(The miniature glossary which I prefixed to my larger History having been found useful, and indeed some complaints having been made that it was not fuller, I have determined to go to the other extreme here, with a special view to those readers who may be approaching the subject for the first time. Excepting words like "trisyllabic," etc., which can hardly be thought to require explanation, an attempt has been made to include almost every technical, and especially every disputed, term.)

Accent.—This term, which is perhaps the principal centre of dispute in matters prosodic and which, even outside strict prosody, is not a little controversial, may be defined, as uncontroversially as possibly in the words of a highly respectable book of reference,[154] "A superior force of voice, or of articulative effort, upon some particular syllable." It is prosodically used as equivalent (with some slight differences) to "stress," and is regarded by a large—perhaps the most numerous—school as constituting the foundation-stone of English prosody. The inconveniences and insufficiencies of this view will be found constantly indicated throughout this book. On the question, almost more debated, what constitutes, and in different languages and times has constituted, accent itself—whether it is loudness, duration, "pitch," or what not of sound—no pronouncement has been or will be attempted in this volume.

Acephalous.—A term applied to a line in which the first syllable, according to its ordinary norm or form, is wanting, as in Chaucer's

Acrostic.—An arrangement, not perhaps strictly prosodic, by which the initial syllables of the lines of a poem make words or names of themselves, as in Sir John Davies's AstrÆa, where these initials in every piece make "Elizabetha Regina." The process is now chiefly confined to light verse; but there is nothing to be said against it, unless the sense is strained or perverted to get the letters.

Alcaic.—A Greek lyrical measure, used by and named after the famous lyrical poet AlcÆus, but most familiar in the slightly altered Latin form of Horace. Like all these forms, it is only a curiosity in English, and, even as such, has shared the endless and hopeless controversies as to accentual and quantitative metre. No one, however, is ever likely to get nearer to the real thing than Tennyson in

The strict Horatian form (the last syllables being, as usual, common) is:

Alexandrine.—A line of twelve syllables or six iambic feet. This measure (traditionally said to have taken its name from the Old French poem on Alexander) became the favourite metre for the chansons de geste or long narrative poems in that language, and then practically the staple of French verse to the present day. But though it is early traced—as a whole or as two halves—in English, it never established itself as a continuous metre with us. Only two pieces of importance, Drayton's Polyolbion and Browning's Fifine at the Fair, so employ it. On the other hand, it is constantly found scattered about early English verse; appears—questionably according to some, unquestionably according to the present writer—in Chaucer; was an ingredient in the "poulter's measure" (v. inf.), so popular with the poets of the second and third quarters of the sixteenth century; was used by Sidney continuously in sonnet; forms, as a concluding line, the distinguishing feature of the great Spenserian stanza; is very frequent in Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan dramatists; and was adopted by Dryden (though latterly, and then not quite always, rejected by Pope) as a relief and variation to the heroic couplet. It also supplies a frequent ingredient in Pindaric verse and in various lyrical stanzas. For its perfection it almost requires a central cÆsura at the sixth syllable.

In Dryden (probably from insufficient information), in Warton (less excusably), and in some more modern writers (without any excuse at all), "long Alexandrine," or sometimes even Alexandrine by itself, is used to designate the fourteener, "seven-beat," or seven-foot iambic line. This ignores the derivation, contravenes the established use of French, the special home of the metre, and introduces an unnecessary and disastrous confusion.

Alliteration.—The repetition of the same letter at the beginning or (less frequently) in the body of different words in more or less close juxtaposition to each other. This, which appears slightly, but very slightly, in classical poetry, has always been a great feature of English. During the Anglo-Saxon period universally, and during a later period (after an interval which almost certainly existed, but the length of which is uncertain) partially, it formed, till the sixteenth century, a substantive and structural part of English prosody. Later, it became merely an ornament, and at times, especially in the eighteenth century, has been disapproved. But it forms part of the very vitals of the language, and has never been more triumphantly used than in the late nineteenth century by Mr. Swinburne.

Amphibrach.—A foot of three syllables—short, long, short ( ? ? )—literally "short on each side." According to some, this foot is not uncommon in English poetry, as, for instance, in Byron's

as well as individually for a foot of substitution. Others, including the present writer, think that these cases can always, or almost always, be better arranged as anapÆsts—

and that the amphibrach is unnecessary, or, at any rate, very very rare in English.

Amphimacer ("long on both sides").—Long, short, long ( ? )—an exactly opposite arrangement to the amphibrach, also, and more commonly, called Cretic. It is more than doubtful whether this arrangement, as an actual foot, ever occurs in English verse or is suitable to English rhythm; but the name (preferably Cretic) is sometimes useful to designate a combination of syllables belonging to more feet than one, and possessing a certain connection, as expressing either the quantity of a single word or that of a rhetorical division[155] of a line.

Anacrusis.—A syllable or half-foot prefixed to a verse, and serving as a sort of "take-off" or "push-off" for it. This, frequent in Greek, is by no means rare in English, though there are numerous disputes as to its application. It has sometimes been proposed to call it with us "catch"; and, whatever it be called, it comes into great prominence in connection with the question whether the general rhythm of English verse is iambic or trochaic, while it is almost the hinge of the whole matter on the other question whether the English hexameter is really dactylic or anapÆstic.

AnapÆst.—A trisyllabic foot consisting of two shorts and a long ( ? ? ). Almost as soon as English poetry proper makes its appearance, this measure or cadence appears too; for a time chiefly as an equivalent to the iamb. In the revived alliterative metre it to a great extent ousts the trochee, and to one almost as great dominates the doggerel of the fifteenth century. As a continuous metre the early examples of it are well marked, though not very numerous; but in the sixteenth century it seems (no doubt with the help of music) to have caught the popular ear, and from the late seventeenth has been thoroughly established in literature. It is perhaps the chief enlivening and inspiriting force in English poetry, and, while powerful for serious purposes, is almost indispensable for comic.

