety, deeper
\nsignificance. A longer quotation may illustrate this position and function of
\nstress distribution and distribution of quantity in accentual metre with more
\namplitude – <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

       
\n     
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n(Here only the stresses are
\nmarked, by the sign, and the long-vowel syllables, by the sign-:th<\/span>e<\/span> <\/span>
\nquantitative<\/span> <\/span>
\nshorts are left unmarked: the accents need no
\nindication.) <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe first six lines
\nof this passage owe much of their beauty<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage – 350<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nto the usual placing of the stresses and the long-vowelled syllables; in each
\nline the distribution differs and creates a special significant rhythm which
\ndeepens and reinforces the outward sense and adds to it that atmosphere of the
\nunexpressed reality of the thing in itself which it is in the power of rhythm,
\nof word-music as of all music, to create. In the first line two pyrrhics seperate
\nthe two long-vowelled sounds which give emphasis and power to the first and
\nlast feet from the narrower short-vowel stressed foot in the middle: this gives
\na peculiar rhythmic effect which makes the line no longer a mere enumerative
\nstatement, it evokes three different rhythmic significances isolating and
\nlocating each of the three pure Imaginatives in his own kind. In the second
\nline a swift short movement in its first half slows down to a heavy prolonged
\nmovement in its second, a swift run with a long and tangled consequence; here
\ntoo the expressiveness of the rhythm is evident. In the third line there are no
\nfewer than four long vowels and a single pyrrhic separates two rhythmic
\nmovements of an unusual power and amplitude expressive of the enorminity of the
\nlunatic’s vision and imagination; here too, short-vowel stress and
\nintrinsic-quantity longs are combined no less than three times and it is this
\naccumulation that brings about the effect. In the fifth and sixth lines the
\nseparative pyrrhic in the middle serves again a similar purpose. In the fifth,
\nit helps to isolate in contrast two opposites each emphasised by its own
\nsignificant rhythm. In the sixth line there are again four long vowels and a
\nvery expressive combination of short-vowel stressed length with intrinsic long
\nsyllables, a spacious amphibrach like long plunge of a wave at the end; no more
\nexpressive rhythm could have been contrived to convey potently the power, the
\nexcitement and the amplitude of the poet’s vision\u00a0 <\/span>(<\/span>A combination of powerful intrinsic longs and equall powerful
\nshort-vowel stresses help to create two of the most famous "mighty
\nlines" of Marlowe, -)<\/span> Afterwards there
\nfollow five lines of a normal iambic movement, but still with a great subtlety
\nof variation of rhythm and distribution of <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 351<\/font><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nquantity creating another kind of rhythmic beauty, a beauty of pure harmonious
\nword-music, but this too is the native utterance of the thing seen and conveys
\nby significant sound its natura1 atmosphere. This passage shows us how much the
\nmetrically unrecognised element of intrinsic quantity can tell in poetic rhythm
\nbringing real significations into what would be otherwise only sheer beauty of
\nsound; quantity is one among its most important elements, even though it is not
\nreckoned in the constitution of the metre. It combines with stress distribution
\nto give power and expressive richness to the beat or, as it has been called the
\nstrokes and flicks of accentual verse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It has been seen that accentual high
\npitch and stress most frequently coincide;- indeed, many refuse to make any
\ndistinction between stress of accent and stress proper. The identity is so
\nclose that all the passages cited – and accentual verse generally – can, if we
\nso choose, be scanned by stress instead of accentual inflexion. But that at
\nonce brings in a difference: for the lower accentual inflexions have then to be
\nignored because they do not carry in them anything that can be called a stress,
\nas a result syllables which are treated as long in the conventional scansion
\nbecause of this slight accentual help have now, since they are unstressed, to
\nbe regarded as short. Iambs, so reputed, cease, in this reckoning, to be iambs
\nand become pyrrhics; an iambic pentameter has often to be read in the stress
\nscansion as an imperfectly iambic stress verse because of the frequent
\nmodulations, trochee or pyrrhic, anapaest, amphibrach or spondee. But apart
\nfrom this, there can be a more independent stress principle of metre; for,
\nproperly speaking, stress means not accentual high pitch, but weight of voice
\nemphasis; it is a brief hammer-stroke of the voice from above which comes down
\non a long-vowel or a short-vowel syllable and gives even to the latter a metrical
\nlength and power which, when without stress, it does not natural have. This
\nstroke can thus confer metrical length even on a very short vowel or slightest
\nshort syllable, because it drives it firmly in like a nail into the wall, so
\nthat other unstressed sounds can hang loosely upon it. This provides a
\ndistinctive ground-frame which can be generalised and so made into a metrical
\nbase.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>There can then be a pure stress scansion
\nand pure stress <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 352<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nmetres in their own
\nright without any justification by accent. For in stress metre proper the high
\naccentual pitches are swallowed into stress; any other rise or fall of
\naccentual inflexion is ignored – it is allowed to influence the rhythm but it
\ndoes not determine or affect the basic metrical structure. Accent can in this
\nway disappear altogether as a metrical base; stress replaces it. Here, for
\nexample, are lines composed entirely of stress paeons \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

           
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt is evident that here there are accentual inflexions other than those taken
\nup into stress, on one syllable even a low pitch, but because they are not
\nreckoned as stresses, they do not count in the metrical structure of the lines.
\nOr there may be a still freer stress metrification which rejects any scheme of
\nregular feet and refuses to recognise the necessity of a fixed number of
\nsyllables either to the foot or the line; it regards only the fall of the
\nstress and is faithful to that measure alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>
\n
\n\u00a0<\/span>The line is divided into three
\nword-groups; the first contains two stresses, the others carry each three
\nstresses, but the beats are distributed at pleasure: sometimes they are close
\ntogether, sometimes they stand separated by far intervals amid a crowd of short
\nunstressed syllables. Sometimes there is a closely packed movement loosening
\nitself at the end,-<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 353<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\n
\nSometimes a loose run gathers itself up in its close into a compact movement:
\n <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  <\/span><\/p>\n

\nOr any other movement
\ncan be chosen which is best suited to the idea or the feeling of the individual
\nline. Quantity as such is here immaterial for metre building; it is of value
\nonly in so far as it coincides with stress and gives it an ampler fullness of
\nmetrical length so as to build and sustain more strongly the rhythmic totality
\nof the line and the stanza.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>But
\nwhat then of this third element, quantity? Its importance is evident, but it
\ndoes not form by itself the backbon natural rhythm of the language: quantity in
\nEnglish seems to intervene only as a free element taking its chance part in the
\ngeneral movement or its place assigned at will in the architecture. And yet
\nquantity of some kind, shorts, longs, intermediate sounds, is ubiquitous and
\nthere seems to be no reason why it should not regulate metre. Indeed, every
\nsystem affirms some kind of quantity as its constituent material. Stress metre
\narranges its rhythms by taking all stressed syllables as long, all unstressed
\nsyllables as metrically short; accent affirms similarly its own principle of
\nquantity, though here the word seems to be a misnomer. Can then quantity, properly
\nspeaking, pure quantity, stand by itself as the whole basis of a metrical
\nsystem, as accent and stress have done? Can it similarly leave the other two
\nelements, stress and accent, to influence and vary the rhythm but not allow
\nthem to interfere in the building of the metre? Can there be in English poetry
\na quantitative as well as accentual or a stress building of verse, natural to
\nthe turn of the language, recognised and successful? and must stress or
\naccentual lengths in such a metrical system be excluded from the idea of
\nlength? For everything here depends upon what we understand by quantity; if
\nstress lengths are admitted, the problem of quantitative metre loses its
\ndifficulty, otherwise it seems insoluble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The
\nexperimenters in pure quantitative verse have excluded<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 354<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nstress from their
\ntheory of metrical lengths; they have admitted only intrinsic lengths
\ndetermined by the vowel of the syllable and positional lengths determined by
\nthe number of succeeding consonants. That there is a fundamental falsity in
\nthis theory is shown by the fact that their lines cannot be read; or else in
\norder to make them readable, an unnatural weight has to be thrown on sounds
\nthat are too slender to bear it; a weird sound-system full of false values is
\nartificially created. But stress is a main, if not the main feature of English
\nrhythm; a metrical method ignoring it is impracticable. A pure quantitative
\nverse of this manufacture has therefore to be ruled out, both because of its
\nintrinsic artificiality and its unsuccessful result; it has to be abandoned as
\nimpossible or as inherently false. Those experimenters who avoid these false
\nvalues and try to get rid of the difficulty by allowing only those stresses
\nwhich coincide with intrinsic and positional longs, are on firmer ground and
\nhave some chance of arriving at something practicable. But their efforts too
\nare hampered by the classical theory that the support of more than one
\nconsonant after a short vowel is sufficient to make short syllables metrically
\nlong, a statement which is true of the classical languages but not true of
\nEnglish. This either leads them into the introduction of false quantities which
\ncannot stand the test of natural reading or drives them to oblige their longs
\nand shorts to coincide with accentual or stress longs and shorts. Thus we see
\nquantitative feet come to coincide exactly or predominantly with stress or
\naccentual feet in Harvey’s hexameter verse, –<\/p>\n

Fāme wĭth ă|būndānce | mākĕth ă | mān thrīce | blēssĕd ănd  | hāppў.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn Sidney’s line \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>These be her words, but
\na woman’s words to a love that is eager<\/p>\n

there happens to be a similar predominant identification of quantity with
\naccent or stress, and it is this that makes the line readable. In reality these
\nare stress hexameters, for in each there<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00b9<\/span>The word and<\/i>
\nhere ought by the classicist theory to be long because of its two consonants
\nafter the vowel and still longer because it is further supported by the initial
\nh <\/i>of <\/font> happy<\/font><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 355<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nare
\nsyllables, as in woman’s, love, happy, which are long by stress only and not by
\neither inherent or positional quantity. But, on the other hand, feet which would
\nbe trochees in accentual or stress verse are reckoned here quite artificially as
\nspondees, abundance, woman’s<\/i>, because of the two-or-more-consonants
\ntheory; but the closing syllables of these two words, if listened to by the ear
\nand not measured by the eye, are very clearly short, even though not among the
\nshortest possible, and it is only by a violence of the mind or a convention that
\nthey can be reckoned as long and this kind of very slightly loaded trochee
\npromoted to the full dignity of a spondee. Evidently, we must seek elsewhere for
\na true theory of English quantity and a sound basis for quantitative verse.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nA THEORY OF TRUE QUALITY<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

