Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Rhymes and Meters A Practical Manual for Versifiers by Winslow Horatio
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 271 lines and 15580 words, and 6 pages
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 114
VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL
VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL
It is scarcely necessary to write a defense of verse making. As a literary exercise it has been recommended and practiced by every well-known English writer and as a literary asset it has been of practical value at one time or another to most of the authors of to-day. Indirectly it helps one's prose and is an essential to the understanding of the greatest literature.
The fact that courses in "Poetics" have been established at all the large universities shows the interest which verse making has aroused in America. In England the ability to write metrical verse has long been considered one of the component parts of the education of a university man.
Looked at from the purely practical side, even though not a single line be sold, verse making has its value. It strengthens the vocabulary; teaches niceness in the choice of words; invigorates the imagination and disciplines the mind far more than a dozen times the amount of prose.
But, though careful verse is much more difficult to write than careful prose, slipshod verse is not worth the ink that shapes it. In taking up verse writing the student must solemnly resolve on one thing: to consider no composition complete until it proves up--until the rhymes and meter are perfect. This "perfection" is not as unattainable as it sounds, for the laws of rhyme and meter are as fixed as the laws of the Medes and the Persians. Any one may not be able to write artistic verse, but any one can write true verse, and the only way to make a course in verse writing count is to live up to all the rules; to banish all ideas of "poetic license"; to write and rewrite till the composition is as near perfect as lies in one, and finally to lay aside and rewrite again.
After the line scans and the rhymes are proved should come the effort to put the thought clearly. It is often hard to say what one means in prose. It is harder in verse. In fact, one of the greatest difficulties any verse maker can overcome is the tendency to be obscure in his meaning.
With the surmounting of this obstacle comes simplicity of diction; to present the thought without superfluous words; to avoid the threadbare phrases and to put the idea in a new way and yet in plain speech. How far the verse maker will go in clearness and simplicity depends largely on his natural good taste and discrimination. The better he is able to appreciate the work of others the better his own will become, and this appreciation, though it cannot be created, can be cultivated as well as good manners. To-day more than ever before good reading is one of the prime essentials to good writing.
Stevenson has recommended imitation as a road to originality and few have disagreed with him on this point. It is undoubtedly easier to write a sonnet if one is familiar with Wordsworth or to write a ballade if one has read Dobson. At the same time to be of value the imitation must be done broadly and systematically. The artist does not learn to draw by copying Gibson heads nor the verse maker to write by diluting Kipling. An imitation should always be made with the idea of reproducing some one quality which the imitator wishes to develop in himself; the verse maker should copy not one style but many, and aim at methods rather than mannerisms.
For a first step in imitation it is well to select a subject akin to the original and follow the author's construction and trend of thought as closely as possible. For instance, there is a sonnet on Milton--write a companion sonnet on Shakespeare or Dante. Match stanzas to Washington with similar stanzas to Lincoln or Cromwell or any other character who can be treated in the same general manner. Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" suggests other elegies in other churchyards.
One may even parody a poem--not broadly, line for line in the American fashion--but in the more delicate Calverley way, which applies the spirit and meter of the poem to a lighter subject. One must imitate before one can originate, but haphazard imitation leads nowhere.
In conclusion it may be said that verse making is no mystic art hidden from the many. It is to be acquired by any one who is willing to work at it steadily and consistently. First, a start in the right direction, and then practice--practice--practice.
Nothing "dashed off" or "turned out," but every composition saved from the wastebasket made--
Correct in construction, Clear in thought, Simple in diction.
METER
METER
A metrical composition is divided into lines, each line containing a definite number of syllables. These syllables are grouped by twos and threes into "feet" which, by their makeup, determine the meter or movement of the line.
Meter in English verse is built up through accent alone, but, though this principle differs entirely from that of the ancients, who depended on the length of the syllable, we still cling to the names with which they distinguished the different feet. It will be discovered that by combining accented and unaccented syllables into groups of two, three and four an immense variety of feet can be produced. In fact the Roman poets made use of about thirty. In English verse we disregard the four-syllabled foot altogether and make use only of the two and three syllabled.