Anti-Bacchic Or Anti-Bacchius.—A trisyllabic foot opposite to the Bacchic as a definite foot—a short followed by two long ( ? ). Of very doubtful occurrence anywhere in English verse; though the same remark applies to it as to the amphibrach, the amphimacer, other trisyllabic feet, and all tetrasyllabic, in regard to secondary or rhetorical use.

Antispast ("pulling against").—A four-syllabled foot—short, long, long, short ( ? ? )—opposed to the choriambic. Like all four-syllabled feet, it is not wanted in English poetry, being always resolvable into its constituents, the iamb and trochee. But the combined effect may sometimes be represented by it—with this caveat, as in other cases.

Antistrophe.—See Strophe.

Appoggiatura.—A musical term which has no business whatever in prosody, but which has been used by some (e.g. Thelwall) to evade the allowance of equivalence, and the substitution of trisyllabic for dissyllabic feet. Its definition in music is "a short auxiliary or grace-note forming no essential part of the harmony." The nearest actual approach to it in English verse would appear to be the extra syllables found (by licence very rare until recently) in such lines as Scott's in the "Eve of St. John," Moore's in "Eveleen's Bower" and elsewhere, and Macaulay's in "The Last Buccaneer"—e.g.:

Arsis and its opposite, Thesis, are two terms much used in prosody, though unfortunately with meanings themselves attached in diametrical opposition to the same word. The words literally mean "lifting up" and "putting down" respectively. At first, among the Greeks themselves, the metaphor seems to have been taken from the raising and putting down of the foot or hand; so that "arsis" would make a light or short, and "thesis" a heavy or long syllable. By the Latins, and by the great majority of modern prosodists in reference even to Greek, the metaphor is transferred to the raising or dropping of the voice, so that "arsis" lengthens and "thesis" shortens. This, which, whether the older or not, seems to be the better use, is followed here.

Assonance.—An imperfect form of rhyme which counts only the vowel sound of the chief rhyming syllable. This principle was the original one of rhyme in French, and has always held a considerable place in Spanish. But in English it has never established itself in competent literary poetry; though it is frequent in the lower kind of folk-song, and though attempts to naturalise it—in forms even further degraded—were made by Mrs. Browning, and have been suggested since. As an instrument of vowel-music, very delicately and judiciously used at other parts of the line than the end, it has its possibilities, but must always be an offensive substitute in rhyming verse, and an almost equally offensive intruder in blank.

Atonic ("without accent").—When employed in prosody, is applied to those languages which, though they may use accentual symbols, have nothing in the pronunciation that can be made the base of an actual scansion—the chief example being French.

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Bacchic or Bacchius.—A three-syllable foot—long, long, short ( ? )—the opposite of anti-Bacchic and subject to the same observations.

Ballad (rarely Ballet).—A word common to most European languages, but used very loosely, and to be carefully distinguished from Ballade (see following item). Its original connection is with singing and dancing (Italian ballare), and it came, centuries ago, to be used for any short poem of a lyrical character. It has, however, a special application to short pieces of a narrative kind; and "The Ballads" has, as a phrase of English literary history, frequent reference to the body of such compositions of which the pieces about Robin Hood are early examples. It is most commonly, though not universally, written in the "ballad metre" described below.

Ballade, on the other hand, is a term arbitrarily restricted to a measure originally and mostly French, but frequently written in English during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and revived in the nineteenth. It consists usually of three stanzas and a coda or envoi, written on the same recurrent rhymes, with a refrain at the end of each. (See example above, p. 126.)

Ballad Metre or Common Measure.—The most usual quatrain in English poetry, consisting, in its simplest form, of alternate octosyllables and hexasyllables; the even lines always rhyming, and the odd ones very commonly. In the best examples, old and new (but less frequently in the late sixteenth, early seventeenth, and almost whole eighteenth century), the lines are largely, equivalenced, and it is not unusual for the stanza to be extended to five or more. The most perfect example of ballad metre is Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

Bar and Beat.—Two musical terms used by stress-prosodists and others who refuse the foot-system. "Bar" is strictly the division between groups of "beats," loosely the groups themselves. "Beat" is the unit of time or measure. On a sound and germane system of prosody neither is needed.

Blank Verse, on the analogy of blank cartridge, etc., might be held to designate any kind of verse not tipped, loaded, or filled up with rhyme. As a matter of fact, however, and for sound historical reasons, it is not usually applied to the more modern unrhymed experiments, from Collins's "Evening" onwards, but is confined to continuous decasyllabics. This measure (which, mutatis mutandis, had already been used by the Italians and Spaniards in the early sixteenth century, and of which curious foreshadowings are found in Chaucer's prose Tale of Melibee and elsewhere) was first attempted in English by the Earl of Surrey in his version of the Æneid. For a time it was very little imitated, but in the latter half of the century it gradually ousted all other competitors for dramatic use. It was still out of favour for non-dramatic purposes until Milton's great experiments in the later seventeenth; while about the same period it was for a time itself laid aside in drama. But it soon recovered its place there, and has never lost it; while during the eighteenth century it became more and more fashionable for poems proper, and has rather extended than contracted its business since.

Bob and Wheel.—An arrangement (see pp. 48, 49) by which a stanza hitherto usually alliterated, but not rhymed, finishes with one much shorter line of usually two syllables, and then a batch, usually four, of lines not quite so short, but still shorter than the staple, and rhymed among themselves.

Burden.—The same as Refrain (q.v.).

