A Study of Poetry Part 21

CHAPTER II

The need here is to look at an old subject with fresh eyes. Teachers who are fond of music or painting or sculpture can invent many ill.u.s.trations following the hint given in the Orpheus and Eurydice pa.s.sage in the text.

Among recent books, Fairchild's _Making of Poetry_ and Max Eastman's _Enjoyment of Poetry_ are particularly to be commended for their unconventional point of view. See also Fairchild's pamphlet on _Teaching of Poetry in the High School_, and John Erskine's paper on "The Teaching of Poetry" (_Columbia University Quarterly_, December, 1915). Alfred Hayes's "Relation of Music to Poetry" (_Atlantic_, January, 1914) is pertinent to this chapter. But the student should certainly familiarize himself with Theodore Watts-Dunton's famous article on "Poetry" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, now reprinted with additions in his _Renascence of Wonder_. He should also read A. C. Bradley's chapter on "Poetry for its Own Sake" in the _Oxford Lectures on Poetry_, Neilson's _Essentials of Poetry_, Stedman's _Nature and Elements of Poetry_, as well as the cla.s.sic "Defences" of Poetry by Philip Sidney, Sh.e.l.ley, Leigh Hunt and George E. Woodberry. For advanced students, R. P. Cowl's _Theory of Poetry in England_ is a useful summary of critical opinions covering almost every aspect of the art of poetry, as it has been understood by successive generations of Englishmen.

CHAPTER III

This chapter, like the first, will be difficult for some students. They may profitably read, in connection with it, Professor Winchester's chapter on "Imagination" in his _Literary Criticism_, Neilson's discussion of "Imagination" in his _Essentials of Poetry_, the first four chapters of Fairchild, chapters 4, 13, 14, and 15 of Coleridge's _Biographia Literaria_, and Wordsworth's Preface to his volume of Poems of 1815. See also Stedman's chapter on "Imagination" in his _Nature and Elements of Poetry_.

Under section 2, some readers may be interested in Sir William Rowan Hamilton's account of his famous discovery of the quaternion a.n.a.lysis, one of the greatest of all discoveries in pure mathematics:

"Quaternions started into life, or light, full grown, on Monday, the 16th of October, 1843, as I was walking with Lady Hamilton to Dublin, and came up to Brougham Bridge, which my boys have since called the Quaternion Bridge. That is to say, I then and there felt the galvanic circuit of thought _close_, and the sparks which fell from it were the _fundamental equations between i, j, k; exactly such_ as I have used them ever since.

I pulled out on the spot a pocket-book, which still exists, and made an entry on which, _at the very moment_, I felt that it might be worth my while to expend the labor of at least ten (or it might be fifteen) years to come. But then it is fair to say that this was because I felt a _problem_ to have been at that moment _solved_--an intellectual want relieved--which had _haunted_ me for at least ifteen years before_. Less than an hour elapsed before I had asked and obtained leave of the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, of which Society I was, at that time, the President--to _read_ at the _next General Meeting_ a _Paper_ on Quaternions; which I accordingly _did_, on November 13, 1843."

The following quotation from Lascelles-Abercrombie's study of Thomas Hardy presents in brief compa.s.s the essential problem dealt with in this chapter. It is closely written, and should be read more than once.

"Man's intercourse with the world is necessarily formative. His experience of things outside his consciousness is in the manner of a chemistry, wherein some energy of his nature is mated with the energy brought in on his nerves from externals, the two combining into something which exists only in, or perhaps we should say closely around, man's consciousness. Thus what man knows of the world is what has been _formed_ by the mixture of his own nature with the streaming in of the external world. This formative energy of his, reducing the in-coming world into some constant manner of appearance which may be appreciable by consciousness, is most conveniently to be described, it seems, as an unaltering imaginative desire: desire which accepts as its material, and fashions itself forth upon, the many random powers sent by the world to invade man's mind. That there is this formative energy in man may easily be seen by thinking of certain dreams; those dreams, namely, in which some disturbance outside the sleeping brain (such as a sound of knocking or a bodily discomfort) is completely formed into vivid trains of imagery, and in that form only is presented to the dreamer's consciousness. This, however, merely shows the presence of the active desire to shape sensation into what consciousness can accept; the dream is like an experiment done in the isolation of a laboratory; there are so many conflicting factors when we are awake that the events of sleep must only serve as a symbol or diagram of the intercourse of mind with that which is not mind--intercourse which only takes place in a region where the outward radiations of man's nature combine with the irradiations of the world. Perception itself is a formative act; and all the construction of sensation into some orderly, coherent idea of the world is a further activity of the central imaginative desire. Art is created, and art is enjoyed, because in it man may himself completely express and exercise those inmost desires which in ordinary experience are by no means to be completely expressed. Life has at last been perfectly formed and measured to man's requirements; and in art man knows himself truly the master of his existence. It is this sense of mastery which gives man that raised and delighted consciousness of self which art provokes."