   
\n If
\n we are to get a true theory of quantity, the ear must find it; it cannot be
\n determined by mental fictions or by reading with the eye: the ear too in listening
\n must exercise its own uninfluenced pure hearing if it is not to go astray. So
\n listening, we shall find that intrinsic or inherent quantity and the positional
\n sound-value are not the only factors in metrical length, there is also another
\n factor, the weight-length; it may even be said that all quantity in English
\n is determined by weight, all syllables that bear the weight of the voice are
\n long, all over which the voice passes lightly are short. But the voice-weight
\n on a vowel is determined in three different ways. There is a dwelling of the
\n voice, a horizontal weight-bar laid across the syllable, or there is its rapid
\n passing, an absence of the weight-bar: that difference decides its natural length,
\n it creates the inherent or intrinsic long or short, lāzĭlў,
\n swēetnĕss.<\/i> There is again a vertical ictus weight of the voice,
\n the hammer-stroke of stress on the   syllable; that of itself
\n makes even a short-vowel syllable metrically long, as in
\n <\/span>
\n
\n  <\/font>c\u00e4nal
\n <\/span>the short-vowel syllables that <\/span>\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n  1<\/sup>The double consonant here, as in other words like happy, tell, can make no
\n difference even in the classicist theory, because it is a mere matter of spelling
\n and represents a single, not a double sound, – the sound is the same as in panel.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage \u2013 356<\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n<\/span> 
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

have
\n not the lengthening ictus or vertical weight and have not either the horizontal
\n weight of the voice upon them remain light and therefore short. It is evident
\n that these words are respectively a natural dactyl, second paeon, trochee, iamb,
\n yet all their syllables are short, apart from the stress; but what true rhythm
\n or metre could treat as other than long these stressed<\/span>we
\n see this triple power of length within one word, – weight-bar long syllables
\n stressed, hammer-stroke-weighted short-vowelled longs, natural unweighted short
\n syllables. It is clear that there can be no true reduction of stressed or unstressed
\n or of intrinsic long or short to a sole one-kind principle; both stress and
\n vowel length work together to make a complex but harmonious system of quantity.
\n But, yet again, there is a third factor of length-determination; there is consonantal
\n weight, a lingering or retardation of the voice compelled by a load of consonants,
\n or there is a free unencumbered light movement. This distinction creates the
\n positionally long syllable, short by its vowel but lengthened by its consonants,
\n strēngth, swīft, ābstrāct;<\/i> where there is no such
\n weight or no sufficient weight of consonants buttressing up the short syllable,
\n it remains short, unless lengthened by stress. But we must consider separately
\n how far this third or consonantal element is operative, whether its effect is
\n invariable and absolute as the classicists would have it or only produces its
\n result according to circumstance. <\/span><\/p>\n

It
\n is evident to the natural ear that stress confers in its own right metrica length
\n on the syllable in which it occurs; even an extreme shortness of the vowel does
\n not take away the lengthening force given. To the ear it stands out that the
\n feet in Webster’s
\n are, quantitatively, bacchius  and spondee; the one is not and cannot be a true
\n anapest, as it would or can be accounted by convention in accentual  <\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n


\n1<\/sup>Unless we consider my<\/i> as long, which is a
\ndisputable point; the sound is inherently a long-vowel one, but depressed by the
\nabsence of stress or accentual high pitch. In quantitative verse this should not
\nmatter; it can retain in spite of the depression its native dignity as a
\nlong-vowel syllable.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-357 <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nscansion, the other is not and cannot be either iamb or torchee. The stress long
\nnaturally combines here with the intrinsic long to make bacchius or spondee,
\nbecause it has itself a true metrical length which is equivalent to that of the
\nlong-vowel syllable, though not identical in nature. This stress length, in any
\nvalid theory of quantity, cannot be ignored; its ictus weight and the conveyed
\nforce of length which the weight carries with it cannot be whittled down to
\nshortness by any mental decree. In accentual verse its power is usually absorbed
\nby coincidence with accentual high pitch and so it is satisfied and does not
\nneed to put in a separate claim; but in quantitative verse too it insists on its
\nright and, if denied, fatally disturbs by its presence the rhythm that tries to
\ndisown or ignore it. In true quantitative verse, stress lengths and intrinsic
\nlengths can and must be equally accepted because they both carry weight enough
\nto burden the syllable with an enhanced sound-value. The admission or
\ngeneralisation of the idea of weight lengths clears up many cobwebs and, because
\nit corresponds with the facts, provides us with a rational system of
\nquantitative verse.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>          
\n<\/span>What difficulty remains arises from the theory drawn from the classical
\nlanguages that a sequence of more than one consonant after a short vowel –
\nwhether in the word itself or with the help of an initial consonant or
\nconsonants in the word that follows – compensates for the shortness and gives
\nthe syllable, inexorably, a value of metrical length. This is palpably untrue as
\nhas been shown by the stumbles of Sidney and Bridges and every other classicist
\noperator in quantitative verse. Let us again consult the ear, not the theorising
\nmind; what is its judgment on this point if we listen, for instance, to these
\nfour hexameter lines based on natural and true quantity?<\/p>\n

Ōne ănd ŭn|ārmed
\nĭn thĕ |
\ncār wăs thĕ |
\ndrīvĕr |
\ngrēy wăs<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>                                                                      
\n<\/span><\/span>h<\/span>\u00ea<\/span>
\n| shrunken<\/span>,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>Wōrn
\nwĭth hĭs |
\ndēcādes. Tŏ |
\nPērgămă |
\ncīnctŭred wĭth |<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>                                                          
\n<\/span>strēngth C<\/span>\u0178<\/span>clŏ|pēăn<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nŌld ănd ăl|ōne
\nhĕ ăr|rĭved,
\nĭnsĭg|nīfĭcănt, |
\nfēēblĕst ŏf |   <\/span>mōrtăls,        
\n<\/span>                                                             
\n<\/span>                            
\n<\/span>    <\/span>                        
\n<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 358<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\nCārrўĭng
\n|
\n<\/span>
\nF<\/span>āte
\nĭn hĭs |
\nhēlplĕss
\n|
\nhānds ănd thĕ |
\ndōōm  ŏf ăn |
\nēmpīre.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nAccording
\nto the classical theory words and syllables like "and", \u201cof\u201d,
\n"the", "he", "ing" should be treated as long since
\nor when two or three consonants come immediately after the vowel within the
\nline. But this is quite false; the "dr" of "driver" does not
\nas a matter of fact make the "the" before it long; the natural
\nshortness of "with" is not abolished by the "h" of the
\nfollowing word "his", or the shortness of "his" by the
\n"d" of \u201cdecades\u201d. All these small light words are so intrinsically
\nshort, so light in their very nature, that nothing, or nothing short of an
\nunavoidable stress, can force quantitative length or weight of sound upon them.
\nEven the short "i"s and short "a" of "insignificant\u201d
\nthe short "e" of "feeblest" retain their insignificance and
\nfebleness in spite of the help of the two consonants occuring after them, – the
\nvoice passes too swiftly away for any length to accrue before it has left them;
\nthere is no weight, no dwelling or lingering upon them sufficient to give them a
\ngreater sound-value. It would be a strange and extravagant prosody that can the
\nfirst line \u2013
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nŌne
\nānd ŭn|ārmed
\nīn thě |
\ncār wās thē |
\ndrīvēr; |
\ngrēy  <\/span>                                                                                           
\n<\/span>            <\/span>                                               
\n<\/span>        <\/span>wās  
\nhē, |
\nshrūnkěn,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nthough
\nit might still scan as a hexameter with antibacchius and molossus twice repeated
\nas modulations in place of the dactyl; but it could not be read aloud in that
\nway, – the ear would immediately contradict the arbitrary dictates of the eye
\nand the inapplicable rigidity of the mental theory.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>This is not to deny that an additional consonant or consonants within the
\nword after and before the vowel do give greater length to the syllable as a
\nwhole; but this does not necessarily transfer it from the category of shorts to
\nthe category of longs. At most, when the weight of consonants is not heavy and
\ndecisive, it makes it easier for these midway sounds to figure as lengthened
\nshorts; it helps a trochee to serve as a substitute modulation for a spondee but
\nit does not transform it into a spon-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Page-359<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\ndee.
\nTo take an instance from a hexameter movement \u2013 <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWind
\nin the forests, bees in the grove, – spring’s ardent 
\n<\/span>                                                                        <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span>                                                                       
\n<\/span>        <\/span>symbol<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThrilling,
\nthe voice of the cuckoo.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n   
\nHere the word "ardent" easily replaces a dactyl or spondee as a
\nmodulation, but it remains trochaic. There is more posibility of treating
\n"forests" here with its three heavy consonants as a spondee, – a
\npossibility, not a necessity invariable in all places, for one could very well
\nwrite "in the forests of autumn", in spite of the three consonants, as
\nthe orthodox close of a dactylic hexameter. Let us try again with yet another
\nexample, this time of wholly or fundamentally dactylic hexameters, – <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n             
\n"Onward from continent sailing to continent, ever from <\/span>harbour<\/p>\n