Burns Metre.—An apparently artificial but extremely effective arrangement of six lines, 8, 8, 8, 4, 8, 4, rhymed aaabab, which derives its common name from the mastery shown, in and of it, by the Scottish poet. It is, however, far older than his time, having been traced to ProvenÇal originals in the eleventh century, and it is very common in the English miracle plays of the late fourteenth and fifteenth, and not unknown in the metrical romances, as in Octovian Imperator. Disused in Southern English by the time of the Renaissance, it seems to have kept its hold in Northern, and Burns received it either immediately from Fergusson or perhaps from Allan Ramsay. (See also below, in list of Form-origins.)

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Cadence.—In general, a term applied to the combined rhythm of a line or batch of lines. In one or two early passages of Wyntoun, Gower, and others, it seems to be employed in some special sense as opposed to, or separated from, rhyme, and has been conjectured to signify alliterative rhythm. But this is very uncertain, rather improbable, and in the Gower case impossible. (See p. 233.)

CÆsura ("cutting").—A term applied, in classical prosody, to the regular provision of a word-ending at a certain place in the line, usually coinciding with a half-foot. The commonest cÆsuras in Greek and Latin are penthemimeral ("fifth half"), or in the middle of the third foot, and hepthemimeral ("seventh half"), at the middle of the fourth. At one time, in the earlier writers on English prosody (e.g. Dryden), there grew up a strange habit of using the term "cÆsura" to express elision or hiatus—to neither of which has it the least proper reference. Correctly used, it is, in English, equivalent to "pause" (q.v.), but restricted to the principal pause in a line.

Carol.—A term, like "ballad," of rather loose application, but generally confined to religious lyrics of a definite song-kind. The original O.F. karole referred to a rather elaborate dance with singing, and from this there has been a certain tendency to associate the carol with much broken and indented measures in prosody.

Catalexis ("leaving off").—A term of great importance, inasmuch as there is no other single one which can replace it; but a little vague and elastic in use. Strictly speaking, a catalectic line is one which comes short, by a half-foot or syllable, of the full normal measure; a brachycatalectic ("short leaving off"), one which is a whole foot minus; and a hypercatalectic ("leaving over"), one which has a half foot (or perhaps a whole one in rare cases) too much. The terms "catalexis" and "catalectic" are sometimes used loosely to cover all these varieties of deficiency and redundance in their several developments. Acatalectic means a fully and exactly measured line, without either excess or defect.

Catch.—See Anacrusis. The sense of "catch" as referring to a song in parts, with much substitution and repetition, is musical, not prosodic.

Chant-Royal.—A larger and more elaborate ballade: five stanzas of eleven verses each and an envoi of from five to eight.

Choriamb.—A four-syllabled foot consisting of a trochee (or "choree") followed by an iamb ( ? ? ). Although the remarks made on other four-syllabled feet apply here, as far as the ultimate analysis of English verse is concerned, the great frequency of juxtaposed trochees and iambs in English, and the natural way in which they seem to cohere, make choriambic cadence or rhythm suggest itself more frequently than any other of the compound feet. Mr. Swinburne wrote intentional and continuous choriambics of great beauty.

Coda ("tail").—A musical term used in prosody by analogy, and signifying a final stanza or batch of verses, often couched in a form differing from the rest of the poem, such, for instance, as the final octave of Lycidas.

Common.—The quantity or quality in a syllable which makes it susceptible of occupying either the position of a "long" one or that of a "short." This gift, well recognised and frequent enough in Greek and Latin prosody—especially in regard to Greek proper names,—is still more widely spread in English. Almost all monosyllables, other than nouns, are common; and in a very large number of others the syllable can be raised or lowered to long or short by considerations of arsis, thesis, stress, emphasis, position, etc.

Common Measure (for shortness, especially in reference to hymns, "C.M.").—The same as ballad metre, but usually restricted to eights and sixes without substitution. (See also below, Chapter IV.)

Consonance.—In strictness merely "agreement of sound"; but sometimes used to designate full rhyme by vowel and consonant, as opposed to "assonance," i.e. rhyme by vowel only.

Couplet.—In proper English use this refers to a pair of verses only; and it probably should be, though it is not always, limited to cases where the members of the pair are exactly similar, as in the heroic couplet, the octosyllabic couplet. The original French word is much more elastic, and is applied to the long mono-rhymed tirades of Old French poems, to stanzas of more verses than two, and even to whole lyrics, usually of a light description. (See also Distich.)

Cretic.—See Amphimacer.

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Dactyl.—A trisyllabic foot—long, short, short ( ? ?). This foot, thanks to the great position of the dactylic hexameter in Greek and Latin, disputes, in those prosodies, the place of principal staple with the iambic; and, from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, almost constant endeavours have been made at imitating that metre in English, and consequently at working the dactyl in our language. It was, however, early discovered, even by favourers of classical "versing," that there is something awkward about the English dactyl. And in fact, though we have a very large number of words which are fair dactyls regarded separately, they are no sooner set in a verse than they seem to slip or waggle into other measures, and especially the anapÆst. When, by some chance or by some sleight of the poet, they are found, they are usually either continuous, or in connection with, and substituted for, the trochee. To the classical combination of dactyl and spondee English is obstinately rebellious.

Di-iamb.—A double iamb—short, long, short, long (? ? ). Not wanted in English; and not even expressing, as some of the four-syllable feet do, a quasi-real compound effect.

Dimeter.—A combination of two couples of the same foot, iambic, trochaic, or anapÆstic. Thus the ordinary octosyllable is an iambic dimeter, and the familiar swinging four-foot anapÆst, a dimeter anapÆstic. In ancient prosody, "-meter" was never used in this kind of combination, with reference to single-feet metres, unless these feet were in places specifically different. Thus "hexameter" means a line of six single feet, of which, though the first four may vary, the fifth must normally be a dactyl and the sixth a spondee; "pentameter," a line of five feet, dactyls or spondees, but rigidly distributed in two halves of two and a half feet each. Of late years, in modern English prosody-writing, though fortunately not universally, a most objectionable habit has grown up of calling the heroic line a "pentameter," the octosyllabic iambic a "tetrameter." This is grossly unscholarly, and should never be imitated, for the proper meaning of the terms would be ten feet in the one case, eight in the other.

