Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/128

* VERSIFICATION. 94 VERSIFICATION. seventh was very popular in Spain as verse of the romances, anil later of the drama, and goes back to the catalectic trochaic tetrameter, which is very popular in older rhythmic Latin poetry. Also the lines of the Poema del Cid, a poem of the twelfth century, but preserved in a garbled manuscript of the fourteenth century, are muti- lated fourteen-syllable lines, .and not, as some have tiicd to prove, imitations of the French Alexandrine. The ten-syllable verse with accented fifth is closely allied to the fourteen-syllable, and is called i-erso de arte mayor. It falls into two lines of five syllables each and is met in purely lyrical romances. The fourteen-syllable verse is again shortened into the eleven-syllable with accented seventh, the verso de redondiJIa mayor con pie guebrado. This is also found in Provencal, and sometimes bound in strophes with fourteen-sylla- ble verses. Tl^e nine-syllable verse is a further shortening of the fourteen-syllable. Examples are found in Italian, Galician, Provencal, old and modern French. Much more abundant is the seven-syllable verse, rerso de arte real, or de redandilla mayor, which is the independent half of the fourteen- syllable. and is also related to the similarly cut trochaic tetrameter. As a resvilt of this break- ing up of the fourteen-syllable came, the four-line strophes with cross rhyme — such as the later ballads offer. This seven-syllable verse is also seen in the lyric poetry of North and South France. Aucassin et yicolctte is written in this verse in single assonance tirades. The five-syllable, or reOondilla de arte menor. is often met in Spanish and Portuguese, and comes through division of the ten-syllable trochaic verse with accented fifth. Three-sylla- ble and one-syllable verses, from the lireaking up of longer verses, are little more than tests of metrical skill. As time went on the number of syllabic series was generally reduced to two at most, and feel- ing for independent nature of the syllaljic series was gradually lost. In the binding together of verses, assonance was replaced by rhyme; in some countries earlier, in some later. A great number of rh.^ine schemes grew up. many of them being later abandoned. HinuocRAPUY. Stengel, "Romanische Vers- Ichre," in Grijber's Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie, vo. ii. (Strassburg, 1892-98) ; Becker, Veher den XJrsprung der romanischen 'ersmasse (ib., 1890) ; Ronca, Metrica e ritmica Jatina nel medio evo (Rome, 1890) ; Schueliardt, ''Ueim und Rythmus im Peutsehen und Romanischen," in KeJtisrhes und Romanisches (Berlin, 1886) ; Tobler, T'om. fran::osischen Versbau alter iind neucr Zeit (3d cd., Leipzig, lS9-t) : De (iramnnt, Les vers frani;ais et leur prosodie (Paris. 1876) ; Jeanroy, Les origines de la pofsie lyriqne en France nu moyen dge (ib., 1889) : Sduichardt, Ritornell und Terzine (Halle, 187.')) ; Wolf. Lais, fSefiuenzcn und Leiche (Vienna. 1841) : id., ,Slu- dien znr Oeschichie der spanischen and portu- giesi.schen Nationdl-Litteratur (Berlin, 18.59) : Diez, Vche.r die erste portiifiiesisehi' Knnst- und Jlofpnesie (Bonn, 18G3) : Casini, Notizia sulle forme mctriche italiane (Florence, 1884). OKIIM.VNIC ANn KNOMSII. There has been of late a tendency, conspicuou.'?- ly represented by Sidney Lanier, to break away from tradition and to found an independent sci- ence of English verse. This undertaking may ultimately lead to a new system, which shall be at once simpler and more accurate than the old one, but no such scheme has yet received general adoption. In this article, therefore, which is concerned rather with an historical account of the prin- cipal English verse-forms than with a funda- mental theory of poetics, the old terms will be retained. A measure like the following, for ex- ample, will be called anapcestic: Where he stands, the Arch-Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go; and the reverse movement dactylic: Take her up tenderly. Lift her with care. The term foot will be employed for the metrical unit, and lines of the following type may be termed either iambic pentameters (to denote the measure or the number of feet) or decasyllabic couplets (to denote the normal number of syl- lables and the rhyme-scheme) : In friendship false, implacable in hate. Resolved to ruin or to rule the State. A fundamental distinction between English and classical versification becomes at once ap- parent from these first illustrations. In Greek verse, and the classical Latin verse which arose from its influence, the rhythm was primarily quantitative and was determined by the regular recurrence of long and .short syllables. The metrical stress, which accompanied this rhythm, did not coincide necessarily, or even usually, with the I'egular accent of the separate words. In English verse, on the contrary, as in certain popular and media-val Latin verse, the rhythm is accentual, and quantity, though by no means negligible, is not the determining principle. The metrical stress coincides in general with the normal word-stress, and in order to preserve this word-accent considerable freedom is allciwed in the transposition of metrical feet. Accentual rhytlun, accompanied by alliteration, is characteristic of the earliest known Germanic verse. In fact, the type may be still older, and may have been common (as a recent theory maintains) to the Germanic, Celtic, and Italian peoples. A great body of this alliterative verse is preserved in. glo-Saxon, Old Saxon, and Old Norse, and a few lines from Anglo-Saxon will illustrate its structure: Hwset ! we Oar-Dena in geardaguni eodcyninga frym getriinon hiil>a a iB)>elingas ellen f remedon. The long line consists regularly of two half lines liound together by carefully regulated al- literation. The number of aceenis in (he half- line is a matter of discussion. According to one theory there arc four; and the whole line, with its eight stresses, is made to correspond to a primitive long line assumed for Tndo-Germanic. According to another theory, which has been most fully worked out by Sievers, each half-line (disregarding certain hypermetrical forms) has only two accents, and in the clistribntinn of them it confru'ms to one of tlie following, in which the grave accent ( i ) represents secondary stress: general types;