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[MARGINALE ON ALEXANDRINES](1)
In Colton's(2) “American Review” for October, 1845, a gentleman, well known for his scholarship, has a forcible paper on “The Scotch School of Philosophy and Criticism.”(3) But although the paper is “forcible,” it presents the most singular admixture of error and truth — the one dovetailed into the other, after a fashion which is novel, to say the least of it. Were I to designate in a few words what the whole article demonstrated, I should say “the folly of not beginning at the beginning — of neglecting the giant Moulineau's advice to his friend Ram.”(4) Here is a passage from the essay in question:
(5) The Doctors [Campbell(6) and Johnson(7) ] both charge Pope with [page 90:] error and inconsistency: — error in supposing that in English, of metrical lines unequal in the number of syllables and pronounced in equal times, the longer suggests celerity (this being the principle of the Alexandrine:) — inconsistency, in that Pope himself uses the same contrivance to convey the contrary idea of slowness. But why in English? It is not and cannot be disputed that, in the Hexameter verse of the Greeks and Latins — which is the model in this matter — what is distinguished as the (dactylic line’ was uniformly applied to express velocity. How was it to do so? Simply from the fact of being pronounced in an equal time with, while containing a greater number of syllables or ‘bars’(8) than the ordinary or average measure; as, on the other hand, the spondaic line, composed of the minimum number, was, upon the same principle, used to indicate slowness.(9) So, too, of the Alexandrine in English versification. No, says Campbell, there is a difference: the Alexandrine is not in fact, like the dactylic line, pronounced in the common time.(10) But does this alter the principle? What is the rationale(11) of Metre, whether the classical hexameter or the English heroic?(5)
I have written an essay on the “Rationale of Verse,” in which the whole topic is surveyed ab initio, and with reference to general and immutable principles. To this essay (which will soon appear) I refer Mr. Bristed.(12) In the meantime, without troubling myself to ascertain whether Doctors Johnson and Campbell are wrong, or whether Pope is wrong, or whether the reviewer is right or wrong, at this point or at that, let me succinctly state what is the truth on the topics at issue.
And first; the same principles, in all cases, govern all verse. What is true in English is true in Greek.
Secondly; in a series of lines, if one line contains more syllables than the law of the verse demands, and if, nevertheless, this line is pronounced in the same time, upon the whole, as the rest of the lines, then this line suggests celerity — on account of the increased rapidity of enunciation required. Thus in the Greek Hexameter the dactylic lines — those most abounding in dactyls — serve best to convey the idea of rapid motion. The spondaic lines convey that of slowness.
xThirdly; it is a gross mistake to suppose that the Greek dactylic line is “the model in this matter” — the matter of the English Alexandrine. The Greek dactylic line is of the same number of feet — bars — beats — pulsations — as the ordinary dactylic-spondaic lines among which it occurs. But the Alexandrine is longer by one foot — by one pulsation — than the pentameters among which it arises. For its pronunciation it demands more time, and therefore, ceteris paribus, it would well serve to convey the impression of length, or duration, and thus, indirectly, of slowness. I say ceteris paribus. But, by varying conditions, we can effect a total change in the impression conveyed. When the idea of slowness is conveyed by the Alexandrine, it is not conveyed by any slower enunciation of syllables — that is to say, [page 91:] it is not directly conveyed — but indirectly, through the idea of length in the whole line. Now, if we wish to convey, by means of an Alexandrine, the impression of velocity, we readily do so by [page 92:] giving rapidity to our enunciation of the syllables composing the several feet. To effect this, however, we must have more syllables, or we shall get through the whole line too quickly for the intended time. To get more syllables, all we have to do, is to use, in place of iambuses, what our prosodies call anapaests.(13) Thus, in the line,
Flies o’er the unbending corn and skims along the main,(14)
the syllables “the unbend” form an anapaest and, demanding unusual rapidity of enunciation, in order that we may get them in in the ordinary time of an iambus, serve to suggest celerity. By the elision of e in the as is customary, the whole of the intended effect is lost; for th’unbend is nothing more than the usual iambus. In a word, wherever an Alexandrine expresses celerity, we shall find it to contain one or more Anapaests — the morex anapaests, the more decided the impression. But the tendency of the Alexandrine consisting merely of the usual iambuses, is to convey slowness — although it conveys this idea feebly, on account of conveying it indirectly. It follows, from what I have said, that the common pentameter,(15) interspersed with xanapaests, would better convey celerity than the Alexandrine interspersed with them to a similar degree; — and it unquestionably does.(16)
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 88:]
