by George Saintsbury, M.A. and Hon. D.LItt. Oxon; Hon. LL.D. Aberd., Durham, and Edinb.; Fello of the British Academy; Hon. Fellow Of Merton College, Oxford; Emeritus Profeor Of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Universitiv of Edinburgh
MacMIllan and Co., Limited, St. Martin's Street, London 1926
Book I: Introductory and Dogmatic
Chapter I: Introductory
Chapter II: Systems of English Prosody: The Accentual or Stress
Chapter III: Systems of English Prosody: The Syllabic
Chapter IV: Systems of English Prosody: The Foot
Chapter V: Rules of the Foot System
Chapter VI: Continuous Illustrations of English Scansion
According to the Foot System
Book II: Historical Sketch of English Prosody
Chapter I: From the Origins to Chaucer
Chapter II: From Chaucer to Spencer: Disorganization and Reconstruction
Chapter III: From Shakespeare to Milton:The Close of the Formative Period
Chapter IV: Halt and Retrospect: Continuation on Heroic Verse and its Companions from Dryden to Crabbe
Chapter V: The Romantic Revival: Its Precursors and First Great Stage
Chapter VI: The Last Stage: Tennyson to Swinburne
Chapter VII: Recapitulation or Summary View of Stages of English Prosody
Book III: Historical Survey of Views on Prosody
Chapter I: Before 1700
Chapter II: From Bysshe to Guest
Chapter III: Later Nineteenth Century Prosodists
Book IV: Auxiliary Apparatus
Chapter I: Glossary
Chapter II: Reasoned List of Poets with Special Regard to Their Prosodic
Chapter III Origins of Lines and Stanzas
Chapter IV Bibliography
Index
Expanded Table of Contents:
Book I: Introductory and Dogmatic
Chapter I: Introductory
Chapter II: Systems of English Prosody: The Accentual or Stress
— Classical prosody uniform in theory
— English not so
— "Accent" and "stress"
— English prosody as adjusted to them
— Its difficulties
— And insuficiencies
— Examples of its application
— Its various sects and supporters
Chapter III: Systems of English Prosody: The Syllabic
— History of the syllabic theory
— Its results
— Note: Cautions
Chapter IV: Systems of English Prosody: The Foot
— General if not always consisent use of the term "foot"
— Particular objections to its systematic use
— "Quantity" in English
— The "common" syllable
— Intermediate rules of arrangement
— Some interim rules of feet (expanded in note)
— The different systems applied to a single verse of Tennyson's
— And their application examined
— Application further to his "Hollyhock" song
— Such application possible always and everywhere
Chapter V: Rules of the Foot System
A. Feet
— Feet composed of long and short syllables
— Not all combinations actual
— Differences from "classical" feet
— The three usual kinds: iamb, trochee, anapæst
— The spondee
— The dactyl
— The pyrrhic
— The tribrach
— Others
B. Constitution of Feet
— Quality or "quantity" in feet
— Not necessarily "time"
— Nor vowel "quantity"
— Accumulated consonants
— Or rhetorical stress
— Or place in verse will quantify
— Commonness of monosyllables
C. Equivalence and Substitution
— Substitution of equivalent feet
— Its two laws
— Confusion of base must be avoided
— (Of which the ear must judge)
— Certain substitutions are not eligible D. Pause
— Variation of pause
— Practically at discretion
— Blank verse specially dependent on pause
E. Line-Combination
— Simple or complex
— Rhymes necessary to couplet
— Few instances of successsful unrhymed stanza
— Uneveness of line in length
— Stanzas to be judged by the ear
— Origin of commonest line-combinations
F. Rhyme
— Rhyme natural in English
— It must be "full"
— and not identical
— General rule as to it
— Alliteration
— Single, etc., rhyme
— Fullness of sound
— Internal rhyme permissible
— But sometimes dangerous
G. Miscellaneous
— Vowel-music
— "Fingering"