               Hasting
\nto harbour, a wanderer joining1<\/sup> 
\nocean to ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n   
\nHere the word "continent" clearly does not become a cretic, even when
\na third consonant follows like the "s" of "sailing", still
\nless when a vowel follows; a slight weight is there, but it is altogether
\ninsufficient to hamper the pure dactylic flow of the line. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIt
\nis only a sufficient consonant weight that can change the category; but even
\nthen the result depends less on the number than on the power and heaviness of
\nthe consonants composing the word; the theory that it is the number of consonan
\ndetermines metrical length cannot stand always. Thus the word strength<\/i> or
\nthe word stripped<\/i> is long wherever it may occur, but string<\/i> with
\nits five consonant sounds is long mainly by the voice ictus falling on it; where
\nthat lacks it may remain short by the inherent value of its vowel: heart-string,
\nhamstring<\/i> sound more natural as trochees than as spondees; hamstringing<\/i>
\ncarries weight as a dactyl, it is too weak to be a good antibacchius. In these
\nmatters it is always the ear that must judge, there can be no rule of thumb or
\nfixed mathematical measure determinable by the eye of the reader; it is the
\nweight or lightness of the syl-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>
\n
\nThis word is a trochaic modulation, it is not intended to figure as a spondee<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 360<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\n l<\/span>able,
\nslowed down or unencumbered rapid passage of the voice, the pressure or
\nslightness of its step in passing that makes the difference, and of that the ear
\nalone can be the true judge or arbiter.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    In
\nany case it is only the internal consonants that matter; for it is doubtful
\nwhether initial consonants in a word that follows can, even when they are many,
\nradically influence the quantity of a preceding syllable. This rule of backward
\ninfluence could prevail in the classical tongues because there the voice was
\nmore evenly distributed over the words; this evenness gave a chance to the short
\nsyllables to have their full sound-value and a slight addition of <\/i>consonantal
\nsound might overweight them and give them, either internally or in position, a
\ndecisive length value. Intrinsic quantity also was not crushed under the weight
\nof stress as in English and turned into a secondary factor, it was and remained
\na prime factor in the rhythm. There is accentual pitch and inflexion, but it
\ndoes not take the first place. Thus the first line of the Aeneid, <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nif they were read like an English line, would become some kind of irregular and
\nformless accentual hexameter,- <\/span><\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nstress would preside and quantity fall into a subordinate second place. If this
\ndid not and could not happen, it was evidently because the accent was an
\ninflexion or pitch of the voice and not stress, not an emphatic pressure.1<\/sup> In English stress or voice <\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>
\n
\nIn
\nthe Latin metre accent and quantity coincide in the last two feet but not in the
\nearlier four feet; the Harvey type of hexameter has been criticised for not
\nfollowing this rule, but the <\/font> <\/span>writers
\nhad no choice,<\/span>
\n– <\/span>to do
\notherwise, would have brought in the conflict between<\/span>
\nstress and <\/span>quantity
\nwhich for the reason here stated could not occur in Laun, In the English
\nhexameter <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\naccent, stress and quantity have inevitably to fuse together in the main long
\nsyllable of the foot; relief from a too insistent beat has to be sought by other
\nnatural means or technical device modulation, the greater value given to long
\nunstressed syllables, variation of foot-grouping pause, caesura.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 361<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nemphasis
\npredominates and there is a very uneven distribution of sound-values in which
\nquantity is partly determined and, where not determined, considerably influenced
\nby stress; it has some difficulty in asserting its full independent value.
\nMoreover the words do not cohere or run into each other as in a Sanskrit line,
\n(this cohesion was the raison d’\u00eatre <\/i>of the complicated law of Sandhi by
\nwhich the closing letter of one word so frequently unites with the initial
\nletter of its successor in a conjunct sound); each word in English is
\nindependent and has its own metrical value unaffected by the word that follows.
\nIn Sanskrit, as in Latin and Greek, the short syllable having already its full
\nnaturla sound-value is affected by the additional consonant and passes into the
\ncategory of longs by the force of the consonant weight-age, but these conditions
\nare not naturally present in English verse.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>There is therefore no good reason, or at least no essential reason, for
\nthe admission of a rule allowing or obliging a throwing back of influence from a
\nfollowing word upon its predecessor In accentual or stress metre no such rule
\nprevails, – one never thinks of this element in arranging one’s line; there is
\nnothing that compels its adoption in quantitative verse. If these initial
\nconsonants created an obstacle to the pace of the voice sufficient to make it
\nlinger or pause, then such an effect would be justified, – the closing short
\nsyllable of the preceding word would or might be lengthened: but, normally, the
\nobstacle is so slight that it is not felt and the voice takes it in its stride
\nand passes on without any slackening or with only a slight slackening of its
\npace. The distinctness of each word from another does not, indeed, create any
\ngap or pause, but it is strong enough to preserve for it its independence, its
\nseparate self-value in the total rhythm of the line, the word-group or the
\nclause. This does not destroy the value of consonant weight in the sound system;
\nit is evident that a crowding or sparseness of consonants will make a great
\ndiffe-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 362<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\nrence
\nto the total rhythm, it will produce a greater or less heaviness or lightness;
\nbut that is a rhythmic effect quite distinct from any imperative influence on
\nthe metre. A trochee does not become a spondee, a dactyl does not become a
\ncretic because its final syllable is followed by a consonant or even by a group
\nof consonants. There is, then, no sense in dragging in the classical rule where
\nits admission is quite contrary to the natural instinct and practice of the
\nlanguage.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIf
\nthese considerations are accepted as valid, the way lies open for the
\nconstruction of true quantitative metre; a sound and realistic theory of it
\nbecomes possible. Four rules or sets of rules can be formulated which will sum
\nup the whole base of the theory: –<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n            1. <\/span>All stressed syllables are metrically long, as are also all <\/span>long-vowel syllables even
\nwithout stress.  <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll
\nshort-vowel syllables are metrically short, unless they are lengthened by stress
\n– or else by a sufficient weight of consonants or some other lengthening
\nsound-element; but the mere fact of more than one consonant coming after a short
\nvowel, whether within the word or after it, or both in combination, is not
\nsufficient to confer length upon the syllable. Heaviness caused by a crowding of
\nconsonants affects the rhythm of a line or part of a line but does not alter its
\nmetrical values.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEach
\nword has its own metrical value which cannot be radically influenced or altered
\nby the word that follows.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n          
\n<\/span>2. The English language has many sounds which are doubtful or variable in
\nquantity; these may be sometimes used as short and sometimes as long according
\nto circumstance. Here the ear must be the judge.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n           3.
\nQuantity within the syllable itself is not so rigidly fixed as in the ancient
\nlanguages; often position or other circumstances may alter the metrical value of
\na syllable. A certain latitude has to be conceded in such cases, and there again
\nthe ear be the judge.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n           4.
\nQuantity metres cannot be as rigid and unalterable in English as in the old
\nclas’sical tongues; for the movement of the language is pliant and flexible and
\naverse to rigidity and monotone. English poetry has always a fundamental
\nmetrical basis,<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n– 363<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\na
\nfixed normality of the feet constituting a line; but it relieves the fixity by
\nthe use of modulations substituting, with sometimes a less, sometimes a greater
\nfreedom, other feet for the normal. This rule of variation, very occasionally
\nadmitted in the classical tongues but natural in English poetry, must be applied
\nor at least permitted in quantitative metres also; otherwise, in poems of some
\nlength, their rhythms may become stereotyped in a too rigid sameness and fatigue
\nthe ear.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>No other rule than these four need be laid down, for the rest must be
\nleft to individual choice and skill in technique.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>In <\/b>the basic structure of quantitative verse so arranged the three
\nelements of English rhythm, accent, stress and intrinsic quantity are none of
\nthem excluded; all are united or even fused together. Accentual high pitch is
\ntaken up into stress; low pitch, not amounting to stress, as also slighter
\naccentual inflexions, have their place in the rhythm and the intonation but not
\nin the metre; they are not allowed to determine the metrical quantity of the
\nsyllable on which they fall. For, in fact, unless they amount to stress, these
\nvoice-inflexions do not confer length of true quantity; the quantity conferred
\nby them in accentual verse is conventional and need not be admitted where the
\naccentual basis is abandoned and the convention is not needed. Stress itself is
\nadmitted as a quantitative element because it constitutes, by the weight of the
\nvoice which it lays on the syllable, a true metrical length, a strong
\nsound-value. Intrinsic quantity, which is not recognised as a metrical
\nconstituent in the traditional verse system, recovers here its legitimate place.
\nAs a result quantitative metres can be constructed which, like accentual and
\nstress metres but unlike the abortive constructions of the classicists, can flow
\nnaturally in a free movement, a movement native to the language; for they will
\ncombine in themselves, without disfiguration or forcing, all the natural
\nelements of the rhythm or sound-movement proper to the English tongue.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>It may even be said that all English speech, colloquial, prose or verse,
\nhas this as its natural rhythm, preserves these normal sound-values. This
\nuniversality will be at once evident if we take at will or even take at random
\nany snatch of conversation or any prose passage caught from anywhere or
\neverywhere and test by<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 364<\/span><\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

\nit
\nthis rule of quantity; it will be found that the rule is in all cases
\napplicable.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nThese sentences set out with a dactylo-trochaic movement and change to less
\nsimple feet, ionic a minore, cretic, antibacchius, double trochee. Or if you
\nhear an irate voice shouting-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n       <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nand have sufficient leisure and equanimity of mind to analyse the rhythm of this
\nexhortation, you will find yourself in the presence of an excited double iamb
\nfollowed by a vehement antispast, and can then conscientiously determine the
\nrhythm of your own answer. Or if one takes, as a resting-house between
\ncolloquial speech and literary prose, the first advertisement that meets the eye
\nin any daily newspaper, the result will still infallibly illustrate our rule.
\nFor example.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n
\n     <\/span>This column I Is
\nIntended I to give I publicity I to the<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\namenities
\nI and commercial I interests I of Bangalore. I – .<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nwhere
\namphibrach, paeons, iamb, tribrach, dactyl, cretic, double iamb are harmoniously
\nblended together by an unconscious master of quantitative rhythm. It can be at
\nonce and easily established, by multiplying instances, that the daily talk and
\nwriting of English-speaking peoples, though not by any means always poetry, is
\nstill, in spite of itself and by an unfelt compulsion, always rhythmic and
\nalways quantitative in its rhythm.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>If we take similarly passages from literary prose, we shall find the same
\nlaw of rhythm lifted to a higher level. Shakespeare and the Bible will give us
\nthe best and most concentrated examples of this rhythm in prose. Our first
\nquotation, from the New Testament, can indeed be arranged, omitting the
\nsuperfluous<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-365<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n
\n