Dispondee.—Double spondee ( ). Even more than the di-iamb, and much more than the ditrochee, this combination is not wanted in English.

Distich.—A synonym for "couplet," but of wider range, as there is no reason why the verses should be metrically similar. There is, however, in the practical use of the word, an understanding that there shall be a certain completeness and self-containedness of sense.

Ditrochee.—A double trochee—long, short, long, short ( ? ?).—The remarks on the di-iamb apply here, but not quite so strongly. There are a few exceptional cases in Milton, as in the famous "Universal reproach," where the ditrochaic effect, whether beautiful or not, is too noticeable not to deserve specific definition.

Dochmiac.—A foot of five syllables, admitting, with the possible permutations of long and short in the five places, a large number of variations. This foot, not strictly necessary even in Greek prosody, is quite unknown in English, and, if used, would simply split itself up into batches of two and three. But it probably has a real existence in the systematisation of English prose rhythm.

Doggerel.—A word (the derivation of which can be only, though easily, guessed) as old as Chaucer; always used with depreciating intent, but with a certain difference, not to say looseness, of exact connotation. Doggerel is often applied to slipshod or sing-song verse; sometimes to verse burlesque or feeble in sense and phrase. But it is better restricted to verse metrically incompetent by false rhythm and quantification, or by insufficient or superfluous provision of syllables and the like.

Duple.—A term used by some prosodists in combination with "time" and in contradistinction to "triple," to express a characteristic of verse which is nearest to music, and which perhaps is musical rather than really prosodic. Controversies are sometimes carried on in regard to the question whether trisyllabic feet (such as anapÆsts, dactyls, and tribrachs) are, when substituted for dissyllabic, in "duple" or in "triple" time; but this question appears to the present writer irrelevant and extraneous.

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Elision.—The obliteration of a syllable, for metrical reasons, when a vowel at the end of a word comes before one at the beginning of another. This strict classical meaning of the term is extended ordinarily, in the English use of it, to the omission of a syllable within a word, or the fusion of two in any of the various ways indicated by the classical terms crasis ("mixture"), thlipsis ("crushing"), syncope ("cutting short"), synaloepha ("smearing together"), synizesis ("setting together"), synecphonesis ("combined utterance"), and others. Perhaps the most useful phraseology in English indicates "elision" for actual vanishing of a vowel (when it is usually represented by an apostrophe), and "slur" for running of two into one. These two processes are of extreme importance, for upon the view taken of them turns the view to be held of Shakespeare's and Milton's blank verse, and of a large number of other measures.

End-Stopped.—A term largely applied, especially in Shakespearian discussion, to the peculiar self-contained verse which is noticeable in the early stage of blank-verse writing, and which Shakespeare was one of the first to break through. In the text of the present volume this form is called "single-moulded," its characteristics not appearing to be confined to the end.

Enjambment.—An Englishing, on simple analogy, of the French technical term, enjambement, for the overlapping, in sense and utterance, of one verse on another, or of one couplet on another. Enjambment of the couplet appears in Chaucer and other writers early; was overdone and abused in the first half of the seventeenth century; was rejected by the later seventeenth and still more by the eighteenth, but restored to favour by the Romantic movement.

Envoi.—The coda of a ballade, etc., with the especial purpose of addressing the poem to its subject.

Epanaphora ("referring" or "repetition").—The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive lines. This, originally a rhetorical figure, becomes, especially with some of the Elizabethans and with Tennyson, a not unimportant prosodic device; and, in the hands of the latter, assists powerfully in the construction of the verse-paragraph.

Epanorthosis ("setting up again," with a sense also of "correction").—Also a rhetorical figure, and meaning the repetition of some word, not necessarily at the beginning of clause or line. This also can be made of considerable prosodic effect; for repetition, especially if including some slight change, is necessarily associated with emphasis, and this emphasis colours and weights the line variously.

Epitrite.—A four-syllabled foot consisting of three long syllables and one short ( ? ). The shifting of this latter from place to place makes four different kinds of epitrite. Like its congeners, it is not needed in English poetry, though spondaic substitution (in the trochaic tetrameter, etc.) may sometimes simulate it; and the fact that few English words have clusters of definitely long syllables makes it rare even in prose.

Epode.—The third and last member of the typical choric arrangement in a regular ode. See Strophe.

Equivalence means, prosodically, the quality or faculty which fits one combination of syllables for substitution in the place of another to perform the part of foot, as the dactyl and spondee do to each other in the classical hexameter, and as various feet do to the iamb in the Greek iambic trimeter and other metres. It is, with its correlative, Substitution itself, the most important principle in English prosody; it emerges almost at once, and, though at times frowned upon in theory, never loses its hold upon practice.

Eye-Rhyme.—A practice (most largely resorted to by Spenser, but to some extent by others) of adjusting the spellings of the final syllables of words so as to make the rhyme clear to the eye as well as to the ear. It is sometimes forced, and perhaps never ought to be necessary; but it is so associated with the beauties of the Faerie Queene as to become almost a beauty in itself, though hardly to be recommended for imitation.

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Feminine Rhyme—Feminine Ending.—Terms applied to the use of words at the end of a line with the final (now mute) e. "Feminine" rhyme is sometimes extended to double rhyme in general, but this is not strictly correct.

"Fingering."—A term used in this book for the single and peculiar turn and colour given to metre by the individual poet.

Foot.—The admitted constituent of all classical prosody, and, according to one system (that adopted preferentially in this book), of English likewise, though with variations necessitated by the language. "Foot" (p???, pes) is "that upon which the verse runs or marches." A Greek foot is made of Greek "long" and "short" syllables; an English foot of English. The possible combinations of these have Greek names which are convenient, and the fact that the conditions of "length" and "shortness" are different in the two languages need cause no misunderstanding whatever. But a comparatively small number are actually found in English poetry. All, however, are separately described in this Glossary, and for convenience' sake a tabular view of them is given on the next page.