— Confusion of rhythms intolerable
Chapter VI: Continuous Illustrations of English Scansion
According to the Foot System
I. Old English period: Scansion only dimly visible
II. Late Old English with nisus towards metre: "Grave" poem
III. Transition Period: Metre struggling to assert itself in a new way
IV. Early Middle English Period: Attempt at merely syllabic uniformity with unbroken iambic run and no rhyme
V. Early Middle English Period: Conflict or indecision between accentual rhythm and metrical scheme
VI. Early Middle English Period: T\he appearance and development of the "Fourteener"
VII. Early Middle English Period: The plain and equivalenced octosyllable
VIII. Early Middle English Period: The romance-six or Rime Couee
IX. Early Middle English Period: Miscellaneous stanzas
X. Early Middle English Period: Appearance of the decasyllable
XI. Later Middle English Period: The alliterative revival (pure)
XII. Later Middle English Period: The alliterative revival (mixed)
XIII. Later Middle English Period: Potentially metrical lines in Langland (see Book II)
XIV. Later Middle English Period: Scansions from Chaucer
XV. Later Middle English Period: Variations from strict iambic norm in Gower
XVI. Transition Period: Examples of breakdown in literary verse
XVII. Transition Period: Examples of true prosody in ballad, carols, etc.
XVIII. Transition Period: Examples of Skeltonoic and other doggerel
XIX. Transition Period: Examples from the Scottish poets
XX. Early Elizabethan Period: Examples of reformed metre from Wyatt, Surrey, and other poets before Spenser
XXI. Spenser at Different Periods
XXII. Examples of the development of blank verse
XXIII. Examples of Elizabethan lyric
XXIV. Early continuous anapæsts
XXV. The enjambed heroic couplet (1580-1660)
XXVI. The stopped heroic couplet (1580-1660)
XXVII. Varous forms of octosyllable - heptasyllable (late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century)
XXVIII. "Common," "long," and In Memoriam measure (Seventeenth Century)
XXIX. Improved anapæstic measures (Dryden, Anon., Prior)
XXX. "Pindarics" (Seventeenth Century)
XXXI. The heroic couplet from Dryden to Crabbe
XXXII. Eighteenth Century blank verse
XXXIII. The regularised Pindaric Ode
XXXIV. Lighter Eighteenth Century lyric
XXXV. The revival of equivalence (Chatterton and Blake)
XXXVI. Rhymeless attempts (Collins to Shelley)
XXXVII. The revived ballad (Percy to Coleridge)
XXXVIII. Specimens of Christabel; Note on the application of the Christabel system to Nineteenth Century lyric generally
XXXIX. Ninetheenth Century couplet (Leigh Hunt to Mr. Swinburne)
XL. Nineteenth Century blank verse (Wordsworth to Mr. Swinburne)
XLI. The non-equivalenced octosyllable of Keats and Morris
XLII. The continuous Alexandrine (Drayton and Browning)
XLIII. The Dying Swan of Tennysonscanned entirely through to show the application of the system
XLIV. The stages of the metre of "Dolores" and the dedication of Poems and Ballads
XLV. Long metres of Tennyson, Browning, Morris, and Swinburne
XLVI. The later sonnet
XLVII. The various attempts at "hexameters" in English
XLVIII. Minor imitations of classical metres
XLIX. Imitations of artificial French forms
L. Later rhymlessness
LI. Some "unusual" metres and disputed scansions
Book II: Historical Sketch of English Prosody
Chapter I: From the Origins to Chaucer
— the Constitution of English Verse
— Relations of "Old" to "Middle" and "New" English
— Generally
— And in prosody
— Anglo-Saxon prosody itself
— Prosody of the Transition to Middle English
— Contrast in Layamon
— Examinations of it: insufficent
— Sufficient
— Other documents
— The Ormulum
— The Moral Ode and the Orisons of Our Lady
— The Proverbs of Alfred and Hendyng
— The Bestiary
— Minor poems
— The Owl and the Nightingale and Genesis and Exodus
— Summary of results to the mid-thirteenth century
— The later thirteenth century and the fourteenth
— Robert of Gloucester
— The Romances
— Lyrics
— The alliterative revival
— The later fourteenth century
— Langland
— Gower
— Chaucer
— His perfecting of Middle English verse
— Details of his prosody
Chapter II: From Chaucer to Spencer: Disorganization and Reconstruction
— Causes of decay in Southern English prosody
— Lydgate, Occleve, etc.