\nword
\n‘even’ before ‘Solomon’, as a very perfect and  harmonious
\n<\/span>stanza of free quantitative verse.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nCōnsīdĕr
\n|
\nthĕ līliĕs |
\nŏf thĕ fīēld, |
\nhōw thēy grōw; |
\nThĕy tōīl nŏt, |
\nnēīthĕr dŏ |
\nthēy spīn, |
\nYĕt Ī |
\nsāy ŭntŏ you |
\nthăt Sōlŏmŏn |
\nĭn āll hĭs |
\nglŏrў |
\nWăs nŏt ărrāyed |
\nlīke ŭntŏ |
\nōne ŏf thēse. |<\/p>\n

Or again, let us take the opening verses of the Sermon on the <\/span>Mount,<\/p>\n

Blēssĕd āre |
\nthĕ pōōl |
\nĭn spīrĭt; |
\nfŏr thēīrs ĭs |
\nthĕ
\nkīngdŏm |
\nŏf hēāvĕn |
\nBlēssĕd āre |
\nthēy thăt mōūrn; |
\nfŏr thēy shăll bĕ |
\ncōmfŏrtĕd. |
\nBlēssĕd āre |
\nthĕ meek; |
\nfŏr thēy shăll |
\nĭnhērĭt |
\nthĕ ēārth. |
\nBlēssĕd āre |
\nthĕ mērcĭfŭl; |
\nfŏr thēy shăll ŏbtāīn mērcў. |
\nBlēssĕd āre |
\nthĕ pure in hēārt: |
\nfŏr thēy shăll sēē |
\nGōd. |<\/p>\n

Or from St. Paul, –
\n
\n<\/u>Thōūgh I spēāk |
\nwĭth thĕ tōngues |
\nŏf mēn |
\nănd ŏf āngĕls, |
\nănd hāve nŏt |
\nchārĭtў, |
\nI
\năm bĕcōme |
\năs sōūndĭng brāss, |
\nŏr ă tīnklĭng |
\ncӯmbal. |
\nĂnd thōūgh I hăve |
\nthĕ
\ngīft |
\nŏf prōphĕcў. |
\nănd
\nŭndĕrstānd |
\nāll mӯstĕrĭes |
\nănd
\nāll knōwlĕdge, |
\nănd thōūgh Ī hăve |
\nāll fāīth, |
\nsō thăt Ī coŭld |
\nrĕmōve
\nmōūntāīns, |
\nănd hāve |
\nnŏt chārĭtў, |
\nĪ ăm nōthĭng. |<\/p>\n

If we take Shakespeare’s prose in a well-known passage, we shall find the
\nsame law of quantitative rhythm automatically arranging his
\nword-movement-<\/p>\n

Thĭs gōōdlў frāme, |
\nthĕ
\nēārth, sēēms tŏ |
\nmĕ ă sterile |
\nprōmŏntōry; |
\nthĭs
\nmōst ēxcĕl|lĕnt
\ncānŏpў, |
\nthĕ āīr,
\nlōōk yoŭ, |
\nthĭs brāve ō’ērhāng|ĭng
\nfīrmămēnt, |
\nthĭs<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n– 366<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nmăjēstĭ|căl
\nrōōf frēttĕd |
\nwĭth gōlden fīre, |
\n– wh<\/span>\u0178<\/span>,
\nīt
\n                                                                       
\n<\/span>ăppēārs |
\ntŏ mĕ
\nnō ōth|ĕr
\nthīng thăn ă |
\nfōūl ānd pēstĭ|lĕnt
\ncōngrĕgā|tīōn
\nŏf
\nvāpoŭrs. |
\nWhăt
\nă pīēce ŏf |
\nwōrk ĭs ă mān! |
\nHōw nōblĕ ĭn |
\nrēāsŏn, |
\nhōw
\nīnfĭnĭte |
\nĭn fācŭltІў! |
\nĭn
\nform, |
\nĭn
\nmōvĭng |
\nhōw
\nĕxprēss ănd |
\nādmĭrăblĕ! |
\nĭn āctĭon hōw |
\n <\/span>                                                                 
\n<\/span> <\/span>līke
\năn āngĕl! |
\nĭn
\nāpprĕhēnsīōn |
\nhōw līke ă gōd! |
\nthĕ bēāutў
\n <\/span>                                                                                  
\n<\/span>   <\/span>ŏf |
\nthĕ wōrld! |
\nthĕ
\npārăgŏn |
\nŏf ānĭmāls. Ănd yēt, tŏ mē, |
\nwhāt ĭs thĭs quīnt|ĕssĕnce
\nŏf dūst?<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n      <\/span>The
\nmeasures of this prose rhythm find their units of order in world-groups and not
\nas in poetry in metrical lines; the syllabic combinations which we call feet do
\nnot follow here any fixed sequence. In colloquial speech the sequence is
\narranged by impulse of Nature or by the automatic play of the subconscious mind,
\nin prose either by the instinctive or by the conscious action of an inner ear,
\nby a secret and subtle hearing in our subliminal parts. There is not an
\narrangement of feet previously set by the mind and fixedly recurrent as in metre.
\nBut still the measures of speech are the same and in all these prose passages
\nthere is a rhythm, – even sometimes a free recurrence or dominance of certain
\nmeasures, not laid down or fixed, but easy and natural – which gives an
\nunderlying unity to the whole passage. In the instance taken from Shakespeare a
\nremarkable persistence of four-foot measures, with occasional shorter ones
\nintervening, builds up a grave and massive rhythmic feeling and imparts even a
\npoetic motion to the unified whole.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn
\nfree verse the difference of prose movement and poetic rhythm tends to
\ndisappear; poetry steps down to or towards the level of rhythmic, sometimes a
\nvery poorly rhythmic prose; but it is often a rhythm which misses its aim at the
\near and is not evident though it may exist incommunicably somewhere in the mind
\nof the writer. That indeed is the general modernistic tendency – to step back to
\nthe level of prose, sometimes to the<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 367<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\ncolloquial
\nlevel, both in language and in sound movement; the tendency, the aim even, is to
\nthrow away the intensities of poetic rhythm and poetic language and approximate
\nto a prose intonation and to a prose diction; one intensity only is kept in view
\nand that too not always, the intensity of the thought substance. It is the
\nthought substance that is expected to determine its own sound harmonies – as in
\nprose: the thought must not subject itself to a preconceived or set rhythm, it
\nmust be free from the metrical straitwaistcoat; or else the metrical mould must
\nbe sufficiently irregular, capricious, easily modifiable to give a new freedom
\nand ease of movement to the thought substance. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>Our immediate concern, however, is with quantitative metre, constructed
\non the principle of quantity, – though free verse also on that basis has to be
\ntaken into consideration as a subordinate possibility. After all, the swing
\nagainst metre has not justified itself; it goes contrary to a very profound law
\nof speech, contradicts a very strong need of the ear, and the metreless verse it
\nprefers disappoints, by the frequent flatness and inequality which seems natural
\nto it at-its ordinary level, the listening consciousness. All creation proceeds
\non a basis of oneness and sameness with a superstructure of diversity, and there
\nis the highest creation where is the intensest power of basic unity and sameness
\nand on that supporting basis the intensest power of appropriate and governed
\ndiversity. In poetic speech metre gives us this intensest power of basic unity
\nand sameness \u2013 rhythmic variation gives us this intensest power of expressive
\ndiversity. Metre was in the thought of the Vedic poets the reproduction in
\nspeech of great creative world-rhythms; it is not a mere formal construction,
\nthough it may be made by the mind into even such a lifeless form; but even that
\nlifeless form or convention, when genius and inspiration breathe the force of
\nlife into it, becomes again what it was meant to be, it becomes itself and
\nserves its own true and great purpose. There is an intonation of poetry which is
\ndifferent from the flatter and looser intonation of prose, and with it a
\nheightened or gathered intensity of language, a deepened vibrating intensity of
\nrhythm, an intense inspiration in the thought substance. One leaps up with t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 368<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nness
\nwhich expresses things common with an uncommon power both of vision and of
\nutterance and things uncommon with their own native revealing accent; it
\nexpresses them, as no mere prose speech can do, with a certain kind of deep
\nappealing intimacy of truth which poetic rhythm alone gives to expressive form
\nand power of language: the greater this element, the greater is the poetry. The
\nessence of this power can be there without metre, but metre is its spontaneous
\nform, raises it to its acme. The tradition of metre is not a vain and foolish
\nconvention followed by the great poets of the past in a primitive ignorance
\nunconscious of their own bondage; it is in spite of its appearance of human
\nconvention a law of Nature, an innermost mind-nature, a highest speech-nature.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>But it does not immediately follow that the metrical application to
\npoetry of the normal rhythm of the language, discoverable even in its colloquial
\nspeech and prose, is imperatively called for or that the construction of
\nquantitative metres in that mould will be a needed or a right procedure. It
\nmight be reasoned, on the contrary, that precisely because this is a normal
\nmovement for colloquial speech and prose, it must be ill- fitted for poetry;
\npoetic speech is supernormal, above the ordinary level, and its principle of
\nrhythm should be other than that of common language. Moreover, it may be said,
\nthe admission of intrinsic rhythmic quantities to a. share in determining the
\nmetrical basis would in practice only give us an accentual or stress metrewith a
\nslight difference; and the difference would be for the worse. For the function
\nwhich quantity now serves in accentual verse as a powerful free element in the
\nvariation of the rhythm would be sacrificed; quantitative verse would be bound
\nto a rigid beat which would impose on it the character of a monotonous drone or
\nwould fix it in a shackled stiffness like the drumming of the early "decasyllabon"
\nor that treadmill movement which has been charged, as an incurable defect,
\nagainst the English hexameter.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>But let us note, first, that there can be no idea of replacing altogether
\nthe normal accentual mould of English verse by a quantitative structure; the
\nobject can only be to introduce new rhythms which extend and vary the
\nestablished achievement of<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 369<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nEnglish
\npoetry, to create new moulds, to add a rich and possibly a very spacious modern
\nwing to an old edifice. Even if the new forms are only an improvement on stress
\nmetre, a rhythm starting from the same swing of the language, that is no
\nobjection; it may still be worth doing if it brings in new tunes, other
\ncadences, fresh subtleties of word-music. As for the objection of a tied-up
\nmonotony, caused by the disappearance of the free placing and variation of the
\npure quantitative elements in metrical rhythm, that need not be the consequence:
\nthere are other means of variation which are sufficient to dispel that peril. A
\nfree use of modulation, an avoidance of metrical rigidity by other devices
\nnatural to the flexibility of the English tongue, a skilful employment of
\noverlapping (enjambement), <\/i>of caesura, of word-grouping are presupposed
\nin any reasonable quantitative system. Even where a very regular movement is
\nnecessitated or desirable, the resources of the play of sound, a subtle play of
\nvowellation and of consonant harmonies, rhythmic undertones and overtones ought
\nto cure the alleged deficiency. It is not the nature of the material but the
\nunskilful hand that creates the flaw; for each kind of material has its own
\nlimitations and its own possibilities, and the hand of the craftsman is indeed
\nto restrict or overcome the limitations, even to take advantage of the natural
\nbounds and bring out the full force of the latent creativeness concealed in the
\nobstructing matter.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>The application of the quantitative principle and the discovery of the
\nforms that are possible are the task of the creator, not of the theoretical
\ncritic. It is, first and foremost, English quantitative forms that we have to
\ncreate; the reproduction or new-<\/span><\/p>\n

