A STUDY OF VERSIFICATION

CHAPTER I

THE STUDY OF VERSE

As logic does not supply you with arguments, but only defines the mode in which they are to be expressed or used, so versification does not teach you how to write poetry, but how to construct verse. It may be a means to the end, but it does not pretend to assure its attainment. Versification and logic are to poetry and reason what a parapet is to a bridge: they do not convey you across, but prevent you from falling over. - TOM HOOD: The Rules of Rhyme.

THIS is not a handbook of poetics; and its aim is not to consider the several departments of poetry,— epic and lyric and dramatic. It does not deal with simile and metaphor, nor does it seek to open the mind of the student to the nobler beauties of poetry. It is intended to be an introduction to the study of versification, of the metrical mechanism which sustains poetry, and which differentiates poetry from prose.

It is devoted solely to the technic of the art of verse. It is an examination of the tools of the poet's trade. Although poets are said to be born and not made, there is no doubt that they have to be made after they are born. It is not a fact that the born poet warbles native wood-notes wild; he has to serve an apprenticeship to his craft; he has to acquire the art of verse; he has to master its technic and to spy out its secrets. The poet is like the painter, who, as Sir

Joshua Reynolds declared, "is a painter only as he can put in practice what he knows, and communicate those ideas by visible representation.”

In his ignorance, the layman may be led to despise technic; but this is a blunder of which the true artist is never guilty. Indeed, the true artist cherishes technic; he is forever thinking about it and enlarging his knowledge of it. He delights in discussing its problems; and when he is moved to talk about his art, technic is ever the theme of his discourse. The treatises on painting, for example, written by painters, by Reynolds or by La Farge, are full of technical criticism; and so are the essays on poetry, written by the poets themselves. The processes of their art are considered with unfailing zest by Pope and Wordsworth, by Coleridge and Poe. In fact, the artists are all aware that technic is almost the only aspect of their art which can be discussed profitably; and every layman can see that it is the only aspect which the artists often care to talk about. The other part, no doubt the loftier part, the poet's message to humanity, this is too ethereal, perhaps too personal, too intimate, too sacred, to bear debate.

Every work of art can be considered from two points of view. It has its content and it has its form. We may prefer to pay attention to what the artist has to say, or we may examine rather how he says it. The content of his work, what he has to say to us, is the more important, of course, but this must depend on his native gift, on his endowment; and it is more or less beyond his control. He utters what he must utter; and he voices what he is inspired to deliver. But the form in which he clothes this message, how he says

what he has to say, make it, no more and no less. This depends on him and on him alone; it is not a gift but an acquisition; it is the result of his skill, of the trouble he is willing to take, of his artistic integrity, of his desire to do his best always, and never to quit his work until he has made it as perfect as he can.

this is what he may choose to

This technical dexterity can be had for the asking; - or, at least, it can be bought with a price. It is the reward of intense interest, of incessant curiosity, of honest labor. And it is worth all that it costs, since we cannot really separate form and content, as we sometimes vainly imagine. What the poet has to say is inextricably intertwined with the way in which he says it, and our appreciation of his ultimate message is enhanced by our delight in his method of presenting it. In fact, our pleasure in his work is often due quite as much to the sheer artistry of his presentation as it is to the actual value of his thought and of his emotion. We might even go further and venture the assertion that it is by style alone that the poet survives, since his native gift profits him little unless he so presents his message that we cannot choose but hear. And, as Professor Bradley declared in one of his "Oxford Lectures on Poetry," "when poetry answers to its idea and is purely or almost purely poetic, we find the identity of form and content, and the degree of purity may be tested by the degree in which we feel it hopeless to convey the effect of a poem or passage in any form but its own."

There is benefit, therefore, for all of us in an endeavor to understand the mechanism of the poet's art, to gain an elementary acquaintance with its processes,

to learn as much as we may about its delightful mysteries, just as we must acquire a certain acquaintance with the conditions of building before we can gain a real insight into the beauty of architecture. This knowledge will increase our enjoyment of poetry, for it will give us a twofold interest, in the manner as well as in the matter. The more we know about versification, the better equipped we are to perceive the skill with which the poet has wrought his marvels and also to feel deeply his charm and his power. The more we know, the better we shall understand the real nature of poetic inspiration. "It is very natural," so Reynolds declared in another of his "Discourses on Painting," "for those who are unacquainted with the cause of anything extraordinary to be astonished at the effect, and to consider it as a kind of magic. They who have never observed the gradation by which art is acquired, who see only what is the full result of long labor and application of an infinite number and infinite variety of acts, are apt to conclude, from their entire inability to do the same at once, that it is not only inaccessible to themselves, but can be done by those only who have some gift of the nature of inspiration bestowed upon them."

This book is intended, not so much for those who may desire to write verse, as it is for those who wish to gain an insight into the methods of the poets that they may have a keener and a deeper appreciation of poetry; and yet its suggestions are available also for those who may feel themselves moved to speak in numbers. Attention may be called to the fact that it never pretends to declare how verse ought to be written; all that it endeavors to do is to show how verse has

been written by the poets who have enriched our literature. If any laws emerge into view, these are the result of a modest attempt to codify the practice of the poets themselves and to deduce the underlying principles. It is never the privilege of the critic to lay down arbitrary rules for any art; it is his duty to examine what the great artists have given us, and to discover, if he can, the subtle means whereby they achieved their masterpieces. And it is a humble examination of this kind which is undertaken in this inquiry.

As this is the main object of the present volume, the reader must not expect to find here things not germane to this intent. He will not have his attention distracted by any investigation into the origins of English verse. He will not be called upon to consider the conflicting theories of English prosody. He will not be confused by constant references to the very different metrical system which was employed by the Greek and the Latin poets. These things are discussed at length in many other books; and in this book they would be out of place. To consider them in these pages would interfere with the main purpose of the present volume, which is to provide the lover of poetry with an elementary knowledge of the principles that govern modern English versification.

Exact definition tends to precision of thought; and an acquaintance with technical terms is necessary to any scientific investigation. As Professor Mayor has declared, "the use of Prosody is to supply a technical language by which each specimen of verse is brought before us; to distinguish the different kinds of verse, to establish a type of each, by reference to which existing varieties may be compared; and, finally, to