The Rationale of Verse — 1902 historical reading — reading text

| lonel_(2)y | musin_(2)g, | And the_(2)y | drift s_(2)o | strange an_(2)d | swift^(3/2) There's n_(2)o | time fo_(2)r | choos_(2)ing | Which t_(2)o | follo_(2)w | for t_(2)o | leav^(3/2)e An_(2)y, | seems a_(2) | losin_(2)g. | In the ordinary system the accentuation would be thus: Māny arĕ thĕ | thōughts thăt | cōme tŏ | mē | Īn my | lōnely | mūsing, | Ānd thĕy | drīft sŏ | strānge ănd | swīft | Thēre's nŏ | time fŏr | choōsing | Whīch tŏ | fōllŏw, | fōr tŏ | lēave Āny, | seēms ă | lōsĭng. | It must first be observed, here, that I do not grant this to be the “ordinary” scansion. On the contrary, I never yet met the man who had the faintest comprehension of the true scanning of these lines, or of such as these. But granting this to be the mode in which our Prosodies would divide the feet, they would accentuate the syllables as just above. Now, let any reasonable person compare the two modes. The first advantage seen in my mode is that of simplicity — of time, labor, and ink saved. Counting the fractions as two accents, even, there will be found only twenty-six accents to the stanza. In the common accentuation there are forty-one. But admit that all this is a trifle, which it is not, and let us proceed to points of importance. Does the common accentuation express the truth, in particular, in general, or in any regard? Is it consistent with itself? Does it convey either to the ignorant or to the scholar a just conception of the rhythm of the lines? Each of these questions must be answered in the negative. The crescents, being precisely similar, must be understood as expressing, all of them, one and the same thing; and so all Prosodies have always understood them and wished them to be understood. They express, indeed, “short” — but this word has all kinds of meanings. It serves to represent (the reader is left to guess when) sometimes the half, sometimes the third, sometimes the fourth, and sometimes the sixth, of “long” — while “long” itself, in the books, is left undefined and undescribed. On the other hand, the horizontal accent, it may be said, expresses sufficiently well, and unvaryingly, the syllables which are meant to be long. It does nothing of the kind. This horizontal accent is placed over the cæsura (wherever, as in the Latin Prosodies, the cæsura is recognized) as well as over the ordinary long syllable, and implies anything and everything, just as the crescent. But grant that it does express the ordinary long syllables, (leaving the cæsura out of question,) have I not given the identical expression, by not employing any expression at all? In a word, while the Prosodies, with a certain number of accents, express precisely nothing whatever, I, with scarcely half the number, have expressed everything which, in a system of accentuation, demands expression. In glancing at my mode in the lines of Mr. Cranch, it will be seen that it conveys not only the exact relation of the syllables and feet, among themselves, in those particular lines, but their precise value in relation to any other existing or conceivable feet or syllables, in any existing or conceivable system of rhythm. The object of what we call scansion is the distinct marking of the rhythmical flow. Scansion without accents or perpendicular lines between the feet — that is to say scansion by the voice only — is scansion to the ear only; and all very good in its way. The written scansion addresses the ear through the eye. In either case the object is the distinct marking of the rhythmical, musical, or reading flow. There can be no other object and there is none. Of course, then, the scansion and the reading flow should go hand in hand. The former must agree with the latter. The former represents and expresses the latter; and is good or bad as it truly or falsely represents and expresses it. If by the written scansion of a line we are not enabled to perceive any rhythm or music in the line, then either the line is unrhythmical or the scansion false. Apply all this to the English lines which we have quoted, at various points, in the course of this article. It will be found that the scansion exactly conveys the rhythm, and thus thoroughly fulfils the only purpose for which scansion is required. But let the scansion of the schools be applied to the Greek and Latin verse, and what result do we find? — that the verse is one thing and the scansion quite another. The ancient verse, read aloud, is in general musical, and occasionally very musical. Scanned by the Prosodial rules we can, for the most part, make nothing of it whatever. In the case of the English verse, the more emphatically we dwell on the divisions between the feet, the more distinct is our perception of the kind of rhythm intended. In the case of the Greek and Latin, the more we dwell the less distinct is this perception. To make this clear by an example: Mæcenas, atavis edite regibus, O, et præsidium et dulce decus meum, Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat, metaque fervidis Evitata rotis, palmaque nobilis Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos. Now in reading these lines, there is scarcely one person in a thousand who, if even ignorant of Latin, will not immediately feel and appreciate their flow — their music. A prosodist, however, informs the public that the scansion runs thus: Mæce | nas ata | vis | edite | regibus | O, et | præsidi’ | et | dulce de | cus meum | Sunt quos | curricu | lo | pulver’ O | lympicum | Colle | gisse ju | vat | metaque | fervidis | Evi | tata ro | tis | palmaque | nobilis | Terra | rum domi | nos | evehit | ad Deos. | Now I do not deny that we get a certain sort of music from the lines if we read them according to this scansion, but I wish to call attention to the fact that this scansion and the certain sort of music which grows out of it, are entirely at war not only with the reading flow which any ordinary person would naturally give the lines, but with the