\ncreation of classical metres in English speech
\nis only a side issue. Here the possibilities are endless, but they fall into two
\nor three categories. First, there can be fixed quantitative metres repeated from
\nline to line without variation except for such modulations as are, in the form
\nchosen, possible or desirable. Secondly, stanza forms can be found, either
\nanalogous to those used in accentual verse or else analogous to the Greek
\narrangement in strophe and antistrophe. Thirdly, one can use a freer
\nquantitative verse in which each line has its own appropriate movement, the feet
\nbeing variable, but with a predominant<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 370<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nSingle
\nrhythm unifying the whole. Lastly, there can be entirely free quantitative
\nverse, true verse with a poetic rhythm, but not bound by any law of metre. The
\nstanza form is the most suitable to quantitative verse, for here there can be
\nmuch variety and the danger of rigidity or monotony is non-existent. The use of
\nset stanza metres simple or composite is less obligatory than it was classical
\nverse; even, each poem can discover its own metrical stanza form most in
\nconsonance with its own thought and feeling. The fixed metre unchanging from
\nline to line needs greater skill; modulation is here of great importance. A
\nsemi-free quantitative verse also gives considerable scope; it can be planned in
\na form resembling that of the Greek chorus but without the fixed balance of
\nstrophe and antistrophe, or a still looser use can be made of it escaping
\ntowards the freedom of modernistic verse. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>An unconsciously quantitative free verse may be said to exist already in
\nthe writings of Whitman and contemporary modernist poets. In modern free verse
\nthe underlying impulse is to get away from the fixed limitations of accentual
\nmetre, its set forms and its traditional "poetic" language, and to
\ncreate forms and a diction more kin to the natural rhythm and turns of the
\nlanguage which we find in common speech and in prose. To throw away the bonds of
\nmetre altogether, to approximate not only in the language but in the rhythmic
\nmovement to normal speech and to prose tone and prose expression was the method
\nfirst preferred; a great deal of free verse is nothing but prose cut up into
\nlines to make it look like verse. But in the more skilful treatment by the
\ngreater writers there is a labour to arrive at a certain power of rhythm and a
\nsufficient unity of movement. Free verse cannot justify itself unless it makes a
\nthing of beauty of every line and achieves at the same time an underlying
\nrhythmic oneness; this is imperative when the power for form and the uplifting
\nintensity of metrical verse is absent, if this kind of writing is not to be, as
\nit too often is, a failure. In the best poetry of the kind the attempt to
\nachieve this end arrives precisely at a form of free quantitative verse based on
\nthe natural rhythm of the language liberated from all metrical convention of
\nregularity, and there is sometimes an approximation to its highest
\npossibilities. But the approximation is not so near as it might have been in the
\nwork of one<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 371<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwho
\nhad the theory before him; for it was not the conscious mind, but the creative
\near that was active and compelled this result, helped no doubt by the will to
\noutdo the beauty of accentual metrical rhythm in a freer poetry.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIn
\nWhitman the attempt at perfection of rhythm is often present and, when he does
\nhis best as a rhythmist, it rises to a high-strung acuteness which gives a great
\nbeauty of movement to his finest lines; but what he arrives at is a true
\nquantitative free verse.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nCōme, |
\nlōvelў
\nănd |
\nsōōthĭng |
\ndēāth, |
\nŪndŭlāte |
\nrōūnd thĕ wōrld, |
\nsĕrēnelў |
\nărrīvĭng, |
\nărrīvĭng, |
\nĬn thĕ dāy, |
\nĭn thĕ nīght, |
\ntŏ āll, |
\ntŏ ēāch, |
\nSōōnĕr ŏr |
\nlātĕr, |
\ndēlĭcăte |
\ndēāth. |
\nĂpprōāch |
\nstrōng dĕ|līvĕrĕss, |
\nWhĕn ĭt ĭs sō, |
\nwhĕn thōū hăst |
\ntākĕn thĕm |
\nĪ jōyŏŭsly |
\n <\/span>                                                          
\n<\/span>         
\n<\/span>Sīng thĕ dēād,|
\nLōst ĭn thĕ |
\nlōvĭng |
\nflōātĭng |
\nōcĕăn of thēē, |
\nLāved ĭn thĕ |
\nflōōd ŏf thӯ |
\nblīss, Ō dēāth. |
\n….
\nĂnd thĕ sīghts |
\nŏf thĕ ōpĕn |
\nlāndscāpe |
\nănd thĕ
\n <\/span>                                              
\n<\/span>hīgh-sprĕăd |
\nskӯ ăre fīttĭng,|
\nĂnd līfe |
\nănd thĕ fīēlds, |
\nănd thĕ hūge ănd |
\nthōūghtfŭl
\n <\/span>                                                                                  
\n<\/span>nīght |<\/p>\n

That is comparatively rare in its high beauty; but everywhere the
\nrhythmic trend is the same wherever we look at it, – as in the
\nrhymed freedom of this opening,-<\/p>\n

Wēāpŏn |
\nshāpelў, |
\nnākĕd, |
\nwān, |
\nHēād frŏm thĕ |
\nmōthĕr’s |
\nbōwĕls |
\ndrāwn, |
\nWōōdĕd |
\nflēsh ănd |
\nmētăl bōne, |
\nlīmb |
\nōnlў ōne |
\nănd
\n <\/span>                                                          
\n<\/span>       <\/span>līp
\n|
\nōnlў ōne, |
\nGrēy-blūē |
\nlēāf bў |
\nrēd-hēāt |
\ngrōwn, |
\nhĕlve prŏdūced |
\n <\/span>                                              
\n<\/span> <\/span>frŏm ă līttlĕ |
\nsēēd sōwn, |<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n– 372<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nRēstĭng
\nthĕ |
\ngrāss
\nămīd |
\nănd
\nŭpōn, |
\nTŏ bĕ lēān’d |
\nănd
\ntŏ lēān ōn. |<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven when he loosens into a laxity nearer to prose, the compact
\n<\/span>quantitative movement, though much less high-strung, is still 
\n<\/span>there, –<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nI
\nsēē |
\nmāle
\nănd |
\nfēmāle
\n|
\nēvĕrўwhēre, |
\nI sēē |
\nthĕ
\nsĕrēne |
\nbrōthĕrhŏŏd
\n|
\nŏf
\nphīlŏsōphs, |
\nI sēē thĕ |
\ncŏnstrūctĭvenĕss
\n|
\nŏf
\nmў rāce. |<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>It is only when he lies back or lolls indolently content with spreading himself
\nout in a democratic averageness of rhythm that the intensity of poetic movement
\nfades out; but the free quantitative movement is there even then, though near
\nnow to the manner and quality of prose.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n   
\n<\/span>The later practicians of free verse have not often the heightened
\nrhythmic movement of Whitman at his best, but still they are striving towards
\nthe same kind of thing, and their work apparently and deliberately amorphous
\nreceives something like a shape, a balance, a reasoned meaning when scanned as
\nquantitative free verse. We find this in passages of the Hollow Men, e.g.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 \n<\/p>\n

\nWē
\nāre thĕ |
\nhōllōw
\nmēn |
\nWē āre thĕ |
\nstūffed
\nmēn |
\nLēānĭng tŏ|gēthĕr
\n|
\nHēādpīēce |
\nfīlled
\nwĭth strāw. |
\nĂlās! |
\nOūr drīēd |
\nvōīces,
\nwhĕn |
\nWĕ whīspĕr |
\ntŏgēthĕr, |
\nĂre quīĕt |
\nănd
\nmēānĭnglĕss |
\nĂs wīnd |
\nĭn
\ndry grāss |
\nŎr rāts fēēt |
\nōvĕr
\n|
\nbrōkĕn glāss |
\nĬn oūr dry |
\ncēllăr. |<\/p>\n

Shāpe wĭthōūt fōrm, |
\nshāde
\nwĭthōūt |
\ncōlŏŭr, |
\nPārălysed fōrce, |
\ngēstŭre
\nwĭth|ōūt
\nmōtĭŏn; |<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n\u2013 373<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 or
\nlet us take a passage from Stephen Spender, –<\/p>\n