It should, moreover, perhaps be added that, at most periods of English poetry, monosyllabic feet, such as hardly exist in classical prosody, are undoubtedly present. These can be regarded, if any one pleases, as made up to dissyllabic value by the addition of a pause or interval. Nor is there any valid objection to the admission of a "pause foot" entirely composed of silence. These two kinds of feet, however, are comparatively rare, and require no specific names.

TABLE OF FEET

[TN - note under Trochee]: (The trochee ("running foot") was sometimes also called "choree," ???e???, or ?????? ("dancing foot"), this form appears in "choriambic.")

[TN - note under Cretic]: (The Cretic was also called amphimacer, its arrangement being just the opposite to the amphibrach.)

Fourteener.—A line of seven iambic feet which emerges as almost the first equivalent of the old long A.S. line in English, as early as the Moral Ode, etc. At first it is oftenest a "fifteener," from the presence of the final e; but this drops off. Very largely used by Robert of Gloucester and others in the late thirteenth century; varied in Gamelyn; much mixed up with the doggerel of the fifteenth; frequent in the sixteenth, both alone and as "poulter's" measure; and splendidly used by Chapman in his translation of the Iliad. Sometimes employed to vary heroic couplet by Dryden. A favourite metre ever since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Splits into "ballad-measure."

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Galliambic.—A classical metre of which the most famous, and only substantive, example is the magnificent Atys of Catullus, but which has been imitated in two fine English poems, Tennyson's great Boadicea and Mr. George Meredith's Phaethon. Both of these have given a rather trochaic-dactylic swing to the metre, which is probably unavoidable in English. The late Mr. Grant Allen endeavoured to make out, and attempted in his translation of the Atys, an iambic basis with anapÆstic and tribrachic substitution, but unsuccessfully. Ionic a minore (v. inf.) is the ancient suggestion; and, with an accentual liberty not unsuitable to its half-barbaric associations, it fits Catullus pretty well. But Ionics, as has been said, do not suit English (v. inf. p. 285, note).

Gemell or Geminel ("twin").—Terms applied by Drayton to the heroic couplet.

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Head-Rhyme.—A name sometimes applied—it may be thought unjustifiably, and beyond all question in a way likely to mislead—to alliteration. See Rhyme.

Hendecasyllable.—An eleven-syllabled line. There is a classical metre specially so called, executed with particular success by Catullus, and imitated by Tennyson in the piece describing it:

But the term is not infrequently used of the staple Italian line, of English heroic or decasyllabic lines with redundance, etc.

Heptameter.—It is rather doubtful whether the word is wanted in English, for if applied to the fourteener it would (see Metre and Dimeter) be a complete misnomer; and not less so, according to correct analogy, if applied to the seven-foot anapÆst, where it would properly designate fourteen feet or forty-two possible syllables—a length which not even Mr. Swinburne has attempted. He himself, however, by oversight, used it of this line, which is properly a tetrameter brachycatalectic.

Heroic.—A word applied, with only indirect propriety, to the decasyllabic or five-foot couplet, and with hardly any propriety at all to the single line of the same construction; but occasionally convenient in each case. The origin of the employment is the use of this line and couplet in the "heroic" poem and "heroic" play of the seventeenth century. It has therefore the same sort of justification as "Alexandrine." There was also an earlier habit, as in Dante's De Vulg. Eloq., of calling it (in its Italian or hendecasyllabic form) the "noblest" or most dignified line; and this connects itself with the Greek practice of calling the hexameter—the Epic-verse—"heroic."

Hexameter.—The great staple metre of Greek and Latin epic, in which the line consists of six feet, dactyls or spondees at choice for the first four, but normally always a dactyl in the fifth and always a spondee in the sixth—the latter foot being by special licence sometimes allowed in the fifth also (in which case the line is called spondaic), but never a dactyl in the sixth. To this metre, and to the attempts to imitate it in English, the term should be strictly confined, and never applied to the Alexandrine or iambic trimeter.

Hiatus.—The juxtaposition of vowels either in the same word, or, more especially, at the end of one word and the beginning of the next. At different times, and in different languages, this has been regarded as a beauty and as a defect; but in English it entirely depends upon circumstances whether it is one, or the other, or neither. For a considerable period—roughly from 1650 to 1780, if not 1800—it was supposed—without a shadow of reason—that English poets ought to elide one of such concurrents and indicate it only by apostrophe, so that not merely did "the enormous" become "th' enormous," and "to affect" "t' affect," but "violet" was crushed into "vi'let," and "diamond" into "di'mond." But this has been almost entirely abandoned, though there are still "metrical fictions" on the subject.

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Iambic.—A foot of two syllables—short, long ( ? )—the commonest in almost all prosodies,[157] and (though this is sometimes denied) the staple foot of English.

Inverted Stress.—A term used by accentual or stress prosodists to designate the substitution of a trochee for an iamb. Unnecessary, if not erroneous, from the point of view of this book.

Ionic.—A foot of four syllables, consisting of a spondee ( ) and a pyrrhic ( ? ? ). With the spondee first it is called "Ionic a majore"; with the pyrrhic first, a minore. Neither movement is common in English verse, and, if it were, it would hardly require any joint name. But when the music is uppermost, as in "Vilikins and his Dinah," it suggests itself, with the alternative of the third pÆon:

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Leonine Verse.—A term not strictly applicable to English, but sometimes found in prosody-books. It means the peculiar mediÆval Latin hexameter with middle and end rhymed, as in

Browning comes nearest to it in such lines as

Line.—The larger integer of verse, as the foot is the smaller, and the stanza or paragraph the largest. It is usually indicated, in printing or writing, by independent beginning and ending on the page—whence the name,—but this is accidental and arranged for convenience of the eye. As a rule, however, it should not be encroached upon lightly, and, even when enjambment is practised, the individual line should have a thinkable self-sufficiency. Nor should two lines be separated when they clamour for union, as in the case of some modern rhymeless experimenters (Mr. Arnold, Mr. Henley, etc.) and in some of the early Elizabethans (Grimoald, Googe, and others).

