Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/129

A. -i-x B. x-^ C. XJL VERSIFICATION. -^x stfdum wordum. X-^ ne winterscnr. ix and ford g.ingan. D. j-X 1 ^xx (or ^xx) ford foldwfege. E. ^xx (or -:-xx) | -^ ;indl:iiigue diug. Each of the five types adinils of several modi- fications, and except in a few situations there is great freedom as to the numl)er of unaccented syllables. End-rhyme is almost unknown; and stanza structure is very rare in Anglo-Saxon, though regular in Old Norse. The "five-type" verse was employed with marked regularity tliroughout the Anglo-Sa.xon period for poetry of all kinds. Indeed, alliterative verse, some- what freer in structure, continued to be written, alongside of other metrical forms, for several centiiries later: and it was handled with mas- terly skill by two of the ablest .poets of the age of Chaucer, I^angland and the unknown author of the romance of "Gawayne and the Green Knight." The "Pearl," an "elegy by the latter poet, exhibits a very diffieidt combination of alliteration with a complicated rhyme-scheme. Tile Jliddle English period, however, is marked in general by the adoption and gradual perfec- tion of the more regular measures of which mediaeval Latin and Old French verse afforded models. Three new characteristics, all due to foreign inlluence, made their appearance in this later verse: (1) end rhyme (see Rhyme) took the place of the earlier alliteration; (2) stanza structure, a development closely associated with rhyme, became common; (3) the number of unaccented syllables in a line was more strictly regulated. The change to the new type of versifi- cation was gradual, and English poetry long showed traces of the older usages. Yet the Pocma Morale, a poem of the twelfth century, in rhymed septenarics, attained a pretty strict regidarity in syllable-counting: and the Onnuluin (about 1200, in unrhymed septenarics) is me- chanically monotonous. I.ayamon's Brut, on the other hand, a long poem of about the same time, is more various in structure. It employs both rhyme and alliteration, and retains the old free- dom of accentual rhythm. The accentual sys- tem persisted in many poems throughout the Middle English period, and later still in popular ballads and in the so-called 'tumbling verse' of early modern English writers. In fact, the 'new principle' of Coleridge's Chrlttahel waa really a revival of the old, native English method of counting accents. In addition to the jnetres already mentioned, wide use was made in Middle English of the Alexandrine (often combined with the septenary, but employed in comparative purity in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle) , the octosyllabic couplet (extremely frequent), and a number of lyric forms. There was considerable imitation of French poetry in its more complicated, as well as its simpler stanza arrangements; and the so- called 'tail-rhyme stanza' (used with humorous effect in Chaucer's ^ir Thopan) was fairly com- mon in narrative verse. To Chaucer, the fir.st great master of the newer versification, is due the introduction of two important metres: the 'rhynne royal' (seven-line pentameter stanzas rhyming ababbcc), and the decasyllabic couplet. Of the former he has some 14,000 lines, and of the latter some 16,000; and both measures be- 95 VERSIFICATION. came in his hands admirable instruments for continuous narration. The rhyme royal was popular with Chaucer's immediate followers, Lydgatc. Occlcvc, IJunbar, and .James I. of Scot- land, and was used later by Skelton. Randay, and Sackville. Shakespeare employed it in T/ie Ka/tc of Luvrere, but since then it has been rare. The pentameter couplet always remained a fa- vorite English metre. The beginning of the modern English period is marked by no such change in the fundamental principles of versification as that which took place between Anglo-Saxon and Middle Kiiglish. Chaucer's .system has been in all essentials the system of English ])oets ever since, though the modifications of the language through loss of indections, und the like, have considerably altered the technical (iroblems of English poetry. The nature of these changes can best he made to ap- pear by comparing a few lines of Chaucer's Knifiht's Tale with Dryden's modernization of the same. "The Firste Moevere of the cause above. When he first made the faire chcyne of love Greet was thefTect and heigh was his entente; Wei wiste he why and what ther of he mente. For with th.-it faire cheyne of love he bond The fyr. the eyr, the water and the lond', In certeyn boundiis that they may nat flee." Dryden renders the passage: "The Cause and Spring of motion from above Hung down on earth the golden chain of Love; Great was the effect, and high was his entent, When peace among the jarring seeds he sent; Fire, flood, and earth and air by this were bound. And love, the common link, "the new creation crowned." A complete survey of modern English verse- forms lies far beyond the range of this article. It is not possible here to do more than name the commoner metres and give some brief indications of their history. The long septenary, or seven-stress line, of which Chajunan's Iliad is a famous example, is unusual in modern English. But in its re- solved iorm, printed as quatrains of alternating four-stress and three-stress ver.se, it constitutes the 'common metre' of the hymn-books; and one of the most frequent ballad stanzas has the same movement, though perhaps different in origin. The combination of septenarics with Alexandrines made the so-called 'poulter's meas- ure.' which was rather popular with Elizabethan writers. Pure Alexandrine measure, like that of Drayton's Poli/olhion. has not been common. The octosyllabic couplet has been relatively less important in modern than in tarly Eng- lish, particularly for narration. It was a good deal used for descriptive and reflective poetry by writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, partly because of the influence of ^Milton's L'AUepro and II Penseroso. Butler's BiirJibras gave it a new character as a typical metre of satire or burlesque, also well exemplified by Swift. In the nineteenth century it was again adopted for serious narration by Wordsworth, Byron, and Scott. The various combinations of pentameter verse have imdoubtedlv been the favorite forms of