<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\nŎh
\ncōmrādes, |
\nlĕt nŏt thōse |
\nwhō
\nfōllŏw |
\nāftĕr
\n|
\n– Thĕ bēāūtĭfŭl |
\ngĕnĕrātiŏn
\n|
\nthăt
\nshăll sprīng frŏm |
\nōūr
\n <\/span>                                                                                  
\n<\/span>sīdes- |
\nLĕt nŏt thĕm |
\nwōndĕr
\n|
\nhōw
\nāftĕr |
\nthĕ
\nfāīlŭre ŏf |
\nbānks
\n|
\nThĕ fāīlŭre |
\nŏf
\ncathedrăls |
\nănd
\nthĕ dĕclāred |
\nĭnsānĭt<\/span>\u0178<\/span> |
\n <\/span>                                                                      
\n<\/span>ŏf ōūr rūlĕrs, |
\nWĕ lācked |
\nthĕ
\nsprīng-līke |
\nrĕsōūrcĕs
\n|
\nŏf
\nthĕ tīgĕr |
\nŌr ŏf plānts |
\nwhō
\nstrīke ōūt |
\nnēw
\nrōōts tŏ |
\ngūshing
\nwātĕrs. |
\nBūt thrōūgh |
\nthĕ
\ntōrn dōwn |
\npōrtiŏns
\nŏf |
\nōld
\nfābrĭc |
\nlĕt
\n|
\n <\/span>                                                                                  
\n<\/span>thĕīr ē<\/span>\u0178<\/span>ēs
\n|
\nWātch thĕ ăd|mīrĭng
\ndāwn |
\nĕxplōde
\n|
\nlīke
\nă shēll |
\nĂrōūnd ŭs, |
\ndāzing
\nŭs |
\nwĭth
\nĭts līght |
\nlīke
\nsnōw. |<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n There
\nis a rhythm there, but it is not sufficiently gathered up or vivid and it is
\nmuch more subdued than Eliot’s towards the atony and flatness of ordinary prose
\nrhythm. The last lines of the quotation from the Hollow Men<\/i> could be used
\nto describe with a painful accuracy most of this ametric poetry. Some kind of
\npoetic shape is there but no realised and convincing form; shade there is
\nplenty, but colour – except perhaps blacks, browns, greys and silver-greys – is
\nmostly absent; force is there but paralysed or only half-carrying out its
\nintention, gestures with much effort and straining, but no successful motion. In
\nless excellent passages of the free verse writers this atony comes out very
\nevidently; all intensity of poetic rhythm disappears and we plod through arid
\nwaste-lands. There is an insistence on formlessness as the basis and each writer
\ntries to shape his own rhythm out of this arhythmic amorphousness, sometimes
\nwith a half success, but not always or very often. This is clearly the reason of
\nthe failure of free verse and the reason too of several besetting general
\ndeficiencies of modernist verse; for even where there is form or metre, it seems
\nashamed of itself and tries to look as if there were none. It is the reason also
\nof the discouraging inequality of modernist poetry, its failure to achieve any
\nsupreme<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage
\n\u2013 374<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nbeauty
\nor greatness, any outstanding work which could compare with the masterpieces of
\nother epochs. Inspiration is the source of poetic intensity and, while
\ninspiration comes when it will and not at a command, yet it is more tempted to
\ncome and can be more sustained when there is a conscious and constant form to
\nreceive it, – not necessarily metre in the received sense, – and although the
\nhighest breath of inspiration cannot, even so, be continuous, for the human mind
\nis too frail to sustain the supernormal luminous inrush, yet the form sustains
\nquality, keeps it at a higher level than can any license of caprice or freedom
\nof shapelesness. When the form is not there the inspiration, the intensity that
\ngives perfect poetic expression to idea, feeling or vision keeps more at a
\ndistance and has to be dragged in with an effort; its impulse, even if it comes
\nin lines, phrases, passages, afterwards ceases or flags and toils and through
\nlong weary pages one feels its persistent absence or unwilling half-presence and
\nthe mass of the work remains unsatisfying. What is done may be strong or
\ninteresting in substance, but it lacks the immortal shape. Mind is there, a
\nfertile and forceful, sometimes too acute and forceful intelligence, but not
\nlife, not a firm lasting body. It is possible that one day the impulse which
\ncreated free verse may be justified; but, if so, it can only be done when a free
\nform is achieved, a free rhythmic unity. For that end the best work of Whitman
\nwould seem to point to a free but finely built quantitative rhythm as the most
\npromising base. But, even at its highest, free verse is not likely to replace
\nmetre.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nTHE
\nPROBLEM OF THE’ HEXAMETER<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

   
\nIt
\nis now possible to transfer our attention to the minor problem of the
\nnaturalisation of classical quantitative metres in English poetry; for in the
\nlight of this more natural theory of quantity we can hope to find an easier
\nsolution. Among these metres the hexameter stands as the central knot of the
\nproblem; if that is loosened, the rest follows. But first let us return on past
\nattempts and their failure and find by that study a basis of comparison between
\nthe true and the false hexameter. There are<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n– 375<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nhere
\ntwo elements to be considered, the metrical form and the characteristic rhythm;
\nboth Clough and Longfellow have failed for the most part to get into their form
\nthe true metrical movement and missed too by that failure to get the true inner
\nrhythm the something more that is the soul of the hexameter. Of the tow
\nLongfellow achieved the smoother half-success – or rather the more plausible
\nfailure. He realised that the metre must be predominantly dactylic and
\nmaintained a smooth dactylic flow, broken only by the false, because mechanical,
\nuse of trochees to vary the continuous dactylic beat. Other modulations could
\nnot be used with effect because the accentual system only admits in the
\nhexameter the dactyl, the spondee and the trochee. For all three-syllabled feet
\nare in the accentual hexameter reduced to dactyls. The tribrach gets right of
\nentry by imposing an accentual low pitch on its inherently unaccented and
\nunstressed first syllable, e.g.,
\n <\/p>\n

<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/span>          
\n<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00c1<\/span>nd
\nwith the
\n|
\n<\/span>others
\nin haste went hurrying down to the sea shore
\n.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe anapaest is cooked up into a pseudo-dactyl by a similar device of false
\naccentuation and by the belittling of its long vowel, the antibacchius and
\ncretic by a depression or half suppression of the value of the unstressed long
\nsyllable, the second long bar that gives them their musical value; the molossus
\nis shorn of its strength by a similar treatment of all its syllables except the
\nopening long sound. All are disabled from coming out in relief on the dactylic
\nbackground and so cannot do their work as modulating variants; for that they
\nshould enter in their own right as themselves and not as false dactyls and with
\ntheir full metrical value. Even among the three available feet the trochee gives
\npoor service; for it rarely fits in, – its effect, when it is used mechanically
\nas a device and with no meaningful appropriateness or rhythmic beauty, disturbs
\nthe dactylic flow without giving any relief to the dactylic monotone. Dactyl and
\nspondee by themselves; pure and unmodulated, or the dactyl by itself cannot,
\nunhelped and unrelieved, bear successfully the burden of a long poem in
\naccentual metre.
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-376<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nLongfellow treats us to a non-stop flow of even hexameters with few
\noverlappings and insufficient use of pauses; such overlappings as there are are
\nhardly noticeable, so mechanical is their intervention, so entirely uncalled for
\nby rhythmic necessity and unburdened with meaning; the pauses are sometimes
\nwell-done but the whole tone of the rhythm is so mechanical that even then they
\nloose their effect and seem almost artificial. The result on the rhythmic whole
\nis disastrous; a smooth even sing-song is the constant note, a movement without
\nnobility or beauty or power or swiftness. Sometimes we come across passages that
\nare adequate and achieve a quiet and subdued beauty \u2013<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n        
\n<\/span>Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the
\n                                                                      
\n            <\/span>
\n<\/span>      <\/span>landscape<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n        
\n<\/span>   <\/span>Lay as if new-created
\nin all the freshness of childhood.
\n       <\/span>    
\n<\/span>Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of
\n                                                                                 
\n<\/span>  <\/span>     <\/span>the
\nocean
\n    <\/span>       
\n<\/span> <\/span>Was for a moment consoled.
\nAll sounds were in harmony
\n                                                                                        <\/span>blended.<\/p>\n

In such passages, the metre, though accentual, satisfies quantitative demand and
\nso escapes from its deficiencies, but the rhythm is too flatly smooth and still
\nindistinctive; it fails to support and achieve fully by the something more
\nbehind the metrical movement the beauty that the words intended, – some charm of
\ndelicacy is achieved, but it lacks power, height and depth; here certainly is
\nnot the tread of the great Olympian measure. Ordinarily, the note sinks lower
\nand even descends to a very low pitch; we hear, not the roll of the hexameter,
\nbut some six-foot dactylic rhythm resembling a sort of measured prose
\nrecitative-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen
\nhe arose from his bed, and heard what the people were saying,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Joined
\nin the talk at the door, with Stephen and Richard, and Gilbert,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJoined
\nin the morning prayer, and in the reading of Scripture.1<\/sup> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>
\n
\nNote the detestable combination of two flat trochees with a falsified tribrach
\nin the middle of this line. These false movements abound in the accentual
\nhexameter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 377<\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n    
\n<\/span>And yet even the accentual (or perhaps one should say the stress)
\nhexameter is capable of better things. Clough, aiming at this stronger
\nefficiency, tries to escape from the treadmill motion, the sing-song, the
\nmonotone; but he does not altogether get away from it and arrives only at a
\nfamiliar vigour or a capable but undistinguished movement, or falls into a
\ntrotting and stumbling rhythm which is sometimes hardly even a rhythm. In
\nattempting to shun the monotony of the unuplifted dactylic beat, he often
\ntotally overlays or half overlays the metrical basis of the hexameter rhythm
\nwhich must be always a sustained dactylic movement. He perpetrates frequently
\nlines that are wholly trochaic and have only this in common with the hexameter
\nthat they walk on six feet; a host of other lines are, if not wholly, yet
\npredominantly trochaic. This, which can sometimes be done in a true hexameter
\nrhythm with a special intonation and a special purpose, is fatal if constantly
\nused as an ordinary action of a machine. Very often the trochees break a line
\nthat would otherwise have been adequate; sometimes there is what seems to be a
\ncross between hexameter and pentameter; often he indulges in an anapaestic line,
\nsometimes three at a time, disguised as hexameters by turning an initial pyrrhic
\ninto a false trochee. The result tends to be tedious, trivial and disappointing;
\nlet us a sample \u2013
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nSo
\nthey bathed, they read, they roamed in glen and forest
\nFar amid blackest pines to the waterfalls they shadow
\nFar up the long long glens to the loch and the loch behind it
\nDeep under huge red cliffs, a secret, and oft by the starlight<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nŎr thĕ āūr|ŏră,
\npĕr|chānce,
\nrācĭng |
\nhōme
\ntŏ thĕ | ēīght-ŏ-clŏck
\n|
\nmutton;
\n|
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n                             <\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo
\nthey bathed and read and roamed in heathery Highland.<\/p>\n

