{"product_id":"2940014841641","title":"English Metres","description":"An excerpt from the beginning of:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003eTHE NATURE OF VERSE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe word verse will be used in the following pages in the meaning of rhythmically organized language, the kind of language in which poetry is written. To avoid confusion, the word will not be used in the meaning of line or of stanza. The study of verse is essentially the study of the sound of poetry, not in utter disregard of the sense, but at least a study radically different from j the study of the ideas or the imagery or the diction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe study of the sound of verse cannot, of course, wholly disregard the sense, because the sound and the sense are inseparably connected. In verse, as in prose, the position of the pauses between words, the relative emphasis of different syllables, the speed or slowness with which a passage is read, though allowing of a certain amount of variation, are all determined or influenced by the sense. In verse, far more than in prose, the choice of words, and consequently the shade of meaning conveyed, is in part determined by considerations of sound. Further, as will be explained and illustrated later, in verse we often find correspondences of another kind between sense and sound: lines and groups of lines which correspond to each other in a metrical pattern are often paralleled or contrasted in sense.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVerse is often spoken of as rhyme, sometimes in disparagement, as if it were nothing but the matching of syllables, sometimes in poetic language, as when Milton says,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut while this use of the term rhyme for verse is evidence that rhyme is ordinarily a conspicuous element in the verse in which it occurs, it is not essential to verse. Classical Greek and Latin verse was without rhyme, and unrhymed verse is common in English and in many other modern languages. An examination of rhymed verse will show that its effect, which we uncritically assume to be due solely to the presence of rhyme, is in reality produced by several factors. The syllables that rhyme bear stress, and they occur at more or less regular intervals of time. This is as apparent in a nursery jingle like \"Tom, Tom, the piper's son\" as in a poem of lofty sentiment and diction like Lycidas. Nor are the rhyming words likely to be the only ones that have been selected with regard to their sound. In the aforesaid \"Tom, Tom,\" there is a reason for its being a pig that the piper's son stole: piper and pig begin with the same sound. We feel a certain appropriateness that would have been absent if he had stolen, say, a sheep. There is also a reason for his roaring instead of howling or crying: run and roar begin with the same sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn unrhymed verse, the same elements are present: certain syllables are through stress more prominent than others and occur at more or less regular intervals of time; words are chosen and grouped together, not merely for their meaning and associations, but in part for then* sound. These two elements of verse will in this discussion be called rhythm and harmony.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe term rhythm, in a broad sense, is applicable to any wave-like progression, one which rises and falls recurrently. It is an essential element in music, in dancing, in anything that, as we say, has a swing to it. Indeed, there is little doubt that poetry, music, and the dance had a common origin in the expression of emotion through rhythm. In early stages of culture the three are practiced together. Song without dancing, verse not Landed for singing, are later developments. But through verse remains, in literature, preeminently the language of the emotions, and for that reason is characterized by rhythm. It is thus, at any rate, that we ordinarily distinguish verse from prose. It is difficult to draw the line where rhythm begins and ends, because of the \"sense of rhythm\" which enables most persons to feel or imagine the presence of rhythm even in a mechanically regular series of sounds, such as a perfectly uniform series of tickings of a clock, and enables some to feel or imagine its presence in what to others would be a wholly random and unorganized series. Prose may be rhythmical as well as verse; doubtless some readers feel the presence of rhythm in all prose. But verse differs from prose in that its rhythm is more constant, more uniform, and more significant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs it appears in verse, rhythm may be defined as the arrangement of syllables in groups based on their varying intensity and tending to require the same time for pronunciation. The pattern of the groups may be exactly the same, as in the line,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now they never meet in grove or green,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhich may be regarded as made up of five groups of two syllables each, unstressed followed by stressed, each group taking substantially the same time to pronounce....","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47160882200816,"sku":"2940014841641","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014841641_p0.jpg?v=1763624427","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014841641","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}