Those commonly accepted are:
Iambus Dactyl
Trochee Anapest
Spondee Amphimacer
Amphibrach
The dash stands for the accented syllable.
An idea of the use of these meters in verse may be gained from the following examples:
IAMBIC
TROCHAIC
DACTYLLIC
-- u u | -- Lift her with | care."
ANAPESTIC
A line of spondees is rarely found in our English because a succession of accented syllables is almost impossible with us and the amphimacer and amphibrach are seldom more than secondary feet in a dactyllic or anapestic line. Where more than one combination of syllables is used the line takes its name from the foot predominating.
As to number, the feet in a single line are practically unlimited though one rarely comes across a line containing more than eight. Lines of three and four are more common. Indeed, in some lyrical poems we have lines made up of a single syllable.
The classic names for lines of varying length are perhaps necessary. The line of two feet is a dimeter; three--trimeter; four--tetrameter; five--pentameter; six--hexameter; seven--heptameter and eight--octameter. Thus Pope's Iliad is written in iambic pentameter, in lines made up of five iambics; and Longfellow's Hiawatha is trochaic tetrameter, each line containing four trochees.
It will be noticed that many lines lack the syllable or two necessary to complete the last foot. For instance:
-- u | -- u | -- u | -- u "Airly | Beacon | Airly | Beacon,
and
This privilege of ending in the middle of a foot is in no way a poetic license but lends a flexibility to the use of all meters which would otherwise be wofully lacking.
Again we find, especially in dactyllic and anapestic lines, a trochee or spondee thrown in to vary the movement. In this anapestic line the meter is varied by a spondee:
This insertion of a foot is always allowable if it helps the proper movement of the line and if it is put in voluntarily. With a beginner whose ear is none too well trained it is better to try only pure lines--lines made up of but one kind of foot. In this way the false extra syllable or foot is sooner found out and corrected.
A first-class exercise is to write verse without rhyme or very much reason, whose only virtue shall be lines of exact length with meter regular to the verge of singsongness. As an exercise, too, it is helpful to take a dozen lines or more of good verse and break them up into feet. The greatest poets are not necessarily the best for this purpose, owing to the irregularity of much of their work. It is better for the beginner to steer clear of Browning and try the simpler and more regular constructions of Dobson and Praed.
RHYME
RHYME
The rhyme most commonly used in verse is the single rhyme--the rhyme of one syllable. A single rhyme is perfect when the rhymed syllables are accented; when the vowel sounds and the following consonant sounds are identical and when the preceding consonant sounds are different.
"Less" rhymes with "mess" and "caress" but not with "unless," because in this last case the preceding consonant sounds are the same. It will rhyme with "bless" because the "b" and "l" are so joined that the combined sound differs from the simple "l" of "less." "Less" does not rhyme with "best" because the "t" makes the concluding consonant sounds unlike. Nor does it rhyme with "abbess" because the accent in this word falls on the first syllable.
A double or triple rhyme follows in construction the rules laid down for the single rhyme. The accents must be alike; the preceding consonants must differ and the vowels and the remaining syllables of the words be identical. "Double" goes perfectly with "trouble" and "bubble," while "charity," "clarity" and "rarity" all rhyme.
The spelling of a word does not affect its rhyming use. It is rhymed as it is pronounced. "Move" and "prove" do not rhyme with "love"--all the poets in Christendom to the contrary. Neither does "come" rhyme with "home." The pronunciation is all in all and that must be decided not by local usage but by some standard authority.
There are, however, certain words which have one pronunciation in prose and another in poetry. For instance, "said," "again" and "wind." It is permissible to take advantage of this special pronunciation and rhyme them with "raid," "lain" and "blind."
To be strict is better than to be lax in pronunciation and it is absolutely necessary to rise above provincialism. "Maria" is not a rhyming companion for "fire" except in dialect verse, though this pairing sounds natural enough in some localities.
In a piece of verse it is best not to have the same vowel sounds too close to one another in adjacent rhyming words. Lines ending "fain," "made," "pain," "laid" would, of course, be correct, but the similar vowel sounds cause a lack of variety. An arrangement such as "through," "made," "drew," "laid" would be better.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page