This indistinctive paddling has even less of the sound and rhythm of the true
\nhexameter than Longfellow’s verses which are at least hexametric in form and
\nsurface appearance. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n       But still there are passages, not numerous enough, in which<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup>
\n
\nNote that this, the sole truly dactylic line, with quantitative
\nmodulations, is in spite of its deliberate prosaism less unsatisfactory in sound
\nthan the rest of the passage.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 378<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

\nhe
\nloses his fear of the pure dactylic movement and does not replace it or break it
\nwith the disturbing intrusion of unmanaged or unassimilated trochees; he arrives
\nthen at "accentual" lines, – if they must be so called, but they are
\nreally stress lines, – with a firm beat that makes the metrical structure
\nadequate; or he achives a movement in which the trochees come in with a distinct
\nrhythmic meaning and significant effect or, at the least, make themselves at
\nhome in the dactylic rhythm, or he brings in other modulations in a way proper
\nto the quantitative hexameter \u2013
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nFound
\namid granite dust on the frosty scalp of the Ca\u00efrngorm…
\nEying one moment the beauty, the life, ere he flung himself in it,
\nDrinking in, deep in his soul, the beautiful hue and the
\n                   
\n                     <\/span>                              
\n<\/span>clearness….
\nOften I find myself saying and know not myself as I say it,
\nPerish the poor and the weary! what can they better than perish,
\nPerish in labour for her who is worth the destruction of empires….
\nDig in thy deep dark prison, 0 miner! and finding be thankful,
\nWhīle thōū ārt |
\nēātĭng
\nblāck |
\nbrēād
\nĭn thĕ |
\npōīsŏnŏŭs
\nāīr ŏf
\n                                                                         <\/span>thў |
\ncāvĕrn,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFar
\naway glitters the gem on the peerless neck of a princess….
\nInto a granite bason the amber torrent descended.<\/p>\n

      <\/span>These
\nlines are metrically and rhythmically adequate; the treatment of the metre is
\nunexceptionable: there is a true form, a good basis and beginning of a genuine
\nhexameter movement; and yet something is lacking, something which ought to be
\nthere and is not, and its absence prevents them from being quite effective. It
\nis the rhythm that in spite of its soundness is not altogether alive, does not
\nkeep sufficiently alert, has not found the true movement that would give it the
\nfull power and speed of the true hexameter. A second fault is that while
\nindividual lines are good and many sound even excellent when read by themselves
\nor even two or three at a time, there is no rhythmic harmony of the long passage
\nor paragraph; one has, in the mass, the sense of listening to the same
\nindifferent and undistinguished movement repeated without sufficient meaningful
\nvariation and without
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-379
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nany
\nharmonious total significance. Above all the large hexameter rhythm, such as we
\nhave it in Greek or Latin, has not been found, nor anything that would equal it
\nas a native English harmony fitted for great poetic speech, for great thoughts
\nand feelings, for great action and movement. There is a tameness of sound, a
\nflatness of level, or, even when beauty or energy is there, it is a tenuous
\nbeauty, a strength that is content to be low-toned and moderate.
\n       <\/span>One
\nreason of this deficiency must be that in all this work the hexameter is
\ncompelled to express subjects whose triviality brings it down far below its
\nnatural pitch of greatness, force or beauty. A pathetically sentimental love
\nstory, a rather dullhued tale of courtship among New England Puritans, the
\ntrifling doings and amours and chaff and chat of holiday-making undergraduates,
\nthese are not subjects in which either language or rhythm can rise to any great
\nheights or reach out into revealing largenesses; they are obliged to key
\nthemselves to commonness and flatness; the language is as often as not
\nconfidentially familiar or prosaic, a manner good enough for some other kinds of
\nverse but not entitled to call in the power of the great classical metre. There
\ncan be in such an atmosphere no room and no courage to dare to rise into any
\nuplifting grandeur or break out into any extreme of beauty. Both Clough and
\nLongfellow tell their stories well and it is more for the interest of the
\ncontents than for the beauty of the poetry that we read them. But the hexameter
\nwas made for nobler purposes; it has been the medium of epic or pastoral or it
\ntuned itself to a powerful or forcefully pointed expression of thought and
\nobservation; power and beauty are its native character and, even when it turns
\nto satire or to familiar speech, it keeps always one or other or both of these
\ncharacteristics. There is no sound reason why it should be otherwise in English,
\nwhy this great metre should be condemned to an inferior level and inferior
\npurpose; if that is done, it fails its user and dissatisfies the reader.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>In fact, Clough does once or twice rise above these limitations. Here,
\nfollowing immediately three lines that have been already quoted as good in their
\nlimits, come three others that suddenly realise the true hexameter rhythm; there
\nis the life and
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-380<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nenergy
\nnatural to that rhythm, there is the characteristic swiftness, rush, force,
\nwhich is one of its notes, there is an exact clothing of the thought, feeling or
\naction in its own native movement \u2013<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWhat!
\nfor a mite, or a mote, an impalpable odour of honour
\nArmies shall bleed, cities burn, and the soldier red from the
\n                                                                                     
\n<\/span>storming
\nCarry hot rancour and lust into chambers of mothers and
\n                   
\n                                                           <\/span>daughters!<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

At
\nanother place he rises still higher and suddenly discovers, though only once in
\na way and apparently without being conscious of his find, the rhythm of the true
\nquantitative hexameter –<\/p>\n

 <\/span>           <\/span>              
\n<\/span>Hē like ă | gōd cāme | lēāvĭng hĭs
\n| āmplě Ŏ|lӯmpĭăn | chāmběr<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>where the opening antibacchius and spondee followed by bounding and undulating
\ndactyls give a sound-value recognisable as akin to the ancient movement. It
\nwould be an epic line if it were not in the mock-heroic style; but, even so, if
\nwe met it apart from its context, it would remind us at once of the Homeric
\nrhythms \u2013<\/p>\n

<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n <\/span>          
\n<\/span>Bē de kat’ Oulumpoio karēnon chō\u00f6menos kēr….<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span>If all the poem had been written in that manner or in accordant rhythms, the
\nproblem of the English hexameter would have been solved; there would have been
\nno failure or half failure.1<\/sup> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n          We
\nbegin to glimpse the conditions of success and may now summarily state them. The
\nhexameter is a dactylic metre and it must remain unequivocally and patently
\ndactylic; there can be no escape from its difficulties by diminishing the
\ndactylic beat:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/font><\/sup><\/p>\n

Kingsley’s
\nAndromeda <\/i>deserves a mention, for it is the most readable of English
\nhexameter poems; the verse is well-constructed, much better than Clough’s; it
\nhas not the sing-song tameness of Longfellow, there is rhythm, there is
\nresonance. But though the frame is correct and very presentable, there is
\nnothing or little inside it. Kingsley has the trick of romantic language,
\nromantic imagination and thinking, but he is not an original poet; the poetic
\nvalue of his-work is far inferior to Clough’s or Longfellow’s, it is not sound
\nand good stuff but romantic tinsel.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-381<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n\trather
\n its full quantitative force has to be brought out, – the more that is done,
\n the more the true rhythm will appear. But this need not bring in any
\n sing-song, treadmill walk or monotone. In Longfellow, in Clough at their
\n ordinary level, it is the low even tone without relief, the repetition of a
\n semi-trochaic jog-trot or a smooth unvarying canter, the beat of tame dactyls,
\n that gives this impression. In Harvey or similar writers it is the constrained
\n artificial treatment of the metre that enforces a treadmill labour. But this
\n is not the true hexameter movement; the true movement is a swift stream or a
\n large flow, an undulating run, the impetuous bounding of a torrent, an ocean
\n surge or a divine gallop of the horses of the sun-god. There must be one
\n underlying sameness as in all metre, but there can and should be at the same
\n time a considerable diversity on the surface. That can be secured by several
\n means, each of which gives plenty of room for rhythmic subtlety and for many
\n turns of sound significance. There is the pause in various places of the line,
\n near the beginning, at the middle or just after it or close to the end; all
\n admit of a considerable variety in the exact placing, modulation, combination
\n of the pause or pauses. There is also the line caesura and the foot caesura.
\n The hexameter line in English may be cut into two or else three equal dactylic
\n parts, or it may be cut anywhere in the middle of a foot and this admits of a
\n number of very effective variations which obviate monotony altogether. For
\n example \u2013<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t                     
\n <\/span>In the dawn-ray lofty and voiceless
\n Ida climbed with her god-haunted peaks | into diamond lustres,
\n Ida, first of the hills | with the ranges silent beyond her
\n Watching the dawn in their giant companies, | as since the ages
\n First began | they had watched her, | upbearing Time on their
\n  <\/span>           <\/span>                                                                            
\n <\/span>summits ….<\/p>\n

"Hero Aeneas, swift be thy stride to the Ilian hill-top.
\n Dardanid, haste! for the gods are at work; they have risen with
\n                                                                                  
\n <\/span>the morning,
\n Each from his starry couch, and they labour. Doom, we can see it,
\n Glows on their anvils of destiny, clang we can hear of their
\n      
\n                                                                                        <\/span>  
\n <\/span>hammers.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n Page \u2013 382<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/div>\n