Long and Short are words which, until comparatively recently, have been taken as the bases of all prosodic analysis. They represent two values which, though no doubt by no means always identical in themselves, are invariably, unmistakably, and at once, distinguished by the ear; and the combining of which, in ordinary mathematical permutation, constitutes the feet, or lowest integers, of metrical rhythm. This nomenclature—which presents no initial difficulties, is sufficient for all practical purposes, and commends itself at once to any unprejudiced intelligence—seems first to have excited question and suspicion towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is disagreeable to both accentual and syllabic prosodists (see chapters devoted to these), and it appears to disturb some who would not class themselves with either. It is indeed quite possible to work either system with "long" and "short," applied uncontentiously to the natural values of rhythmed speech in English poetry. But a punctilio arises as to the definition of the words. "Does length," some people ask, "really mean 'duration of time' in pronouncing?" This question, and others, seem to the present writer unnecessary. We need not decide what makes the difference between "long" and "short"; it is sufficient that this difference unmistakably exists, and is felt at once. Whether it is due to accent, length of pronunciation, sharpness, loudness, strength, or anything else, is a question in no way directly affecting verse. The important things are, once more, that it exists; that verse cannot exist without it; that it is partly, and in English rather largely, created by the poet, but that this creation is conditioned by certain conventions of the language, of which accent is one, but only one.

Long Measure ("L.M.").—The octosyllabic quatrain, alternately rhymed.

Lydgatian Line.—An arrangement of extraordinary hideousness, which occurs rather frequently in Lydgate; and which has been assigned by the merciful to incompetence or carelessness; by other critics, who defend it, to what must have been deliberate bad taste. It is a line of nine syllables only, the missing one being not, as in the Chaucerian acephala, at the first, but occurring somewhere in the middle, and at the cÆsura. An uglier metrical entity probably nowhere exists than such a line as

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Masculine Rhyme.—A rhyme where the rhyming syllable is single, and ends in a consonant, without any mute e following. Less correctly, a monosyllabic rhyme.

Metre.—In the wide sense, collections of rhythm which correspond, both within the collection, and, if there be such, with one or more other collections adjoining. In the narrow, collections dominated by a single foot-rhythm, as "iambic metre," "anapÆstic metre," etc.

Molossus.—A foot of three long syllables ( ). Practically impossible in English verse, being too bulky for a rhythm-integer with us, but admissible as a musical arrangement.

Monometer.—A line consisting of one foot only, or one pair of feet. See Dimeter.

Monopressure.—A term invented to express a theory that the divisions of metre are associated with, and determined by, some physical throat-conditions. Unnecessary and unworkable.

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Octave.—A stanza of eight lines.

Octometer.—A term properly applied to eight-foot dactylic metre, such as Tennyson's Kapiolani; improperly to Mr. Swinburne's eight-foot anapÆsts.

Ode.—A name used in English with great laxity, and not perhaps to be tied down too much without loss. The word itself, in Greek, means simply a song. But the choric odes of the Greek dramatists, and the non-dramatic odes of Pindar, being couched in a peculiar form—irregular at first sight, but exactly correspondent when examined,—have created a certain tendency to restrict the term ode, sometimes with the epithet "regular," to things similar in English (see, in list of poets, Cowley, Congreve, Gray). On the other hand, the Latins—especially Horace, whose influence has been even wider—extend the term to pieces in short, obviously regular stanzas identically repeated, and the majority of English odes are of this kind.

Ottava Rima.—A special form of octave derived from the Italians, and composed of eight decasyllabic lines rhymed abababcc. There are other decasyllabic octaves, such as that used by Chaucer in the Monk's Tale, and by Spenser after him, with or without that adoption of the Alexandrine which turns it into the Spenserian.

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PÆon.—A foot of four syllables—one long and three short—arranged in varying order. The commonest English foot in rhythmical prose, but unnecessary in English verse.

Pause.—A break in the line as metrically read or heard, which is almost always coincident with the end of a word, and which very frequently, but not always or so often as in the former case, coincides with a stop in punctuation. It is not necessary that every line should have a pause; and the place of the pause, when it exists, is practically ad libitum in most, if not all lines, while there may be more pauses than one. The attempt to curtail liberty in these three respects has been the cause of some of the worst mistakes about English prosody, especially when it takes the form of prescribing that the pause should always be as near the middle as possible. Variety of pause is, in fact, next to variety of feet, the great secret of success in our verse; and it is owing to this that Shakespeare and Milton more especially stand so high. On the other hand, this variety requires the most careful adjustment; and if such adjustment is neglected, the lines will be uglier than continuously middle-paused ones, though not so monotonous.

Pentameter.—See Dimeter. As properly used, a line of five feet—dactyls or spondees—divided into two batches of two and a half each. As improperly used, a five-foot iambic line in English.

Pindaric.—Strictly the regular ode (see Strophe) of Greek poetry; but extended by, and still more in imitation of, Cowley to any lyrical composition in irregularly rhymed stanzas of different line-lengths. According to Dryden, the Alexandrine line, frequent in Cowley's odes, was so-called, "but," he most properly adds, "improperly."

Position.—In the classical prosodies a short or common vowel before two consonants (but not every two) was said to be long "by position"; and efforts have been made to determine English quantity in the same way. No rule of the kind can be laid down; doubled or grouped consonants after a vowel usually shortening the pronunciation, and sometimes lengthening the value.

