Text: Goold Brown (ed. J. Arthur Greenwood), “Appendix 2: Versification,” Edgar A. Poe: The Rationale of Verse, a Preliminary edition, 1968, pp. 181-185 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 181:]

APPENDIX 2(1)

VERSIFICATION.

Versification is the art of arranging words into lines of correspondent length, so as to produce harmony by the regular alternation of syllables differing in quantity.

The Quantity of a syllable, is the relative portion of time occupied in uttering it. In poetry, every syllable is considered to be either long or short. A long syllable is reckoned to be equal to two short ones.

OBS. 1. — The quantity of a syllable does not depend on the sound of the vowel or diphthong, but principally on the degree of accentual force with which the syllable is uttered, whereby a greater or less portion of time is employed. The open vowel sounds are those which are the most easily protracted, yet they often occur in the shortest and feeblest syllables.

OBS. 2. — Most monosyllables are variable, and may be made either long or short, as suits the rhythm. In words of greater length, the accented syllable is always long; and a syllable immediately before or after that which is accented, is always short.

Rhyme is a similarity of sound, between the last syllables of different lines. Blank verse is verse without rhyme.

OBS. — The principal rhyming syllables are almost always long. Double rhyme adds one short syllable; triple rhyme, two. Such syllables are redundant in iambic and anapaestic verses.

POETIC FEET.

A line of poetry consists of successive combinations of syllables, called feet. A poetic foot consists either of two or of three syllables. [page 182:] The principal English feet are the Iambus, the Trochee, the Anapaest, and the Dactyl.

We have, accordingly, four kinds of verse, or poetic measure; Iambic, Trochaic, Anapaestic, and Dactylic.

OBS. — The more pure these several kinds are preserved, the more complete is the chime of the verse. But poets generally indulge some variety; not so much, however, as to confound the drift of the rhythmical pulsations.

SCANNING.

Scanning is the dividing of verses into the feet which compose them.

OBS. — When a syllable is wanting, the verse is said to be catalectic; when the measure is exact, the line is acatalectic; when there is a redundant syllable, it forms hypermeter.

I. OF IAMBIC VERSE.

In Iambic verse, the stress is laid on the even syllables. It consists of the following measures:

Lines of fewer than seven syllables are seldom found, except in connexion with longer lines.

In iambic verse, the first foot is often varied, by introducing a trochee: as,

By a synaeresis of the two short syllables, an anapaest may sometimes be employed for an iambus; or a dactyl, for a trochee: as,

II. OF TROCHAIC VERSE.

In Trochaic verse, the stress is laid on the odd syllables. Single-rhymed trochaic omits the final short syllable, that it may end with a long one. This kind of verse is the same as iambic without the initial short syllable. Iambics and trochaics often occur in the same poem. [page 184:]

III. OF ANAPAESTIC VERSE.

In Anapaestic verse the stress is laid on every third syllable. The first foot of an anapaestic line, may be an iambus.

IV. OF DACTYLIC VERSE.

In pure Dactylic verse, the stress is laid on the first, the fourth, the seventh, and the tenth syllable. Full dactylic genera ally forms triple rhyme. When one of the final short syllables is omitted, the rhyme is double; when both, single. Dactylic with single rhyme, is the same as anapaestic without its initial short syllables. Dactylic measure is uncommon; and, when employed, is seldom perfectly regular.

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