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a point of union for the advocates of two and four stress distichs. Such a solution by regular use of secondary stresses has already been suggested by several scholars working entirely on the evidence offered by the Old English verse itself. A study of modern metrics can only point out the favoring analogies of modern verse; it is beyond our province to carry the matter farther.

The dipodic theory for the Anglo-Saxon line has, however, another advantage from the present point of view; it offers an explanation for the origin of the ballad line. As pointed out in Chapter II this question of origin has never been settled satisfactorily to everyone; a foreign origin seems impossible for such a popular meter, and yet no explanation has been accepted for its derivation from the Anglo-Saxon long line. But as pointed out earlier in this chapter, a dipodic four foot line passes naturally into a ballad line under the influence of rhyme. Even the caesura remains in the proper position, so that the strong caesural pause of the ballad line and the characteristic four-three division would be the division between the half-lines of Anglo-Saxon verse. The dipodic structure in primitive poetry must have depended largely upon musical accompaniment, since it is easy with music, but very subtle and artful to exist merely in language. After verse became separated from music the dipodic structure would be forgotten, and thus the four foot dipodic would become the usual ballad line.8

1 Being unrhymed, the full alliterative line would tend to maintain the eight stresses. I am at present attempting to test this theory more thoroughly from a point of view somewhat different from that previously used. With monosyllabic half-feet a two foot dipodic distich can be reduced to three syllables:

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With dipodic anacrusis and ending it can be expanded to eleven:

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It has thus enough flexibility to include even Schwell yerse. There are, however, difficulties to be solved.

2 E.g. H. Moller: Zur althochdeutschen Alliterations poesie. Kiel, 1888; Lawrence, John: Chapters on English Alliterative Verse. London, 1893.

31 should stress the fact that the discussion here does not develop any new theory of Anglo-Saxon verse, thus to obtain a convenient origin for ballad meter. The theory has already been worked out from a point of view entirely different from ray own. The present discussion merely points out the analogies of modern verse which lend aid to the theory, and also the additional support of its offering a consistent explanation for the origin of ballad meter. By notation this origin may be summarized as follows: (1) The Old English alliterative line (dipodic under influence of music):

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(2) Ballad verse, rhymed but still sung:

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(3) Ballad meter, no longer sung and so not maintaining the dipodic structure:

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Notice that the division of the half lines is preserved.

CONCLUSION

Dipodic verse is the latest development in literary English meter, so` new in fact that its principles have scarcely yet been mastered. While an innovation in literary poetry the four-foot dipodic line is a characteristic form of English popular verse. The full dipodic ballad line occurs to a less extent in popular song. In technique the latter is the more interesting since it displays in the expanded form the rhyme schemes which are typical of the simple ballad meter. Dipodic meter depends upon the gradation of syllables into three groups instead of the two of ordinary meter, and is correspondingly more difficult than simple meter. The dipodic foot admits free internal variation both in number of syllables and in degree of importance among the syllables of primary and secondary stress. Like regular trisyllabic meter dipodic verse is not really a variation but rather a wholly different metrical form. The object for its use is to be seen in this desire for a new rhythm rather than in any emotional or linguistic connection. Historically the dipodic structure is important as offering a point of union for verse of four and seven feet-the two characteristically popular English meters. Dipodic verse is the last change in structure of which English meter has shown itself capable.

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

In the different sections of this book an attempt has been made to trace in detail each separate technical development of ballad meter; the results now demand reviewing as a whole. The investigation obviously does not aim at a complete history of versification in the past two centuries, but the attention is concentrated upon one form, the development of which has most fully displayed the possibility of variation. To gain the best. conception of the significance of this form, it must be seen in its relations to the whole of English verse.

The line forms of English poetry may theoretically vary greatly, but in practice they are reducible to a very few types. In theory we may have lines from one or two feet to twelve, fifteen or more. Actually, however, verses of one and two feet are practically unknown. Even verses of three feet have only a limited use, and frequently are only ballad meter with a metrical pause. On the other hand lines of more than seven feet are also of little importance. The line lengths are further limited by the fact that the Alexandrine and the "hexameter" have never flourished with real vitality. For practical purposes English poetry may thus be said to comprise lines of four, five, and seven feet. By grouping of the first and last of these the analysis may, however, be carried still further. We have noticed in Chapter VIII the close relation and in fact virtual identity of the lines of four and seven feet. Reduced to terms of greatest simplicity English verse thus really comprises the five-foot line upon the one hand, and upon the other the complex group of the four and the seven.1

This two-fold division of English meters is supported not only by direct observation but by the evidence of history and technique. The five-foot line is, comparatively speaking, a late introduction in English poetry usually credited to Chaucer. The four and the seven, if they may not be traced back to Anglo-Saxon verse, are at least the first recognizable forms in Middle English. The facts of origin thus give evidence that the fourseven represents the native stock, while the five is perhaps a foreign or at least a literary introduction. This conclusion is corroborated by usage throughout the course of English poetry. The five has been the great literary form-of it have come rhyme royal, the heroic couplet, the sonnet, blark verse, the elegaic quatrain, and the general structure of the Spenserian stanza. On the other hand the four and the seven have remained the great popular measures. Sonnets are written in fives, but not street songs. It is either in the four or the seven that we have the ballads themselves, nursery rhymes, and almost all songs, as well as innumerable literary poems drawing from the same tradition. In technique the distinction also holds between the popular and the literary forms. The latter have remained

As pointed out in Chapter III the various forms of "tail-rhyme" stanza can usually be considered an expansion of ballad meter.

closer to syllabic standards of verse, while the former has constantly tended toward metrical variations which kept the verse structure intact, but changed the number of syllables. Suppressed for a time in almost all poetry by rule of classical prosody, metrical variation made its return to good usage through the ballad meter of Southey and the four-foot lines of Christabel. In the past century the popular measures, especially the ballad meter, have continued to develop first and carry farthest each new metrical variation.