CHAPTER IV

I regret that Professor Lowes's brilliant discussion of "Poetic Diction"

in his _Convention and Revolt_ did not appear until after this chapter was written. There are stimulating remarks on Diction in Fairchild and Eastman, in Raleigh's _Wordsworth_, in L. A. Sherman's _a.n.a.lytics of Literature_, chapter 6, in Raymond's _Poetry as a Representative Art_, and in Hudson Maxim's _Science of Poetry_. Coleridge's description of Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction in the _Biographia Literaria_ is famous. Walt Whitman's _An American Primer_, first published in the _Atlantic_ for April, 1904, is a highly interesting contribution to the subject.

No theoretical discussion, however, can supply the place of a close study, word by word, of poems in the cla.s.sroom. It is advisable, I think, to follow such a.n.a.lyses of the diction of Milton, Keats and Tennyson by a scrutiny of the diction employed by contemporary poets like Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg.

The following pa.s.sages in prose and verse, printed without the authors'

names, are suggested as an exercise in the study of diction:

1. "The falls were in plain view about a mile off, but very distinct, and no roar--hardly a murmur. The river tumbling green and white, far below me; the dark, high banks, the plentiful umbrage, many bronze cedars, in shadow; and tempering and arching all the immense materiality, a clear sky overhead, with a few white clouds, limpid, spiritual, silent. Brief, and as quiet as brief, that picture--a remembrance always afterward."

2. "If there be fluids, as we know there are, which, conscious of a coming wind, or rain, or frost, will shrink and strive to hide themselves in their gla.s.s arteries; may not that subtle liquor of the blood perceive, by properties within itself, that hands are raised to waste and spill it; and in the veins of men run cold and dull as his did, in that hour!"

3. "On a flat road runs the well-train'd runner, He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs, He is thinly clothed, he leans forward as he runs, With lightly closed fists and arms partially rais'd."

4. "The feverish heaven with a st.i.tch in the side, Of lightning."

5. "Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things."

6. "Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels."

7. "As for the gra.s.s, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; their dry blades p.r.i.c.ked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud."

8. "For the main criminal I have no hope Except in such a suddenness of fate.

I stood at Naples once, a night so dark I could have scarce conjectured there was earth Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: But the night's black was burst through by a blaze-- Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, Through her whole length of mountain visible: There lay the city thick and plain with spires, And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.

So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see, one instant, and be saved."

CHAPTER V

A fresh and clear discussion of the principles governing Rhythm and Metre may be found in C. E. Andrews's _Writing and Reading of Verse_.

The well-known books by Alden, Corson, Gummere, Lewis, Mayor, Omond, Raymond and Saintsbury are indicated in the Bibliography. Note also the bibliographies given by Alden and Patterson.

I have emphasized in this chapter the desirability of compromise in some hotly contested disputes over terminology and methods of metrical notation. Perhaps I have gone farther in this direction than some teachers will wish to go. But all cla.s.sroom discussion should be accompanied by oral reading of verse, by the teacher and if possible by pupils, and the moment oral interpretations begin, it will be evident that "a satisfied ear" is more important than an exact agreement upon methods of notation.

I venture to add here, for their suggestiveness, a few pa.s.sages about Rhythm and Metre, and finally, as an exercise in the study of the prevalence of the "iambic roll" in sentimental oratory, an address by Robert G. Ingersoll.

1. "Suppose that we figure the nervous current which corresponds to consciousness as proceeding, like so many other currents of nature, in _waves_--then we do receive a new apprehension, if not an explanation, of the strange power over us of successive strokes.... Whatever things occupy our attention--events, objects, tones, combinations of tones, emotions, pictures, images, ideas--our consciousness of them will be heightened by the rhythm as though it consisted of waves."

EASTMAN, _The Enjoyment of Poetry_, p. 93.

2. "Rhythm of pulse is the regular alternation of units made up of beat and pause; rhythm in verse is a measured or standardized arrangement of sound relations. The difference between rhythm of pulse and rhythm in verse is that the one is known through touch, the other through hearing; as rhythm, they are essentially the same kind of thing. Viewed generally and externally, then, verse is language that is beaten into measured rhythm, or that has some type of uniform or standard rhythmical arrangement."

FAIRCHILD, _The Making of Poetry_, p. 117.

3. "A Syllable is a body of sound brought out with an independent, single, and unbroken breath (Sievers). This syllable may be _long_ or _short_, according to the time it fills; compare the syllables in _merrily_ with the syllables in _corkscrew_. Further, a syllable may be _heavy_ or _light_ (also called _accented_ or _unaccented_) according as it receives more or less force or _stress_ of tone: compare the two syllables of _treamer_. Lastly, a syllable may have increased or diminished _height-_of tone,--_pitch: cf._ the so-called 'rising inflection' at the end of a question. Now, in spoken language, there are infinite degrees of length, of stress, of pitch....

