'Non ante volgatas per artes Verba loquor socianda chordis.' By methods ne'er promulged before, Παλαιὰ παροιμία ὅτι χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά ἐστιν ὅπῃ ἔχει μαθεῖν. PLATO, Socrat. in Cratylus. Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony.' MILTON, L'Allegro. PREFACE. THE technical or material part of versification (the art of rhythmical composition), like that of any other of the fine arts, is capable of being reduced to rules and referred to fixed principles. I wish the title of LAWS OF VERSE, OR PRINCIPLES OF VERSIFICATION EXEMPLIFied, to be understood in the sense of an attempt to illustrate this proposition by examples. This is not a treatise on Prosody, neither is it a discourse de arte Poeticâ. Moreover I do not profess to lay down a systematic body of doctrine on the Art of Versification, but merely to indicate, in the way of cursory comment, chiefly contained in notes to the text, the existence of such a doctrine, and the possibility of moulding it into a certain definite organic form. In poetry we have sound, thought, and words (i. e. thought clothed in sound); accordingly the subject falls naturally into three great divisions, the cogitative, the expressional, and the technical; to which we may give the respective names of Pneumatic, Linguistic, and Rhythmic. It is only with Rhythm that I profess to deal. This again branches off into three principal branches-Metric, Chromatic, and Synectic. Metric is concerned with Accent, Quantity, and Suspensions; the latter including the theories of Pauses, Rests, and Synthesis or Syllabic Groupings. I touch very briefly on this branch, accepting, in regard to it, the doctrine of Edgar Poe, given in his essay on the Rationale of Versification,' rendered, as I think, more complete by my introduction into it of the theory of the silent syllable or rest. Metric is concerned with the discontinuous, Synectic with the continuous, aspect of the Art. Between the two lies Chromatic, which comprises the study of the qualities, affinities, and colorific properties of sound.* Into this part of the subject, except so far as occasionally glancing * I notice that in Mr. Tom Hood's 'Rules of Rhyme' certain of the principles of Chromatic have been incidentally discussed and gone into (as regards the powers of initial consonants) in some detail. Chromatic may be studied with respect to Matter, Mode, and Relation. Its matter may be consonantal, vocal, or diphthongal; its mode may be taken with reference to congruity, opposition, and transition or modulation. As to relation, it may be regarded as a co-ordinate factor of Synectic or of Expression, or per se, i.e. with regard to the purely sensuous impression; which last, again, will bring under view the position as initial, terminal, or medial. This is a mere hasty and superficial view of the subject: in things of the fancy a little play of fancy may be permitted. |