The method of this study has been to work entirely with the popular group of meters. Except where a special reason necessitated consideration of the four, attention has been confined to the line of seven feet. It is in this latter verse that variations have been most fully used, so that only from it can a complete idea of metrical practice be gained. After the variations have been determined and studied, they can then be readily applied to the more limited occurrence in other kinds of verse. In this way the technique displayed in ballad meter can serve as a type for that of all English verse.

The general course of metrical development in the past two centuries has been toward greater metrical variation. An accompaniment of this process has been the return of the native popular measures to literary usage. At the year 1700 the five-foot line had practically absorbed all poetry to itself; at the present time its vogue is at least no greater than that of the four and the seven, and may even be less. At the same time, however, a constant increase of metrical variation has been taking place within the popular form itself; so that we have continually had under observation the contrast between the ballad meter of Pope's day and of the present.

The steps in this development may be rapidly reviewed. The eighteenth century saw few innovations in metes. The practice of trisyllabic substitution began just before 1800, and in the next two decades forced its way to the position as an established variation of meter. In a way it may still be called the established variation of meter, since many poets have failed to use, and many metrists failed to recognize any other. The practice of omission of syllables for metrical pause was the next step in metrical variation; beginning in the eighteen-twenties it became an ordinary practice of verse by the middle of the century. The monosyllabic feet and dipodic verse are native to English popular poetry, but have become a part of literary practice only since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Mastery of these latter devices has not become general even at the present day. Ordinarily the use of each new variation has been readily combined with those that have preceded it; thus the poets who developed metrical pause had no hesitation in combining with it the technique of trisyllabic substitution. Except for the incompatibility of dipodic structure and trisyllabic substitution all the variations may readily be found in a single poem of the present day.

There is perhaps no great advantage in a relative ranking of the poets who have contributed to this development; it is possible, however, to point out the significance of some of the figures. In the eighteenth century Burns occupies an important place, but his influence must largely be discounted since he wrote in dialect and for musical accompaniment. Southey and Coleridge are outstanding figures for their trisyllabic substitution, while Scott's popularization of the same practice makes his contribution

equally important. Scott's place as a metrist is interesting also on account of his early use of dipodic verse. In the development of metrical variation the other great poets of the romantic period are not important with the partial exception of Shelley in The Cloud. The younger generation of the romantic writers, however, produced in the aggregate a considerable amount of metrical experiment; as a group there is much of interest in the work of Hood, Bayly, Clare, Mrs. Hemans and others. After the development of metrical pause by Lockhart and Macaulay there comes another lull in metrical development. In the mid-Victorian era1 the work of the Pre-Raphaelite poets is interesting, but such men as Rossetti concealed their monosyllabic substitutions in lines apparently preserving syllabic regularity. Tennyson and Browning are not important from the present point of view, and the work of Swinburne is particularly disappointing. Swinburne's metrical skill consists mainly of exquisite ornamental effects of vowel music and rhyme. His verse tends to maintain syllabic regularity; the lines are varied more by accretion to the number of feet than by syllabic change within the feet. Although it is impossible to make a real judgment of literary movements so close at hand, the most important metrical influence of the last thirty years would seem to be the poetry, not of Swinburne, but of Kipling and Masefield.

In general there may be traced two pervasive motives in the develop. ment of this greater variation in metrical practice. The one desire is for new and more complex rhythms in verse, and the other for a greater harmony of metrical form with the ordinary values of speech. The former of these almost speaks for itself. In Pope's day literary poetry was confined to a regular dissyllabic alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables with the occasional use of equally regular trisyllabic verse. In modern poetry the dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet may be mingled almost at will, while the verse may be the further varied by monosyllabic feet or by feet consisting partially or entirely of a silence. In addition to this the verse as a whole may pass into dipodic structure. A controlling motive in this production of variety has been simply the universal love of novelty.

On the other hand the love of novelty seems to have been directed by a desire to bring the rhythms of poetry into harmony with those of ordinary peech. The verse of 1700 was mechanical in its structure and open to charges of artificiality. With an iron hand it rearranged and distorted the natural speech order to produce the desired regular alternation of. stressed and unstressed syllables. Even so, the stress was often forced upon naturally weak words, while important monosyllables fell into positions where they were slighted by the metrical scheme: The greater flexibility developed in modern verse frequently allows the pcct to avoid these situations. Trisyllabic substitution removes generally the necessity of a stress upon proclitic or enclitic syllables. The monosyllabic foot permits full value upon the various word combinations which bring strong stress upon adjacent syllables. Even dipodic verse sometimes reproduces more correctly the speech values of the language. The contrast may be briefly expressed between the metrical tendency of today and that of two centuries

1 The work of the parodists should be noticed. In Bon Gaultier Ballads, for instance, all four metrical variations occcur at a comparatively early date: trisyllabic substitution,-passim; metrical pause, The Broken Pitcher; monosyllabic foot, The Lay of the Levite; dipodic verse, The Rhyme of Sir Launcelot Bogle.

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