Poulter's Measure.—A term used by Gascoigne, and said to be derived from the practice of poulter[er]s in giving twelve to the dozen in one case and thirteen or fourteen in another. It is applied to the combination of Alexandrine and fourteener which was such a favourite with the earlier Tudor poets, and which broke up into the "Short Measure" of the hymn-books.

Proceleusmatic.—A double pyrrhic, or foot of four short syllables ( ? ? ? ? ). Not needed, if not also impossible, in English.

Pyrrhic.—Foot of two short syllables ( ? ? ). Very doubtfully found in English; but not impossible.

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Quantity.—That which fits a syllable for its place as "long" or "short" in a verse.

Quartet or Quatrain.—A group of four lines usually, indeed with the rarest exceptions, united in themselves, and separated from others, by rhyme.

Quintet.—A similar group of five lines.

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Redundance.—An extra syllable at the end of the line, not strictly part of its last foot.

Refrain.—A line recurring identically, or with very slight alteration, at the end of every stanza of a poem. Probably one of the oldest of all poetic features—certainly one of the oldest in English. The same as "burden." Refrains or burdens are not uncommonly meaningless collections of musical-sounding words.

Rhyme.—The arrangement of two word-endings—identical in vowel and following consonant or consonants, but not having the same consonant before the vowel—at the conclusion of two or more lines, or sometimes within the lines themselves.

Rhyme-Royal.—The stanza of seven decasyllabic lines, rhymed ababbcc, which occurs in Chaucer's Troilus, and which traditionally derives its name from its use in The King's Quair, though its extreme popularity for a long period is perhaps the real reason.

Rhythm.—An orderly arrangement, but not necessarily a correspondent succession, of sounds.

Riding Rhyme.—An old name for the decasyllabic couplet, obviously derived from its appearance in Chaucer's Tales of Pilgrims "riding" to Canterbury.

Rime CouÉe or Tailed Rhyme.—Translations in French and English of the Latin versus caudatus, and not very happy from the English point of view, though justified by origin (see Origin-List). The verse to which they refer is the sixain of two eights, a six, two more eights, and another six. Two tails are not common in English fauna; and one might prefer to call the verse "waisted and tailed." It is, however, in the old Romances (where it is common, and from its commonness in which it is better called the "Romance-six") often found in multiples of three other than six; and it is at the batch of three that the title looks—the couplet of eights constituting the body, and the odd six the tail.

Romance-Six.—See Rime CouÉe.

Rondeau—Rondel.—French (and English) forms in which lines are repeated at regular intervals. (See pp. 125-6.)

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Sapphic.—A classical metre consisting of three longer lines and one shorter (called an Adonic) arranged in the following scheme:—

It has been frequently tried in English, both as burlesque and seriously. For the former use (as in Canning's immortal "Needy Knife-Grinder") it is, like most classical metres, well suited, though the true Greek and even Latin rhythm is generally (v. sup. p. 124) violated. In serious verse Mr. Swinburne has produced exquisite and others (as Watts and Cowper) respectable examples; but even the best is a tour de force only.

Section.—A term not useless in its general sense as denoting verse divisions larger than a foot; but now prejudicially preoccupied by Guest (v. sup. p. 254, note) and others.

Septenar.—A word applied (very undesirably) by most German and a few English writers to the fourteener or seven-foot iambic.

Septet.—A verse or stanza of seven lines.

Sestet, also Sixain.—A verse or stanza of six lines.

Sestine, Sestina.—A very elaborate measure invented by the ProvenÇal poet Arnaut Daniel, imitated by Dante and other Italians, tried inexactly by Spenser, and sometimes recently attempted in English.

Short Measure ("S.M.").—The split-up poulter's measure or quartet of 6, 6, 8, 6.

Single-Moulded.—The term used in this book to describe the early blank-verse line, which appears to be constructed complete in itself, without any expectation of, or preparation for, continuance. See End-stopped.

Skeltonic.—-The peculiar kind of (generally short) line used by Skelton. Its commonest form is an anapÆstic monometer (i.e. two feet), often much further cut down by dissyllabic and monosyllabic substitution or by catalexis, but sometimes extended. It is always rhymed; sometimes on the same rhyme for several lines together. Though usually called "doggerel," it does not quite deserve that name as defined above. See also note p. 297.

Slur.—See Elision.

Sonnet.—A word sometimes, in former days, loosely applied to any short poem, especially of an amatory nature; often nowadays almost as improperly limited to a special Italian form of the true sonnet. This latter is a poem of fourteen lines, of the same length generally and (except by exception) decasyllables (originally, of course, hendecasyllables) arranged in varying rhyme-schemes. Its exact origin is unknown; but it is first found in Italian-Sicilian poets of the thirteenth century, and it became enormously popular in Italy very soon. It did not spread northward for a considerable time, the first French sonnets occurring not very early in the sixteenth century; the first English, not till near its middle. A great sonnet outburst took place at the end of that century with us; but the form fell into disuse in the seventeenth, though championed by Milton; and it was not till the extreme end of the eighteenth century that it became, and has since remained, something of a staple. Partly the absence of the Italian plethora of similar endings, and partly something else, made the earliest English practitioners select an arrangement with final rhymed couplet, the twelve remaining lines being usually arranged in rhymed, but not rhyme-linked, quatrains: and this form, immortalised by Shakespeare, is probably the best suited to English. It is, at any rate, absolutely genuine and orthodox there. But Milton, Wordsworth, and especially Dante and Christina Rossetti, have given examples of the sonnets which, divided mostly into octave and sestet, have this latter arranged in intertwisted rhymes. This form is susceptible of great beauty, but has no prerogative, still less any primogeniture, in our poetry.

Spenserian.—See Origin-List.

Spondee.—A foot of two long syllables ( ). Its presence in English has been denied, but most strangely; its condition is, in fact, exactly opposite to that of the dactyl. In single and separate words its representatives are chiefly compounds like "moonshine," "humdrum," etc. But, as formed out of different words, it is frequent.