reading flow universally given them, and never denied them, by even the most obstinate and stolid of scholars. And now these questions are forced upon us — “Why exists this discrepancy between the modern verse with its scansion, and the ancient verse with its scansion?” — “Why, in the former case, are there agreement and representation, while in the latter there is neither the one nor the other?” or, to come to the point, — “How are we to reconcile the ancient verse with the scholastic scansion of it?” This absolutely necessary conciliation — shall we bring it about by supposing the scholastic scansion wrong because the ancient verse is right, or by maintaining that the ancient verse is wrong because the scholastic scansion is not to be gainsaid? Were we to adopt the latter mode of arranging the difficulty, we might, in some measure, at least simplify the expression of the arrangement by putting it thus — Because the pedants have no eyes, therefore the old poets had no ears. “But,” say the gentlemen without the eyes, “the scholastic scansion, although certainly not handed down to us in form from the old poets themselves (the gentlemen without the ears,) is nevertheless deduced from certain facts which are supplied us by careful observation of the old poems.” And let us illustrate this strong position by an example from an American poet — who must be a poet of some eminence, or he will not answer the purpose. Let us take Mr. Alfred B. Street. I remember these two lines of his: His sinuous path, by blazes, wound Among trunks grouped in myriads round. With the sense of these lines I have nothing to do. When a poet is in a “fine phrensy,” he may as well imagine a large forest as a small one — and “by blazes!” is not intended for an oath. My concern is with the rhythm, which is iambic. Now let us suppose that, a thousand years hence, when the “American language” is dead, a learned prosodist should be deducing from “careful observation” of our best poets, a system of scansion for our poetry. And let us suppose that this prosodist had so little dependence in the generality and immutability of the laws of Nature, as to assume in the outset, that, because we lived a thousand years before his time and made use of steam-engines instead of mesmeric balloons, we must therefore have had a very singular fashion of mouthing our vowels, and altogether of hudsonizing our verse. And let us suppose that with these and other fundamental propositions carefully put away in his brain, he should arrive at the line, — Among | trunks grouped | in my | riads round. Finding it in an obviously iambic rhythm, he would divide it as above, and observing that “trunks” made the first member of an iambus, he would call it short, as Mr. Street intended it to be. Now farther: — if instead of admitting the possibility that Mr. Street, (who by that time would be called Street simply, just as we say Homer) — that Mr. Street might have been in the habit of writing carelessly, as the poets of the prosodist's own era did, and as all poets will do (on account of being geniuses) — instead of admitting this, suppose the learned scholar should make a “rule” and put it in a book, to the effect that, in the American verse, the vowel u, when found embedded among nine consonants, was short: what, under such circumstances, would the sensible people of the scholar's day have a right not only to think, but to say of that scholar? — why, that he was “a fool, — by blazes!” I have put an extreme case, but it strikes at the root of the error. The “rules” are grounded in “authority” — and this “authority” — can any one tell us what it means? or can any one suggest anything that it may not mean? Is it not clear that the “scholar” above referred to, might as readily have deduced from authority a totally false system as a partially true one? To deduce from authority a consistent prosody of the ancient metres would indeed have been within the limits of the barest possibility; and the task has not been accomplished, for the reason that it demands a species of ratiocination altogether out of keeping with the brain of a bookworm. A rigid scrutiny will show that the very few “rules” which have not as many exceptions as examples, are those which have, by accident, their true bases not in authority, but in the omniprevalent laws of syllabification; such, for example, as the rule which declares a vowel before two consonants to be long. In a word, the gross confusion and antagonism of the scholastic prosody, as well as its marked inapplicability to the reading flow of the rhythms it pretends to illustrate, are attributable, first, to the utter absence of natural principle as a guide in the investigations which have been undertaken by inadequate men; and secondly, to the neglect of the obvious consideration that the ancient poems, which have been the criteria throughout, were the work of men who must have written as loosely, and with as little definitive system, as ourselves. Were Horace alive to-day, he would divide for us his first Ode thus, and “make great eyes” when assured by the prosodists that he had no business to make any such division: Mæce2na2s | at2avi2s | edi2te2 | regib2u2s | O e2t præ2 | sid3iu3m et3 | dulce2 de2 | cus me2u2m | Sunt qu2os cu2r | ricu2lo2 | pulve3 re3 m O3 | lympi2 cu2m | Colle3gi3sse3 | juvat | me2taqu2e | fervi2dis2 | Evi3 ta3 ta3 | rotis | palma2qu2e | nobi2lis2 | Terra2ru2m | domi2no2s | eve2hi2t | ad | De2os2. | Read by this scansion, the flow is preserved; and the more we dwell on the divisions, the more the intended rhythm becomes apparent. Moreover, the feet have all the same time; while, in the scholastic scansion, trochees — admitted trochees — are absurdly employed as equivalents to spondees and dactyls. The books declare, for instance, that Colle, which begins the fourth line, is a trochee, and seem to be gloriously unconscious that to put a trochee in apposition with a longer foot, is to violate the inviolable principle of all music,