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at the end of both foot and word, but not always at the end of the same foot, or an effect of monotony and dull uniformity will be the result. Milton constantly varies the location of the cæsura with excellent effect, as the following examples will show:

Pause after 1st foot.

The careful plowman doubting stands,
Lest on the threshing-floor his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,

etc.

Pause after 2nd foot.

-Book IV, Line 985.

On his right

The radiant image of his glory sat,

His only Son: X on earth he first beheld, etc.

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So under fiery cope together rushed

Both battles main, with ruinous assault

And in extinguishable rage X all heaven, etc.

-Book VI, Line 217.

4. Unrhymed Verse

As intimated at the beginning of this chapter, not all unrhymed poems can justly be called blank verse, which,

as we have said, is a heroic measure. Some are lyrics, like the following:

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

-TENNYSON, The Princess.

I have had playmates, I have had companions
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

-LAMB, The Old Familiar Faces.

Browning's "One Word More" is in unrhymed, trochaic verse and its effect is lyrical.

There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!

Take them, Love, the book and me together;
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION

1. Name an advantage that blank verse holds over rhymed verse.

2. What special fault is most likely to creep into blank verse?

3. What is the meaning of the word cæsura?

4. From Milton, pick out at least six examples of its use.

5. Need blank verse be always in iambic meter? 6. Would the meter of Hiawatha be properly classed as blank verse?

7. Do you find equal enjoyment in reading blank verse and rhymed iambic verse?

8. Can you name a modern drama, written in blank verse, that has won popularity?

9. How does blank verse differ from the unrhymed lyric?

IO. Write in blank verse a short description of the country near your home.

II. Select a narrative prose passage of distinction and recast it into epical blank verse.

I2. Tell a short-story in epical blank verse. Introduce the pause for both practice and effect.

CHAPTER XV

DRAMATIC POETRY

So many things among men have been handed down from century to century and from nation to nation, and the human mind is in general so slow to invent, that originality in any department of mental exertion is everywhere a rare phenomenon. We are desirous of seeing the result of the efforts of inventive geniuses when, regardless of what in the same line has elsewhere been carried to a high degree of perfection, they set to work in good earnest to invent altogether for themselves; when they lay the foundation of the new edifice on uncovered ground, and draw all the preparations, all the building materials, from their own resources. We participate, in some measure, in the joy of success, when we see them advance rapidly from their first helplessness and need to a finished mastery in their art.

—A. W. VON SCHLEGEL, Dramatic Art and Literature.

The subject of dramatic poetry would require a volume in itself, yet only a brief treatment can be accorded it here.

Although English dramas have been written in rhyme, the loftiest and most dignified meter for English dramatic poetry is blank verse. But the blank verse of drama necessarily differs in several respects from that of the epic. The epic, as lofty narrative, relates what has happened, and what certain characters did and said; its style therefore must be stately and uniform. Drama, upon the other hand, is not narrative, but shows us what is happening, and the characters present themselves to us by what they say; for this reason the style of dramatic

blank verse must be more realistic and varied than that of heroic poetry.

It would not do to have Caliban, the brutish monster in Shakespeare's drama of "The Tempest," talk like Miranda, the young and beautiful heroine of the same play. Listen to Caliban:

All the infections that the sun sucks up

From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease!

-The Tempest, Act II, Scene II.

Miranda's speeches, on the contrary, are full of grace and charm:

I do not know

One of my sex; no woman's face remember
Save, from my glass, mine own, nor have I seen
More that I may call men, than you, good friend,
And my dear father.

-The Tempest, Act III, Scene I.

More latitude and irregularity are also allowable in the blank verse of drama than in that of the epic. Here, however, a word of caution is needed:

We must insist on the points made in the chapter on Irregularities: that irregularities should proceed from the nature of the subject itself and not from any weakness of the poet; and that the thought must mould the form if the form is to enhance the thought.

For

But some latitude, we have said, is allowable. instance, a drama may be interspersed with lyrical pas

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