— The Scottish poets
— Ballad, etc.
— Dissatisfaction and reform
— Wyatt and Surrey
— Their followers
— Spenser
— The Shepherd's Calendar
— The Faerie Queen
Chapter III: From Shakespeare to Milton:The Close of the Formative Period
— Blank verse
— Before Shakespeare
— In him
— And after him in drama
— Its degeneration
— Milton's reform of it
— Comus
— Paradise Lost
— Analysis of its versification, with application of different systems
— Stanza, etc. in Shakespeare
— In Milton
— And others
— The "heroic" couplet
— Enjambed
— And stopped
— Lyric
Chapter IV: Halt and Retrospect: Continuation on Heroic Verse and its Companions from Dryden to Crabbe
— Recapitulation
— Dryden's couplet
— And Pope's
— Their predominance
— Eighteenth-century octosyllable and anapæst
— Blank verse
— And lyric
— Merit of eighteenth-century "regularity"
Chapter V: The Romantic Revival: Its Precursors and First Great Stage
— Gray and Collins
— Chatterton, Burns, and Blake
— Wordsworth, Southey, and Scott
— Coleridge
— Moore
— Byron
— Shelley: his longer poems
— His lyrics
— Keats
Chapter VI: The Last Stage: Tennyson to Swinburne
— From Keats to Tennyson
— Tennyson himself
— Special example of his manipulation of the quatrain
— Browning
— Mrs. Browning
— Matthew Arnold
— Later poets: The Rossettis
— William Morris
— Mr. Swinburne
— Others
Chapter VII: Recapitulation or Summary View of Stages of English Prosody
I. Old English Period
II. Before or very soon after 1200: Earliest Middle English Period
III. Middle and Later Thirteenth Century: Second Early Middle English Period
IV. Earlier Fourtheenth Century: Central Period of Middle English
V. Later Fourteenth Century: Crowning Period of Middle English
VI. Fifteenth and Early Sisteenth Centuries: The Decadence of Middle English Prosody
VII. Mid-Sixteenth Century: The Recovery of Rhythm
VIII. Late Sixteenth Century: The Perfecting of Metre and of Poetical Diction
IX. Early Seventeenth Century: The further Development of Lyric, Stanza, and Blank Verse; insurgence and Division of the Couplet
X. Mid-Seventeenth Century: Milton
XI. The Later Seventeenth Century: Dryden
XII. The Eighteenth Century
XIII. The Early Nineteenth Century and the Romantic Revival
XIV. The Late Ninetheenth Century
Book III: Historical Survey of Views on Prosody
Chapter I: Before 1700
— Dearth of early prosodic studies
— Gascoigne
— His remarks on feet
— Spenser and Harvey
— Stooneyhurst
— Webbe
— King James VI.
— Puttenham (?)
— Campion and Daniel
— Ben Jonson, Drayton, Beaumont
— Joshua Poole and "J. D."
— Milton
— Dryden
— Woodford
— Comparative barrenness of the whole
Chapter II: From Bysshe to Guest
— Bysshe's Art of Poetry
— Its importance
— Minor prosodists of the mid-eighteenth century
— Dr. Johnson
— Shenstone
— Sheridan
— John Mason
— Mitford
— Joshua Steele
— Historical and Romantic prosody
— Gray
— Taylor and Sayers
— Southey: his importance
— Wordsworth
— Coleridge
— Christabel, its theory and its practice
— Prosodists from 1800 to 1850
— Guest
Chapter III: Later Nineteenth Century Prosodists
— Discussions on the Evangeline Hexameter
— Mid-century prosodists
— Those about 1870
— And since
— Summary
Book IV: Auxiliary Apparatus
Chapter I: Glossary
— Accent
— Acephalous
— Acrostic
— Alexandrine
— Alcaic
— Alliteration
— Amphibrach
— Amphimacer
— Note on Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse
— Anacrusis
— Anapæst (or Anapaest or Anapest)
— Anti-Bacchic or Anti-Bacchius
— Antipast
— Antistrophe
— appoggiatura
— Arsis and its opposite, Thesis
— Assonance
— Atonic
— Bacchic or Bacchius
— Ballad (rarely Ballet)
— Ballade
— Ballad Metre (or Meter) or Common Measure
— Bar and Beat
— Blank Verse
— Bob and Wheel
— Burden
— Burns Metre (or Meter)
— Cadence
— Cæsura (or Caesura)
— Carol
— Catalexis
— Catch
— Chant-Royal
— Choriamb
— Coda
— Common
— Common Measure ("C.M.")