1 Marginalia” Graham's American Monthly Magazine 32:23-24, January 1848.
2 George Hooker Colton.
3 Scotch school of philosophy and criticism” American [Whig] Review 2:386-397, October 1845. No signature or initials.
4 Anthony Hamilton, ‘Le Belier’, OEuvres completes, Paris, 1805, 2 : 1 68-1 69:
Belier, mon ami, lui dit le g£ant en 1’interrompant, je ne comprends rien a tout cela. Si tu voulois commencer par le commencement, tu me ferois plaisir; car tous ces r6cits qui commencent par le milieu, ne font qu’embrouiller 1’imagination.
5 ‘Scotch school’, p. 394:
The Doctors, both, charge Pope with error and inconsistency: — Error, in supposing that, in English, of metrical lines unequal in the number of syllables and pronounced in equal times, the longer suggests celerity (this being the principle of the Alexandrine); Inconsistency, in that Pope himself uses the same contrivance to convey the contrary idea of slowness.
But why, in English? It is not, and cannot be, disputed that, in the hexameter verse of the Greeks and Latins, — which is the model in this matter — what is distinguished as the “daciltylic line,” was uniformly applied to express velocity. How was it to do so? Simply from the fact of being pronounced in an equal time with, while containing a greater number of syllables or “bars’‘ than, the ordinary or average measure; as, on the other hand, the “spondaic line,” composed of the minimum number, was, upon the same principle, used to indicate slowness. So too of the Alexandrine in English versification. No, says Campbell, there is a difference: the Alexandrine is not in fact, like the dactylic line, pronounced in the common time. But does this alter the principle? What is the rationale of Metre, whether the classical hexameter or the English Heroic?
6 George Campbell, The philosophy of rhetoric, New York: Harper & Bros., 1844, pp. 343-344:
I own I do not approve the expedient which this admirable versifier [Pope] hath used, of introducing an Alexandrine line for expressing rapidity. I entirely agree with Johnson, (Rambler, No. 82) that this kind of measure is rather stately than swift; yet our poet hath assigned this last quality as the reason of his choice. “I was too sensible,” says he in the margin, “of the beauty of this, not to endeavour to imitate it, though unsuccessfully. I have, therefore, thrown it into the swiftness of an Alexandrine, to make it of a more proportionable number of syllables with the Greek.” Ay, but to resemble in length is one thing, and to resemble in swiftness is another. The difference lies here: In Greek, an hexameter verse, whereof all the feet save one are dactyls, though it hath several syllables more, is pronounced in the same time with an hexameter verse, whereof all the feet save one are spondees, and is, therefore, a just emblem of velocity; that is, of moving a great way in a short time; whereas the Alexandrine line, as it consists of more syllables than the common English heroic, requires proportion!4 ably more time to the pronunciation. For this reason, the same author, in another work, has, I think, with better success, made choice of this very measure, to exhibit slowness:
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
It deserves our notice, that in this couplet he seems to give it as his opinion of the Alexandrine, that it is a dull and tardy measure. Yet, as if there were no end of his inconsistency on this subject, he introduceth a line of the same kind a little after in the same piece, to represent uncommon speed:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th’ unbending corn, and skims along the main.
A most wonderful and peculiar felicity in this measure to be alike adapted to imitate the opposite qualities of swiftness and slowness. Such contradictions would almost tempt one to suspect, that this species of resemblance is imaginary altogether. Indeed, the fitness of the Alexandrine to express, in a certain degree, the last of these qualities, may be allowed, and is easily accounted for. But no one would ever have dreamed of its fitness for the first, who had not been misled by an erroneous conclusion from the effect of a very different measure, Greek and Latin hexameter.
