13. If Vers de Société appeals to you, write several verses in that style upon a theme that you think should prove attractive to the leading magazines. 14. (a) Name an example of humorous verse that appeals to you; (b) try to analyze and to capture the spirit of its humor; (c) write a stanza or two embodying a different thought but with the same humorous turn or construction. 15. Write a satirical stanza ridiculing some fashionable foible or custom that seems to you to be in bad taste. 16. Has satire often wrought reforms? 17. Write a limerick upon the subject of your desire to write a limerick. NOTE: Unlimited imitations of whimsical forms may be taken up as additional assignments. APPENDICES APPENDIX A GLOSSARY OF METRICAL TERMS VERSE: A line of poetry; literally, the turn at the end of a furrow; often loosely used for stanza; also used for poetry in general. STANZA: A series of lines forming a typical group, or part, of a poem. FOOT: A group of syllables consisting of accented and unaccented (or long and short, or strong and weak), syllables in various combinations, as follows: IAMBUS: A foot of two syllables, the first unaccented, the second accented. TROCHEE: A foot of two syllables, the first accented, the second unaccented-the reverse of the iambus. ANAPEST: A foot of three syllables, the first and second unaccented, the last accented. DACTYL: A foot of three syllables, the first accented, the second and third unaccented-the reverse of the anapæst. AMPHIBRACH: A foot of three syllables, the first unaccented, the second accented, the third unaccented -the reverse of the amphimacer. AMPHIMACER: A foot of three syllables, the first accented, the second unaccented, the third accented. SPONDEE: A foot consisting of two equally accented syllables; a true spondee is almost unknown in English verse. PYRRHIC: A foot consisting of two unaccented syllablesthe reverse of the spondee. This term is seldom used. The spondaic foot and the pyrrhic are exceptions to our definition of the foot.. 1 CHORIAMB: A foot of four syllables, the first and fourth accented, the second and third unaccented. This term also is seldom used. MONOMETER: A line of verse consisting of one foot. DIMETER. A line consisting of two feet. TRIMETER: A line consisting of three feet. TETRAMETER: A line consisting of four feet. PENTAMETER: A line consisting of five feet. CATALECTIC: A catalectic line is one that drops part of the last foot; a line dropping a final syllable or syllables. ACATALECTIC: A line which has the complete number of syllables in the last foot. HEROIC VERSE: Iambic pentameter, or a line of five iambic feet (ten syllables). Note. Nearly all English meters may be scanned by the use of one or other of the four kinds of metrical feet first mentioned above, viz.: iambus, trochee, anapæst, or dactyl. ELEGIAC VERSE: Alternate hexameter and pentameter lines. ALEXANDRINE VERSE: Iambic hexameter, or a line of six iambic feet (twelve syllables). CASURA: Literally division; the pause in the middle of a line. In classic verse it falls at the end of a word, but usually in the middle of a foot; in English verse it should fall at the end of both foot and word. STROPHE: The first movement or section of a Greek ode; sometimes used for stanza. ANTISTROPHE: The second movement of a Greek ode, following the strophe and identical with it in the meter. EPODE: Literally an after-song; the third section of a Greek ode, differing in meter from the strophe and the antistrophe. APPENDIX B SOME BOOKS FOR THE FURTHER STUDY OF VERSIFICATION A knowledge of the nature of poetry and an acquaintance with a wide range of poems are of course fundamental to an extended study of the technique of verse. A number of books on poetry, as well as representative collections of poems, are named in APPENDIX C. Those who would make a more exhaustive study of metrical forms than is afforded by this little book, will find help in the following volumes a few among many such: Edwin Guest's "History of English Rhythms" (1838), Second Edition, Revised by Prof. W. W. Skeat (London: Bell, 1882); and George Saintsbury's "History of English Prosody," 3 vols. (London and New York: Macmillan, 1906-1910), are exhaustive and learned works. One of the best of the smaller treatises is F. B. Gummere's "Handbook of Poetics" (Boston: Ginn, 1891). Raymond M. Alden's "English Verse" (New York: Holt, 1903) is enriched by a large number of poetic examples illustrating the whole range of versification. T. S. Omond's “English Metrists" (Tumbridge Wells: Pelton, 1903) is especially valuable for its bibliography. may also be studied in special books like the following: "Science of English Verse," Sidney Lanier (New York: Scribner's, 1880) (lays emphasis on sound and rhythm); Special phases of prosody |