littleness, of attenuation. See Mercutio's description of Queen Mab's chariot: Drawn by a team of little atomies. -SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet. But as for faeries that will flit, -TENNYSON, The Talking Oak. We have seen how Matthew Arnold and Tennyson used long vowels and sonorous consonants to convey one aspect of the ocean, "Long, withdrawing roar," "Cold, heavyplunging foam." Notice how another view of the sea is exquisitely given in this rendition of a line of Homer: The innumerable, twinkling smile of ocean. Note the effect of the many short syllables reflecting the light, like facets of a diamond. The same effect of short syllables may be seen in Shakspeare's The multitudinous seas incarnadine. -Macbeth. The effects which these poets attained were not the results of accident, therefore let no young poet think that conscious and painstaking selection of word-sounds is beneath him. Coleridge would not have dreamed "Kubla Khan" in its perfection if he had not been in the habit of choosing his words with care when he was awake. Tennyson worked two days over three lines of "Come into the Garden, Maud." Stevenson says, "One sound suggests, echoes, demands, and harmonises with another, and the art of rightly using these concordances is the final art in literature." EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION I. If the poet's ear is not sensitive to musical sounds, do you believe that through study and attention he may produce pleasing tone-color effects? 2. Do you suppose that Shakespeare or Keats relied upon the ear alone to secure euphony? 3. Recall one or two popular, classical songs, and mark the number of words, prolonged by the tune, that are in themselves rich in tone-color. 4. In any of the sustained passages in Shakespeare's plays, note the generous use of assonant words. 5. Analyze Coleridge's stanza describing Christabel's room, pointing out the recurrence of certain sounds as an element of beauty. 6. Select three poems full of tone-color and point out at least three lines of each which illustrate this quality. 7. Revise one of your own poems with a view to improving its tone values. 8. Write a list of themes which seem to you to be inviting, with this chapter in mind. 9. Work up one of them into a short poem, using tone-color discriminatingly. IO. Write two stanzas descriptive of the sea (a) in color; (b) in storm, seeking chiefly beautiful tonal effects. CHAPTER XI METERS AND THE STANZA Every poet, then, is a versifier; every fine poet an excellent one; and he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest amount of strength, sweetness, straightforwardness, unsuperfluousness, variety, and oneness; oneness, that is to say, consistency, in the general impression, metrical and moral; and variety, or every pertinent diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process. -LEIGH HUNT, What is Poetry? The poet who has an idea and an emotion to express is early confronted with the choice of a meter. Often, no doubt, he has no conscious choice in the matter—his idea and his emotion come to him pulsing with a rhythm of their own, and he has only to follow his own first feeling. So we may say that a good poem usually brings its meter with it, and the form is the inevitable outcome of the germ. At other times, however, the poet must deliberately select the form best fitted to embody his thought and feeling. He may choose one of the time-honored patterns for his verse, or he may weave a new one for himself; but whatever his choice, let him respect its conventions, rejoice in its complications, and find a new inspiration in its difficulties. He must first show himself a master of regularity and then admit no irregularity but such as may arise from the inner meaning of his verse. He must prove that he can keep laws before he presumes to ignore them. It will do him no harm to experiment in all familiar meters of English verse, and then when his great idea comes to him, he will have ready a fitting garment in which to clothe it. His subject will largely determine his choicehe will not be likely to write an Ode on Hunting, or a Triolet on the Death of Lincoln. Meters, like other things, follow the fashion and change with the changing years. Let us glance at some that were popular in their day. Note, however, that these are not now considered primarily as examples of rhyme, even when the old names would so indicate, but as specimens of meter and stanza, and therefore showing the sequence of rhymes in the stanza arrangement as well as the line measure. 1. Types of Stanza Riding Rhyme.-The meter of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" was called Riding Rhyme from the fact that the Tales were told as the pilgrims rode in company from London to Canterbury. It consists of iambic pentameter lines—each therefore containing five iambic feet-rhymed in couplets. The spelling has been slightly modernized in the following example from the opening lines of the Prologue, with accents added to indicate the extra syllables, for many words have shortened their pronunciation in later centuries. When that Aprilè with his showers swoot1 (a). (a) (b) 1 Sweet. Of which virtúe engendered is the flower; Of Engèland, to Canterbury they wend, That hath them holpen when that they were sick. (b) Rhyme Royal was the stanza of Chaucer's "Troylas and Crysede," and of King James's "The King's Quhair. It is thus imitated by William Morris, whose modern English will serve us better than the aforementioned archaic verse. The measure is iambic pentameter. The letters in the margin indicate the sequence of the rhymes. In a far country that I cannot name, And on a year long ages past away, 1 Them. 2 Their hearts. 3 Distant holy men, or saints. 4 Known. Thomas à Becket. (a) (b) |