THE FOREIGN SOURCES OF MODERN ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SO-CALLED IAMBIC LINES OF 8 AND 10 SYLLABLES. A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE DEPARTMENT UPON APPLICATION FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, BY CHARLTON M. LEWIS, B.A., LL.B. BERLIN. 1898. PREFACE. It was my original intention to offer a thesis on certain logical aspects of the theory of modern English verse, following lines suggested by Mayor's Chapters on English Metre and Bridges' Milton's Prosody. After considerable study, however, I found myself still in an embarassing uncertainty as to several of the most fundamental questions involved, and it was clear that a preliminary investigation of the historical origin of our verseforms was indispensable. All the topics most intimately involved in this investigation have already provoked separate discussion, but there has never been any satisfactory coördination of results; and the lack of just this has led to many hasty inferences. The purpose of this paper is to trace the main line of descent of our modern versification, from the classical quantitative verse and the Old English accentual verse, through the various forms that were cultivated in mediæval Latin, English and French. To carry such an investigation into all the topics usually treated under the head of versification, would of course be impracticable within the ordinary limits of a doctor's thesis. I have therefore limited myself as narrowly as possible to one topic,-the one that seemed to me most essential. I have disregarded all questions as to stanza-form, rime, alliteration, euphony of vowels, and the like, and considered only the internal mechanical * |