The Rationale of Verse — 1902 historical reading — reading text

scholiasts. It is needless to imagine men inventing these things, and folly to explain how and why they invented them, until it shall be first shown that they are actually invented. All other “feet” than those which I have specified, are, if not impossible at first view, merely combinations of the specified; and, although this assertion is rigidly true, I will, to avoid misunderstanding, put it in a somewhat different shape. I will say, then, that at present I am aware of no rhythm — nor do I believe that any one can be constructed — which, in its last analysis, will not be found to consist altogether of the feet I have mentioned, either existing in their individual and obvious condition, or interwoven with each other in accordance with simple natural laws which I will endeavor to point out hereafter. We have now gone so far as to suppose men constructing indefinite sequences of spondaic, iambic, trochaic, dactylic, or anapæstic words. In extending these sequences, they would be again arrested by the sense of monotone. A succession of spondees would immediately have displeased; one of iambuses or of trochees, on account of the variety included within the foot itself, would have taken longer to displease; one of dactyls or anapæsts, still longer: but even the last, if extended very far, must have become wearisome. The idea, first, of curtailing, and, secondly, of defining the length, of a sequence, would thus at once have arisen. Here then is the line, of verse proper.(1) The principle of equality being constantly at the bottom of the whole process, lines would naturally be made, in the first instance, equal in the number of their feet; in the second instance there would be variation in the mere number; one line would be twice as long as another; then one would be some less obvious multiple of another; then still less obvious proportions would be adopted: — nevertheless there would be proportion, that is to say a phase of equality, still. Lines being once introduced, the necessity of distinctly defining these lines to the ear, (as yet written verse does not exist,) would lead to a scrutiny of their capabilities at their terminations: — and now would spring up the idea of equality in sound between the final syllables — in other words, of rhyme. First, it would be used only in the iambic, anapæstic, and spondaic rhythms, (granting that the latter had not been thrown aside, long since, on account of its tameness;) because in these rhythms the concluding syllable being long, could best sustain the necessary protraction of the voice. No great while could elapse, however, before the effect, found pleasant as well as useful, would be applied to the two remaining rhythms. But as the chief force of rhyme must lie in the accented syllable, the attempt to create rhyme at all in these two remaining rhythms, the trochaic and dactylic, would necessarily result in double and triple rhymes, such as beauty with duty (trochaic,) and beautiful with dutiful (dactylic). It must be observed that in suggesting these processes, I assign them no date; nor do I even insist upon their order. Rhyme is supposed to be of modern origin, and were this proved, my positions remain untouched. I may say, however, in passing, that several instances of rhyme occur in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, and that the Roman poets occasionally employ it. There is an effective species of ancient rhyming which has never descended to the moderns; that in which the ultimate and penultimate syllables rhyme with each other. For example: Parturiunt montes et nascitur ridiculus mus. and again — Litoreis ingens inventa sub ilicibus sus. The terminations of Hebrew verse, (as far as understood,) show no signs of rhyme; but what thinking person can doubt that it did actually exist? That men have so obstinately and blindly insisted, in general, even up to the present day, in confining rhyme to the ends of lines, when its effect is even better applicable elsewhere, intimates, in my opinion, the sense of some necessity in the connexion of the end with the rhyme — hints that the origin of rhyme lay in a necessity which connected it with the end — shows that neither mere accident nor mere fancy gave rise to the connexion — points, in a word, at the very necessity which I have suggested, (that of some mode of defining lines to the ear,) as the true origin of rhyme. Admit this, and we throw the origin far back in the night of Time — beyond the origin of written verse. But, to resume. The amount of complexity I have now supposed to be attained is very considerable. Various systems of equalization are appreciated at once (or nearly so) in their respective values and in the value of each system with reference to all the others. As our present ultimatum of complexity, we have arrived at triple-rhymed, natural-dactylic lines, existing proportionally as well as equally with regard to other triple-rhymed, natural-dactylic lines. For example: Virginal Lilian, rigidly, humblily dutiful; Saintlily, lowlily, Thrillingly, holily Beautiful! Here we appreciate, first, the absolute equality between the long syllable of each dactyl and the two short conjointly; secondly, the absolute equality between each dactyl and any other dactyl — in other words, among all the dactyls; thirdly, the absolute equality between the two middle lines; fourthly, the absolute equality between the first line and all the three others taken conjointly; fifthly, the absolute equality between the last two syllables of the respective words “dutiful” and “beautiful;” sixthly, the absolute equality between the two last syllables of the respective words “lowlily” and “holily;” seventhly, the proximate equality between the first syllable of “dutiful” and the first syllable of “beautiful;” eighthly, the proximate equality between the first syllable of “lowlily” and that of “holily;” ninthly, the proportional equality (that of five to one,) between