— Consonance
— Couplet
— Cretic
— Dactyl
— Di-amb (or Diamb)
— Dimeter
— Dispondee
— Distich
— Ditrochee
— dochmiac
— Doggerel
— Duple
— Elision
— End-stopped
— Enjambment
— Envoi
— Epanaphora
— Epanorthosis
— Epitrite
— Epode
— Equivalence
— Eye-Rhyme
— Feminine Rhyme (Feminine Ending)
— "Fingering"
— Foot; Table of Feet
— Fourteener
— Galliambic
— Gemell or Geminel
— Head-Rhyme
— Hendecasyllable
— Heptameter
— Heroic
— Hexameter
— Hiatus
— Iambic
— Inverted Stress
— Ionic; Note on Ionic a minore as applicable to the Epilogue of Browning's Asolando
— Leonine Verse
— Line
— Long and Short
— Long Measure ("L. M.")
— Lydgatian Line
— Masculine Rhyme
— Metre (or Meter)
— Molossus
— Monometer
— Monopressure
— Octave
— Octometer
— Ode
— Ottava Rima
— Pæon (or Paeon)
— Pause
— Pentameter
— Pindaric
— Position
— Poulter's Measure
— Proceleusmatic
— Pyrrhic
— Quantity
— Quartet or Quatrain
— Quintet
— Redundance
— Refrain
— Rhyme
— Rhyme-Royal
— Rhythm
— Riding Rhyme
— Rime Couee or Tailed Rhyme
— Romance-Six
— Rondeau, Rondel
— Sapphic
— Section
— Septenar
— Septet
— Sestet, also Sixain
— Sestine, Sestina
— Short Measure ("S. M.")
— Single-Moulded
— Skeltonic
— Slur
— Sonnet
— Spenserian
— Spondee
— Stanza or Stave
— Stress
— Stress-Unit
— Strophe
— Substitution
— Synaloepha or Synalœpha
— Syncope
— Synizesis
— Syzygy
— Tailed Sonnet
— Tercet
— Terza Rima
— Tetrameter
— Thesis
— Time
— Tribrach
— Triolet
— Triple
— Triplet
— Trochee
— Truncation
— Tumbling Verse
— Turn of Words
— Verse
— Verse Paragraph
— Vowel-Music
— Weak Ending
— Wrenched Accent
Chapter II: Reasoned List of Poets with Special Regard to Their Prosodic Quality and Influence
— Arnold, Matthew (1822-1888)
— Barham, Richard H. (Thomas Ingoldsby) (1788-1845)
— Beaumont, Sir John (1583-1623)
— Blake, William (1757-1827)
— Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)
— Browne, William (1591-1643)
— Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)
— Browning, Robert (1812-1889)
— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)
— Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824)
— Campbell, Thomas (1777-1844)
— Campion, Thomas (?-1619)
— Canning, George (1770-1827)
— Chamberlayne, William (1619-1689)
— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)
— Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340?-1400)
— Cleveland, John (1613-1658)
— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)
— Collins, William (1721-1759)
— Congreve, William (1670-1729)
— Cowley, Abraham (1618-1667)
— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
— Donne, John (1630-1700)
— Drayton, Michael (1563-1631)
— Dryden, John (1630-1700)
— Dixon, Richard Watson (1833-1900)
— Dunbar, William (1450?-1513? or 1530?)
— Dyer, John ( 1700?-1758?)
