SUGGESTED STUDIES

METER

We do not study meter merely for the purpose of learning how to scan." Why then? Verse is like music, in that it is written not for the eye but for the ear; and only as we express the music of the poem by sympathetic reading, do we really know what the author wrote. If others wish to share our interpretation, we pronounce the sounds aloud; otherwise we hear with our inward ear, and make no sound-essentially it is reading aloud in either case. The first reason for studying meter, then, is to aid in reading aloud, to cultivate a sense for the strong beat and the delicate variations of verse, and to realize how they express the poet's intent. This requires "ear," " which respect some have a natural advantage over others; yet every one can improve his power of mental hearing, and find added pleasure in poetry as a result. In dealing with the unfamiliar phenomena of sound, new terms must be found to make intercourse intelligible. These terms, the vocabulary of verse music, are the means of study; sympathetic reading is the end.

I. THE FOOT. Kinds.—In English verse four kinds of metrical feet are recognized, as follows:

Iambic:, as in the word defy.
Trochaic:, as in the word fortune.
Anapestic:, as in the word interfere.

Dactylic:, as in the word mightily.

Other combinations of accented and unaccented syllables are possible, but it is unnecessary to regard them as separate kinds of feet: they can better be regarded as irregular examples of one of these four kinds. A single line may be so irregular that from it alone it would be unsafe to judge of the meter of the poem in which it stands. But in a number of lines in succession these irregularities will be corrected, and the prevailing kind of foot will be felt as an underlying beat or rhythm throbbing through the whole structure of the verse.

Study. Find two poems prevailingly iambic in beat; trochaic, etc. Judging from twenty random examples, can you say that one kind of foot markedly preponderates over the others in usage? Is any kind notable for infrequency? Taking the odes as one group, and the lighter poems in playful mood as another, observe whether there is noteworthy contrast as to the variety of meters in the two groups. Is there any difference in the variety of meters used by any two poets, as Wordsworth and Browning? Does the choice of meter seem particularly appropriate in any of the poems examined? From the poems written in any given foot, distinguish between those that call

naturally for slow, impressive reading, and those that are best read with quicker, sharper accent.

Irregularities. Absolute metrical regularity would be likely to cause tiresome monotony in the sound of the verse. Freshness and variety result from delicate gradations of accent, from the omission or addition of unaccented syllables, or from the substitution of feet and sometimes of lines of other meters. Some of the ways of bringing metrical variety into verse are as follows:

1. By the addition of light syllables at the beginning or end of a normally complete line. When the extra syllable is thus added to an accented syllable at the end of a line, the resulting light ending is designated as feminine."

We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone in his glo(ry).

Underneath a new-old sign

Sipping beverage divine,

(And) pledging with contented smack

2. By the omission of a light syllable, sometimes two, at the beginning or end of a line of verse.

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward. (~)

One more Unfortunate

Weary of breath. ( )

(~~) Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone (~) And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him.

3. By the substitution of one foot for another. Trochaic feet are often substituted for iambic, especially

at the beginning of a line, with a resulting effect of Iambic and anapestic feet are readily ex

vigor.

changed, as are trochaic and dactylic.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour.

And high and low the influence know-
But where is County Guy?

In reading verse sympathetically we adjust ourselves unconsciously to these variations from the strictly normal meter. More than that, there are passages in which the long vowel sounds and pauses required by the sense, and the accents required by the verse, do not exactly coincide: in these cases we adjust the one kind of stress to the other, also unconsciously, with the final result that lines otherwise monotonously regular become flexibly harmonious.

The sun upon the lake is low,
The wild birds hush their song.

The sonnet of Wordsworth's beginning "It is a beauteous evening," or the first stanza of Tennyson's Break, break, break, if read sympathetically, will illustrate these effects of musical variation admirably.

Study. Read aloud The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna and The Soldier's Dream, both in anapestic verse, and determine which has the greater flexibility: note how the meter emphasizes the difference in mood between the poems. Observe how few are the strictly normal lines in Shelley's The Indian Serenade, yet how naturally the voice adapts itself to

the poem.

the changes, and so reveals the melodious quality of Determine which lines of Wordsworth's The Daffodils are irregular in accent or in stress, and mark them; then read the poem aloud, observing how the slow and the quick lines express the changing thought of the poem.

II. THE LINE.—The number of feet in a line, quite as much as the kind of feet, determines the metrical effect of a given poem. Lines of different length, from two feet up, are designated as Dimeter, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Pentameter, Hexameter, etc. Although theoretically any combination of kind and number of feet is possible, in English verse, as a matter of fact, the ear accepts certain combinations (such as iambic tetrameter) which are therefore frequently used, and rejects others (like dactylic pentameter) which are, therefore, scarcely ever found.

It is interesting to observe that eight foot lines (as illustrated by those in Tennyson's Locksley Hall or Poe's The Raven) have a strong tendency to break in the middle, and thus to become virtually two lines of four feet each. Similarly, seven foot lines, like those in Byron's Youth and Age, are easily read as two lines of four and three feet-practically the ballad meter. Six foot lines, too, such as are found in Browning's Up at a Villa or in the several stanzas of Shelley's To a Skylark, can generally be broken into two lines of three feet each. When there are five iambic feet to a line, however, the ear does not always require a pause, and when it does require one, the