the first line and each of its members, the dactyls; tenthly, the proportional equality (that of two to one,) between each of the middle lines and its members, the dactyls; eleventhly, the proportional equality between the first line and each of the two middle — that of five to two; twelfthly, the proportional equality between the first line and the last — that of five to one; thirteenthly, the proportional equality between each of the middle lines and the last — that of two to one; lastly, the proportional equality, as concerns number, between all the lines, taken collectively and any individual line — that of four to one. The consideration of this last equality would give birth immediately to the idea of stanza(1) — that is to say, the insulation of lines into equal or obviously proportional masses. In its primitive, (which was also its best,) form, the stanza would most probably have had absolute unity. In other words, the removal of any one of its lines would have rendered it imperfect; as in the case above, where if the last line, for example, be taken away, there is left no rhyme to the “dutiful” of the first. Modern stanza is excessively loose — and where so, ineffective, as a matter of course. Now, although in the deliberate written statement which I have here given of these various systems of equalities, there seems to be an infinity of complexity — so much that it is hard to conceive the mind taking cognizance of them all in the brief period occupied by the perusal or recital of the stanza — yet the difficulty is in fact apparent only when we will it to become so. Any one fond of mental experiment may satisfy himself, by trial, that, in listening to the lines, he does actually, (although with a seeming unconsciousness, on account of the rapid evolutions of sensation,) recognize and instantaneously appreciate, (more or less intensely as his ear is cultivated,) each and all of the equalizations detailed. The pleasure received, or receivable, has very much such progressive increase, and in very nearly such mathematical relations, as those which I have suggested in the case of the crystal. It will be observed that I speak of merely a proximate equality between the first syllable of “dutiful” and that of “beautiful;” and it may be asked why we cannot imagine the earliest rhymes to have had absolute instead of proximate equality of sound. But absolute equality would have involved the use of identical words; and it is the duplicate sameness or monotony — that of sense as well as that of sound — which would have caused these rhymes to be rejected in the very first instance. The narrowness of the limits within which verse composed of natural feet alone, must necessarily have been confined, would have led, after a very brief interval, to the trial and immediate adoption of artificial feet — that is to say of feet not constituted each of a single word, but two or even three words; or of parts of words. These feet would be intermingled with natural ones. For example: ă brēath | căn māke | thĕm ās | ă breāth | hăs māde. This is an iambic line in which each iambus is formed of two words. Again: Thĕ ūn | ĭmā | gĭnā | blĕ mīght | ŏf Jōve. | This is an iambic line in which the first foot is formed of a word and a part of a word; the second and third of parts taken from the body or interior of a word; the fourth of a part and a whole; the fifth of two complete words. There are no natural feet in either lines. Again: Cān ĭt bĕ | fānciĕd thăt | Dēĭty | ēvĕr vĭn | dīctĭvely | Māde ĭn hĭs | īmăge ă | mānnĭkĭn | mĕrely tŏ | māddĕn ĭt? | These are two dactylic lines in which we find natural feet, (“Deity,” “mannikin;”) feet composed of two words (“fancied that,” “image a,” “merely to,” “madden it;”) feet composed of three words (“can it be,” “made in his;”) a foot composed of a part of a word (“dictively;”) and a foot composed of a word and a part of a word (“ever vin.”) And now, in our supposititious progress, we have gone so far as to exhaust all the essentialities of verse. What follows may, strictly speaking, be regarded as embellishment merely — but even in this embellishment, the rudimental sense of equality would have been the never-ceasing impulse. It would, for example, be simply in seeking farther administration to this sense that men would come, in time, to think of the refrain, or burden, where, at the closes of the several stanzas of a poem, one word or phrase is repeated; and of alliteration, in whose simplest form a consonant is repeated in the commencements of various words. This effect would be extended so as to embrace repetitions both of vowels and of consonants, in the bodies as well as in the beginnings of words; and, at a later period, would be made to infringe on the province of rhyme, by the introduction of general similarity of sound between whole feet occurring in the body of a line: — all of which modifications I have exemplified in the line above, Made in his image a mannikin merely to madden it. Farther cultivation would improve also the refrain by relieving its monotone in slightly varying the phrase at each repetition, or, (as I have attempted to do in “The Raven,”) in retaining the phrase and varying its application — although this latter point is not strictly a rhythmical effect alone. Finally, poets when fairly wearied with following precedent — following it the more closely the less they perceived it in company with Reason — would adventure so far as to indulge in positive rhyme at other points than the ends of lines. First, they would put it in the middle of the line; then at some point where the multiple would be less obvious; then, alarmed at their own audacity, they would undo all their work by cutting these lines in two. And here is the fruitful source of the infinity of “short metre,” by which modern poetry, if not distinguished, is at least disgraced. It would require a high degree, indeed, both of cultivation and of courage, on the part of any versifier, to enable him to place his