— Fairfax, Edward (d. 1635)
— Fitzgerald, Edward (1809-1883)
— Fletcher, Giles (1588-1623) and
— Fletcher, Phineas (1582-1650)
— Fletcher, John (1579-1625)
— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)
— Gascoigne, George (1525?-1577)
— Glover, Richard (1712-1785)
— Godric, Saint (?-1170)
— Gower, John (1325?-1408)
— Hampole, RichardRolle of (1290?-1347)
— Hawes, Stephen (d. 1523)
— Herrick, Robert (1591-1674)
— Hunt, J. H. Leigh (1784-1859)
— Jonson, Benjamin (1573?-1637)
— Keats, John (1795-1821)
— Kingsly, Charles (1819-1875)
— Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864)
— Langland, William (fourteenth century)
— Layamon (late twelfth and early thirteenth century)
— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)
— Locker (latterly Locker-Lampson), Frederick (1821-1895)
— Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth (1807-1882)
— Lydgate, John (1370-1450?)
— Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800-1859)
— Maginn, William (1793-1842)
— Marlowe, Christopher (1664-1693)
— Milton, John (1608-1674)
— Moore, Thomas (1779-1852)
— Morris, William (1834-1896)
— Orm (?)
— O'Shaughnessy, Arthur W. E. (1844-1881)
— Peele, George (1558?-1597?)
— Percy, Thomas (1729-1811)
— Poe, Edgar (1809-1849)
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
— Praed, Winthrop Mackworth (1802-1839)
— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
— Robert of Gloucester (fl. c. 1280)
— Rossetti, Christina Georgina (1830-1894)
— Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-1882)
— Sackville, Thomas (1536-1608)
— Sandys, George (1578-1644)
— Sayers, Frank (1763-1817)
— Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
— Shenstone, William (1714-1763)
— Sidney, Sir Philip (1554-1586)
— Southey, Robert (1774-1843)
— Spenser, Edmund (1552?-1599)
— Surrey, Earl of (1517-1547)
— Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837-1909)
— Tennyson, Alfred (1809-1892)
— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
— Tusser, Thomas (1524?-1580)
— Waller, Edmund (1606-1687)
— Watts, Issac (1674-1741)
— Whitman, Walt[er] (1819-1892)
— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)
— Wyatt, Sir Thomas (1503?-1542)
Chapter III Origins of Lines and Stanzas
A. Lines
— I. Alliterative
— II. "Short" lines
— III. Octosyllable
— IV. Decasyllable
— V. Alexandrine
— VI. Fourteener
— VII. Doggerel
— VIII. "Long" lines
B. Stanzas, etc.
— I. Ballad Verse
— II. Romanced-Six or Rime Couee
— III. Octosyllabic and Decasyllabic Couplet
— IV. Quatrain
— V. In Memoriam Metre
— VI. Rhyme-Royal
— VII. Octave
— VIII. Spenserian
— IX. Burns Metre
— X. Other Stanzas
Chapter IV Bibliography
— Abbot, E.A.
— Alden, R. M.
— Blake, J. W.
— Brewer, R. F.
— Bridges, R. S.
— Bysshe, Edward
— Calvery, C. S.
— Campion, Thomas
— Cayley, C. B.
— Coleridge, S. T.
— Conway, Gilbert
— Crowe, William
— Daniel, Samuel
— Dryden, John
— Gascoigne, George
— Goldsmith, Oliver
— Guest, Edwin
— Hodgson, Shadworth
— Hood, T. (the younger)
— Jenkin, Fleeming
— Johnson, Samuel
— Ker, W. P.
— King James the First (Sixth of Scotland)
— Lewis, C. M.
— Liddell, Mark H.
— Mason, John
— Masson, David
— Mayor, J. B.
— Mitford, William
— Ormond, T.S.
— Patmore, Coventry
— Poe, E. A.
— Puttenham, George?
— Ruskin, John
— Schipper, J.
— Shenstone, William
— Skeat, W. W.
— Southey, Robert
— Spedding, James
— Spenser, Edmund
— Steele, Joshua
— Stone, W. J.
— Symonds, J. A.
— Thelwall, John
— Verrier, M.
— Wadham, E.
— Webbe, William
Index
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