Pope, Essay on criticism, vv. 354-357:
Then, at the last3 and only Couplet fraught
With some unmeaning Thing they call a Thought,
A needless Alexandrine ends the Song,
That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along.
Ibid., vv. 370-373:
When Ajax strives, some Rock's vast Weight to throw,
The Line too labours3 and the Words move slow,
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain,
Flies o'er th’unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.
7 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English poets, ed. G. B. Hill, Oxford Univ. Press, 1905, 3:232:
But to shew how little the greatest master of numbers can fix [page 91:] the principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to remark that the poet, who tells us that
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th’ unbending corn, and skims along the main;
when he had enjoyed for about thirty years the praise of Camilr1 la's lightness of foot, tried another experiment upon sound and time, and produced this memorable triplet:
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestick march, and energy divine.
(,The first epistle of the second book of Horace imitated” vv. 267-269) Here are the swiftness of the rapid race and the march of slow-paced majesty exhibited by the same poet in the same sequence of syllables, except that the exact prosodist will find the line of swiftness by one time longer than that of tardiness.
8 See ‘Notes upon English verse’, p. 57, note 38.
9 See ‘Notes upon English verse’, p. 78, note 78.
10 Scotch school” pp. 394-395:
Now, the dactylic line, containing a greater number of syllables than the ordinary hexameter, requires a proportionably greater number of mental acts or efforts to pronounce it, and also requires that these acts be done with the regular, that is to say, in an equal, time. Hence its capacity of expressing rapid motion. But why should not the same conditions, we repeat it, produce the like effects in the case of the Alexandrine? Because, reasserts Dr. Campbell — for it is only assertion that he opposes to the united authorities of Dryden, Pope and experience — because the disproportion between the Alexandrine and the English heroic time is greater than that between the dactylic and the common hexameter line. Now, syllabically at least, the fact is very decidedly the reverse. The disparity in the latter may mount to four syllables: in the former, it cannot exceed two. But as the principles of measurement in the ancient and the English prosodies are different — quantity in the one and accentuation in the other — it would not be fair to insist upon this point. In truth, the question does not turn upon the number of syllables, but rather of the acts or motions of the mind; and though it be admitted that the “Alexandrine” is not, in fact, as Campbell objects, like the “dactylic” line, pronounced in the common time, it is by no means a consequence that the mind has not made the effort. And if it has, the argument is a fortiori in favor of the Alexandrine. The mind will naturally proportion its exertion to the work which it has, and hopes, to compass in the given time; nor will the efforts made have been any fewer for the final failure.
11 See ‘Notes upon English verse” p. 47, note 3.
12 We have not succeeded in definitively attributing ‘Scotch school’ Charles Astor Bristed. Poole's Index tacet. Bristed certainly contributed to the American Review: but the earliest piece he reprints in Pieces of a broken-down critic is from 1846.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 92:]
13 I use the prosodial word “anapaest,” merely because here I have no space to show what the reviewer will admit I have distinctly shown in the essay referred to — viz: that the additional syllable introduced, does not make the foot an anapaest, or the equivalent of an anapaest, and that, if it did, it would spoil the line. On this topic, and on all topics connected with verse, there is not a prosody in existence which is not a mere jumble of the grossest error. — POE.
14 See note 6 above.
15 See p. 3, note 9. It can be urged that, since Pope wrote in couplets, his integer was indeed ten feet, or a pentameter.
16 Campbell, The philosophy of rhetoric, p. 342:
In English the iambic verse, which is the commonest, admits here and there the insertion of a spondee, for protracting, or of an anapest, as in the example quoted [from Milton's ‘L'allegro’], for quickening the expression.
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Notes:
This is “Marginalia 191.”
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[S:0 - JAG68, 1968] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - EAP: The Rationale of Verse — a preliminary edition (Greenwood)