Stanza or Stave.—A collection of lines arranged in an ordered batch and generally on some definite rhyme-scheme. Also designated by one of the loose senses of "verse."

Stress.—Generally, though not universally, used as synonymous with accent, but somewhat differently applied, "accent" being regarded as something more or less permanent in the word, "stress" something added specially in the verse. By extension of this, numerous arbitrary and fanciful systems of prosody have been recently devised.

Stress-Unit.—A recent instance, and one of the worst, of the new terms invented to avoid the use of "foot." For, almost more than any other, it ignores the importance of non-stressed syllables.

Strophe.—The stanza-unit of Greek odic or choric arrangement. The system is triple—strophe, antistrophe, and epode—and will be found fully illustrated and scanned from Gray (v. sup. pp. 89-91).

Substitution.—See Equivalence.

Synaloepha.} Syncope. }—See Elision. Synizesis. }

Syzygy.—A term of classical prosody which has a perfectly strict meaning—the yoking of two feet into a metrical batch (see Dimeter). It has, in some recent cases, been rather unfortunately extended to other forms of combining syllables, sounds, etc. As thus used it is not needed, and is likely to cause confusion.

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Tailed Sonnet.—An Italian lengthening of the sonnet to eighteen or twenty lines, sometimes practised in English, the best known example being Milton's; but not very admirable in our language, and not at all necessary. Even in Italian the use is largely burlesque.

Tercet.—A group of three lines like Triplet, but specially limited to that used in Terza Rima.

Terza Rima.—A verse-arrangement by which, in a group of three lines, the first and third rhyme together, while the middle is left to rhyme with the first and third of the next batch. This arrangement, very effective in Italian, and undoubtedly one of the chief elements of the magnificence of Dante's prosody, has never been really successful in English. Some of the best examples are Shelley's; the earliest, after some fragments in Chaucer, are Wyatt's; the largest continuous employment is in Canon Dixon's Mano.

Tetrameter.—A term improperly applied to the octosyllable; properly to divers long lines of eight iambs, anapÆsts, or trochees.

Thesis.—See Arsis.

Time.—A "word of fear" in prosody, as it is almost always a "voice prophesying war." Used merely in the sense of "rhythm," it is quite innocuous; and construed generally, as when Southey says that "two short syllables take up only the time of one," there need be no harm in it. But when absolute "duration" is insisted on, and people discuss whether this can be given by that or the other means, great and unnecessary mischief is likely to be done.

Tribrach.—A foot of three short syllables ( ? ? ? ). Very frequent in later English, perhaps less so in earlier.

Triolet.—A short French form of the rondeau, in the most common variety of which the first of eight lines is repeated in the fourth and seventh, the second being also repeated in the eighth, so that there are only five lines of independent sense. (See example, p. 125.)

Triple.—See Duple.

Triplet.—A group of three lines; most commonly used of three which rhyme together. See Tercet.

Trochee.—A foot of two syllables—long, short ( ? ). The complement-contrast of the iamb; an invaluable variant upon it; the best introducer (by admitting it as a substitute) of the dactyl in English; and very effective by itself when properly managed.

Truncation.—The lopping off of a syllable at beginning or end of line. This in the latter case equals what is here called Catalexis (q.v.), and in the former is often better accounted for by a monosyllabic foot. But there are cases, as in Chaucer's "acephalous" lines, where it is not inapplicable.

Tumbling Verse.—A phrase of King James the Sixth (First) in his prosodic treatise, which has caused, or at least been connected with, difficulties (see Cadence). He seems to have meant by it nothing more than the loose half-doggerel anapÆsts which were so common in the first two-thirds of the sixteenth century.

Turn of Words.—A phrase specially used in the seventeenth century for the repetition, identically or with little change, of the same words at the end of a line and the beginning of the next.

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Verse.—A word used with unfortunate, though perhaps unavoidable, ambiguity. It is employed first (and best) of writing in general as opposed to prose; secondly, of a single line of poetry; thirdly, of a batch of lines; while there is even a fourth use, now obsolete, but common in the Elizabethans, by which it applied to classical unrhymed metres in English. This last, one may hope, will never be revived. Of the others, the first and third are indispensable and can cause no real confusion. But, though a fairly strong case can be made out for "verse" in the sense of "line," the inconvenience and confusion of this use should be held to prohibit it.

Verse Paragraph.—A very important development of blank verse, ensuring to it almost all the advantages of stanza in some ways, and more than all in others. First reached by Shakespeare in drama, and by Milton in non-dramatic verse, it consists in so knitting a batch of blank-verse lines together by variation of pause, alternate use of stop and enjambment, and close connection of sense, that neither eye nor voice is disposed to make serious halt till the close of the paragraph is reached. Thus an effect of concerted music is produced through the whole of it. No one has ever been a great master of blank verse without being a master of this device; but perhaps the most special and elaborate command of it has been Tennyson's.

Vowel-Music.—In a certain sense vowel-music may be said to be, and always to have been, a main, if not the main, source of the pleasure given to the ear by poetry. Nor, it may also be said, can any accomplished poet ever have been indifferent to it. Deliberate attention to it, however, has varied much at different times of English poetry, and was perhaps at its lowest in the eighteenth, at its highest in the nineteenth, century.

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Weak Ending.—A technical term used by not a few prosodists, but not adopted in this book, for redundance. As a matter of fact a line is often much stronger for the extra syllable.

Wrenched Accent.—A term applied, by accentual prosodists, sometimes to signify removal of accent on a word from the usual place; sometimes to the presence of an unaccented syllable where they expect an accented, or the reverse. In the first sense it is unobjectionable; in the second, always unnecessary, and often suggestive of misdescription of the results of ordinary substitution.[161]

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