\n\tSomething
\n they forge for us, sitting unknown in the silence
\n  <\/span>           <\/span>                                                                     <\/span>eternal,
\n Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are
\n                                                                                  <\/span>masters
\n Calm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron
\n                          
\n                                                      <\/span>
\n <\/span>caprices.
\n Troy is their stage and Argos their background; we are their
\n  <\/span>           <\/span>                                                                    <\/span>puppets.
\n Always our voices are prompted to speech for an end that we
\n  <\/span>           <\/span>                                                                   
\n <\/span>know not,
\n Always we think that we drive, but are driven. Action and
\n                                                                        
\n         <\/span>impulse,
\n Yearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow
\n                                                                                 <\/span>and helper."<\/p>\n

There are many other devices for variation: there is overlapping, – but it
\n must be skilfully managed so as to coincide with perceptible movements of the
\n thought, not used merely as a customary technical device; – there is the
\n constant attention to the right vowellation and consonant harmonies which can
\n give an individual character to each line and are also intimately connected
\n with the rhythmic rendering of significance. Even though the free rhythmic
\n placing of intrinsic long syllables is taken away, since they are now bound
\n down to a metrical use, still much can be done with the distribution of
\n stressed long vowels and stressed short vowels among the six beats; for the
\n predominance of either in a line or passage or their more or less equal
\n distribution in various ways creates different psychologies of sound and
\n dictates large or wide or narrow or subtle motions of both rhythm and feeling.
\n In this opening of a poem-<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n Dawn in her journey eternal compelling the labour of mortals,
\n Dawn the beginner of things with the night for their rest or their
\n  <\/span>           <\/span>             
\n                                                        <\/span>ending,
\n Pallid and bright-lipped arrived from the mists and the chill of
\n                                                                                  <\/span>the Euxine,<\/p>\n

in the first line the stressed long vowels predominate, in the<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n Page \u2013 383<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tsecond
\n the stressed short vowels, in the third there is an equal distribution; in
\n each case there is a suiting of the choices of sound to a different shade of
\n movement-sense. In another passage –<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n  <\/span>                                                                   <\/span>
\n <\/span>doffing his mantle
\n Started to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans,
\n First in the race and the battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretes,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n we can see that the predominance of short stresses amounting to an almost
\n unbroken succession of natural short-vowel syllables creates a long running
\n swiftness of the rhythm which fits in exactly with the action. All these
\n minutiae are part of the technique and the possibilities of the hexameter and,
\n if they are neglected or ineffectively used, the fault does not lie with the
\n metre. The natural resources of the true quantitative hexameter are so great
\n that even a long series of end-stopped lines would not necessarily create a
\n monotone.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tFinally,
\n there is the resource of modulation, and in the quantitative hexameter this
\n can be used with great effect, either sparingly or in abundance, best sparing
\n perhaps in epic or high narrative, abundant in poems of complex thinking and
\n emotion. There is only one possible modulation in place of the spondee and
\n that is the trochee. In the quantitative hexameter the trochee, unless
\n unskilfully used, does not break or hurt the flow; it modifies the total
\n rhythm so as to give it an expressive turn and it can easily make itself a
\n part of the general dactylic streaming. For example \u2013<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n High over all that a nation has built and its love and its laughter,
\n Lighting a last time homestead and highway, temple and market,
\n Looking on men who must | dīe ănd | wōmĕn | destined to
\n   <\/span>                                                                               
\n <\/span>sorrow,
\n Looking on | bēāūty | fīre mŭst l\u00e3y | low and the
\n sickle of
\n   <\/span>                                                                              <\/span>slaughter.
\n Here the two trochees together – a combination almost always<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n \tawkward or crippling in the accentual hexameter – and the<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\tPage-384 <\/font>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\ntrochee
\nfollowed by a cretic fit easily into the movement and create by their unusual
\nand appropriate turn of sound a modulation of the rhythmic feeling. If the third
\nline were written-<\/p>\n

Looking on men who must die and on women predestined to
\n <\/span>                                                                               <\/span>sorrow,<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nthe common indistinguishable metrical run would not at all serve the intended
\nmeaning, – it would be a statement and would in form the mind but, robbed of the
\nspecial turn of sound, it would not move. For the dactyl there is a great number
\nof possible modulations; the antibacchius can be used freely, the lighter cretic
\nless freely but still frequently, the first paeon often but not too often; even
\nthe lighter molossus can come in to our aid; the tribrach or the anapaest can
\nintroduce the first foot of a line or step in after a pause in the middle, but
\nelsewhere they can seldom intervene or only if it is done very carefully. Even
\nthe choriamb or the double trochee can be employed in place of the paeon, if the
\nsecond long syllable of the foot is unstressed and therefore not burdensome.
\nHeavy trisyllables can be allowed only now and then, if the movement demands
\nthem. But in fact all modulations must be employed only when there is the
\nrhythmic necessity or for rhythmic significance; if they are used mechanically
\nwithout reason or at random, it does not help the harmony and often destroys it.
\nRhythmic necessity intervenes when the special movement needed by the thought,
\nfeeling or action must so be brought about, by a modulation of the fixed rhythm
\nor a departure from it;1<\/sup> ()
\nrhythmic significance occurs when the deeper unexpressed soul-sense behind the
\nwords is brought out, not by word but by sound, to the surface.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    
\n<\/span>The efficacy of this technique depends on the power of the writer to
\ndiscover and sustain the true movement of the hexameter, its spirit and
\ncharacter, such as we find it in the ancient epics, pastorals, epistles, satires
\nin which it was used with a su-<\/p>\n

<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/sup><\/p>\n


\nThus
\neven an almost wholly trochaic or a wholly spondaic line can be admitted when it
\nis demanded by the action, e.g.,<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n <\/i>He from the carven couch upreared his
\ngiant stature<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\n or,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n                    
\n<\/font><\/p>\n


\n Fate-weighed up Troy’s slope strode musing strong Aeneas.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tPage
\n \u2013 385<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/div>\n

\n\tpreme
\n greatness or a consummate mastery. That movement can be of many kinds; it
\n admits a considerable variation of pace, sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
\n short in its rapidity or long-drawn-out with many rhythmic turns, and there
\n are several possibilities in each kind. Only a considerable poetic genius
\n could bring out the full power and subtleties of its rhythms; but it is
\n essential for even a tolerable success to find and keep up a true length and
\n pitch in the delivery of the lines; the dactylic flow is especially exacting
\n in this respect on the care of the rhythmist. An undulant run is the easiest
\n to maintain, the most simple and natural pace, but it has to be varied by
\n other movements, a long or a brief bounding swiftness, the light rapid run or
\n a slower deliberate running; a large even stream is a second possibility as a
\n basic rhythm, but this needs a Virgilian genius or talent; the surge is the
\n greatest of all, but only the born epic poet could sustain it for a long time,
\n – it suits indeed only the epic or high-pitched narrative, but it can come in
\n from time to time as an occasional high rise from a lower level of rhythmic
\n plenitude. Finally, rhyme can be used for poems of reflective thought or
\n lyrical feeling; but it must not be made the excuse for a melodic monotone.
\n That kind of melodic fixity is permissible in very short dactylic pieces, but
\n the hexameter does not move at ease in a short range: it has fluted in the
\n pastoral grove and walked on the Appian way, but it loves better the free sky
\n and the winds of the ocean; it finds its natural self in the wide plain, on
\n high mountains or in the surge and roll of a long venturous voyage.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t     
\n <\/span>If the difficulty of the hexameter can be successfully overcome, no
\n insuperable impossibility need be met in the naturalisation of other classical
\n metres, for the harmonic principle will be the same. All that is necessary is
\n that artificial quantity and the atmosphere of a pastime or an experiment must
\n be abandoned; there must not be the sense of an importation or a construction,
\n the metre must read as if it were a born English rhythm, not a naturalised
\n alien. It would be a mistake to cling to rigid scholarly correctness in the
\n process; these metres must submit to the natural law of English poetry, to
\n movements and liberties which the classical rhythms do not admit, to
\n modulation, to slight facilitating changes of form, to the creation of
\n different<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Page \u2013 386<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nmodels
\nof itself, as there are different models of the sonnet. The Alcaic is the most
\nattractive and manageable of the ancient lyrical metres, but in English even the
\nAlcaic cannot easily be the same in all respects as the original verse form of
\nits creator. The original model can indeed be reproduced; but modulations have
\nto be brought in to help the difficulties experienced by English speech in
\ntaking a foreign metre into itself; trochees have very usually to be substituted
\nfor the not easily found spondee, an occasional anapaest, a paeon lengthening
\nout the orthodox dactyl should not be excluded; the omission of the first
\nsyllable in the opening line of the stanza can be admitted as an occasional
\nlicense. Otherwise the full harmonic possibilities of this rhythmic measure in
\nits new tongue cannot be richly exploited. The Horatian form in which the two
\nopening lines very commonly end in a cretic doing duty for the theoretic dactyl,
\nis more manageable in English in which a constant dactylic close to the line is
\nnot easily handled: this change gives a less melodious, a graver and more
\nsculptural turn to the outlines of the stanza. Finally, to this Horatian form it
\nis possible to give a greater amplitude by admitting a feminine ending in these
\ntwo lines, the cretic turning into a double trochee. That does not break or
\ndestroy the spirit and character of the Alcaic verse; it gives it more largeness
\nand resonance.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOther
\nlyrical forms may be less amenable to change; there is sometimes too close an
\nidentity between the body and the spirit. It is so with the Sapphic, an alluring
\nmetre but, as experimenters have found, difficult to change and anglicise: here
\nonly slight modulations are admissible, the trochee for the spondee, the
\nanti-bacchius or light cretic for the dactyl. Still others would need the minute
\nand scrupulous art of a goldsmith or the force of a giant to make anything of
\nthem; yet they are worth trying, for one never knows whether the difficulty may
\nnot be the way to a triumph or a trouvaille. <\/i>In any case the hexameter,
\nhalf a dozen of the greater or more beautiful lyrical forms and the freedom of
\nthe use of quantitative verse for the creation of new original rhythms would be
\nenough to add a wide field to the large and opulent estate of English poetry. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n


\nPage
\n\u2013 387<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IV   ON QUANTITATIVE METRE An Essay On Quantitative Metre THE REASON OF THE PAST FAILURES               A definitive verdict seems to have been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-05-collected-poems-volume-05","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}