"It is a well-known property of human speech that it keeps up a ceaseless change between accented and unaccented syllables. A long succession of accented syllables becomes unbearably monotonous; a long succession of unaccented syllables is, in effect, impossible. Now when the ear detects at regular intervals a recurrence of accented syllables, varying with unaccented, it perceives _Rhythm_. Measured intervals of time are the basis of all verse, and their _regularity_ marks off poetry from prose; so that Time is thus the chief element in Poetry, as it is in Music and in Dancing. From the idea of measuring these time-intervals, we derive the name Metre; Rhythm means pretty much the same thing,--'a flowing,' an even, measured motion. This rhythm is found everywhere in nature: the beat of the heart, the ebb and flow of the sea, the alternation of day and night. Rhythm is not artificial, not an invention; it lies at the heart of things, and in rhythm the n.o.blest emotions find their n.o.blest expression."

GUMMERE, _Handbook of Poetics_, p. 133.

4. "It was said of Chopin that in playing his waltzes his left hand kept absolutely perfect time, while his right hand constantly varied the rhythm of the melody, according to what musicians call _tempo rubato_,'stolen' or distorted time. Whether this is true in fact, or even physically possible, has been doubted; but it represents a perfectly familiar possibility of the mind. Two streams of sound pa.s.s constantly through the inner ear of one who understands or appreciates the rhythm of our verse: one, never actually found in the real sounds which are uttered, is the absolute rhythm, its equal time-intervals moving on in infinitely perfect progression; the other, represented by the actual movement of the verse, is constantly shifting by quickening, r.e.t.a.r.ding, strengthening or weakening its sounds, yet always hovers along the line of the perfect rhythm, and bids the ear refer to that perfect rhythm the succession of its pulsations."

ALDEN, _An Introduction to Poetry_, p. 188.

5. "Many lines in Swinburne cannot be scanned at all except by the Lanier method, which reduces so-called feet to their purely musical equivalents of time bars. What, for instance, can be made by the formerly accepted systems of prosody of such hexameters as

'Full-sailed, wide-winged, poised softly forever asway?'

The usual explanation of this line is that Mr. Swinburne, carelessly, inadvertently, or for some occult purpose, interjected one line of five feet among his hexameters and the scansion usually followed is by arrangement into a pentameter, thus:

'Full-sailed wide-winged poised softly forever asway,'

the first two feet being held to be spondees, and the third and fourth amphibrachs. It has also been proposed to make the third foot a spondee or an iambus, and the remaining feet anapaests, thus:

'Full-sailed wide-winged poised soft- ly forev- er asway.'

"The confusion of these ideas is enough to mark them as unscientific and worthless, to say nothing of the severe reflection they cast on the poet's workmanship. We have not so known Mr. Swinburne, for, if there be anything he has taught us about himself it is his strenuous and sometimes absurd particularity about immaculate form. He would never overlook a line of five feet in a poem of hexameters. But--as will, I think, appear later and conclusively--the line is really of six feet, and is not iambic, trochaic, anapaestic, the spurious spondaic that some writers have tried to manufacture for English verse, or anything else recognized in Coleridge's immortal stanza, or in text-books. It simply cannot be scanned by cla.s.sical rules; it cannot be weighed justly, and its full meaning extracted, by any of the 'trip-time' or 'march-time' expedients of other investigators. It is purely music; and when read by the method of music appears perfectly designed and luminous with significance. Only a poet that was at heart a composer could have made such a phrase, based upon such intimate knowledge of music's rhythmical laws."

C. E. RUSSELL, "Swinburne and Music" _North American Review_, November, 1907.

6. Dr. Henry Osborn Taylor has kindly allowed me to quote this pa.s.sage from his _Cla.s.sical Heritage of the Middle Ages_, pp. 246, 247:

"Cla.s.sic metres expressed measured feelings. Hexameters had given voice to many emotions beautifully, with unfailing modulation of calm or storm.

They had never revealed the infinite heart of G.o.d, or told the yearning of the soul responding; nor were they ever to be the instrument of these supreme disclosures in Christian times. Such unmeasured feelings could not be held within the controlled harmonies of the hexameter nor within sapphic or alcaic or Pindaric strophes. These antique forms of poetry definitely expressed their contents, although sometimes suggesting further unspoken feeling, which is so noticeable with Virgil. But characteristic Christian poetry, like the Latin mediaeval hymn, was not to express its meaning as definitely or contain its significance. Mediaeval hymns are childlike, having often a narrow clearness in their literal sense; and they may be childlike, too, in their expressed symbolism. Their significance reaches far beyond their utterance; they suggest, they echo, and they listen; around them rolls the voice of G.o.d, the infinitude of His love and wrath, heaven's chorus and h.e.l.l's agonies; _dies irae, dies illa_--that line says little, but mountains of wrath press on it, from which the soul shall not escape.

"Christian emotion quivers differently from any movement of the spirit in cla.s.sic measures. The new quiver, the new shudder, the utter terror, and the utter love appear in mediaeval rhymed accentual poetry:

Desidero te millies, Me Jesu; quando venies?

Me laetum quando facies, Ut vultu tuo saties?

Quo dolore Quo moerore Deprimuntur miseri, Qui abyssis Pro commissis Submergentur inferi.