"Deteriores omnus sumus licentia." - Terence
Of the various forms of decadence manifest in the poetical
art of the present age, none strikes more harshly on our sensibilities
than the alarming decline in that harmonious regularity of metre which
adorned the poetry of our immediate ancestors.
That metre itself forms an essential part of all true
poetry is a principle which not even the assertions of an Aristotle or
the pronouncements of a Plato can disestablish. As old a critic as Dionysius
of Halicarnassus and as modern an philosopher as Hegel have each affirmed
that versification in poetry is not alone a necessary attribute, but the
very foundation as well; Hegel, indeed, placing metre above metaphorical
imagination as the essence of all poetic creation.
Science can likewise trace the metrical instinct from
the very infancy of mankind, or even beyond, to the pre-human age of the
apes. Nature is in itself an unending succession of regular impulses. The
steady recurrence of the seasons and of the moonlight, the coming and going
of the day, the ebb and flow of the tides, the beating of the heart and
pulses, the tread of the feet in walking, the countless other phenomena
of like regularity, have all combined to inculcate in the human brain a
rhythmic sense which is as manifest in the most uncultivated, as in the
most polished of peoples. Metre, therefore, is no such false artifice as
most exponents of radicalism would have us believe, but is instead a natural
and inevitable embellishment to poesy, which succeeding ages should develop
and refine, rather than maim or destroy.
Like other instincts, the metric sense has taken on different
aspects among different races. Savages show it in its simplest form while
dancing to the sound of primitive drums; barbarians display it in their
religious and other chantings; civilized peoples utilize it for their formal
poetry, either as measured quantity, like that of Greek and Roman verse,
or as measured accentual stress, like that of our own English verse. Precision
of metre is thus no mere display of meretricious ornament, but a logical
evolution from eminently natural sources.
It is the contention of the ultra-modern poet, as enunciated
by Mrs. J. W. Renshaw in her recent article on "The Autocracy of Art,"
(The Looking Glass for May) that the truly inspired bard must chant
forth his feelings independently of form or language, permitting each changing
impulse to alter the rhythm of his lay, and blindly resigning his reason
to the "fine frenzy" of his mood. This contention is of course founded
upon the assumption that poetry is super-intellectual; the expression of
a "soul" which outranks the mind and its precepts. Now while avoiding the
impeachment of this dubious theory, we must needs remark that the laws
of Nature cannot so easily be outdistanced. However much true poesy may
overtop the produce of the brain, it must still be affected by natural
laws, which are universal and inevitable. Wherefore it is the various clearly
defined natural forms through which the emotions seek expression. Indeed,
we feel even unconsciously the fitness of certain types of metre for certain
types of thought, and in perusing a crude or irregular poem are often abruptly
repelled by the unwarranted variations made by the bard, either through
his ignorance or his perverted taste. We are naturally shocked at the clothing
of a grave subject in anapestic metre, or the treatment of a long and lofty
theme in short, choppy lines. This latter defect is what repels us so much
from Coninghton's really scholarly translation of the Aeneid.
What the radicals so wantonly disregard in their eccentric
performances is unity of thought. Amidst their wildly repeated leaps from
one rough metre to another, they ignore the underlying uniformity of each
of their poems. Scene may change; atmosphere may vary; yet one poem cannot
carry but one definite message, and to suit this ultimate and fundamental
message but one metre must be selected and sustained. To accommodate the
minor inequalities of tone in a poem, one regular metre will amply lend
itself to diversity. Our chief but now annoyingly neglected measure, the
heroic couplet, is capable of taking on the infinite shades of expression
by the right selection of sequence of words, and by the proper placing
of the caesura or pause in each line. Dr. Blair, in his 38th lecture, explains
and illustrates with admirable perspicuity the importance of the caesura's
location in varying the flow of heroic verse. It is also possible to lend
variety to a poem by using very judiciously occasional feet of a metre
different from that of the body of the work. This is generally done without
disturbing the syllabification, and it in no way impairs or obscures the
dominant measure.
Most amusing of all the claims of the radical is the assertion
that true poetic fervor can never be confined to regular metre; that the
wild-eyed, long-haired rider of Pegasus must inflict upon a suffering public
in unaltered form the vague conceptions which flit in noble chaos through
his exalted soul. While it is perfectly obvious that the hour of rare inspiration
must be improved without the hindrance of grammars or rhyming dictionaries,
it is no less obvious that the succeeding hour of calmer contemplation
may very profitably be devoted to amendment and polishing. The "language
of the heart" must be clarified and made intelligible to other hearts,
else its purport will forever be confined to its creator. If natural laws
of metrical construction be willfully set aside, the reader's attention
will be distracted from the soul of the poem to its uncouth and ill-fitting
dress. The more nearly perfect the metre, the less conspicuous its presence;
hence if the poet desires supreme consideration for his matter, he should
make his verses so smooth that the sense may never be interrupted.
The ill effect of metrical laxity on the younger generation
of poets is enormous. These latest suitors of the Muse, not yet sufficiently
trained to distinguish between their own artless crudities and the cultivated
monstrosities of the educated but radical bard, come to regard with distrust
the orthodox critics, and to believe that no grammatical, rhetorical, or
metrical skill is necessary to their own development. The result cannot
but be a race of churlish, cacophonous hybrids, whose amorphous outcries
will waver uncertainly betwixt prose and verse, absorbing the vices of
both and the virtues of neither.
When proper consideration shall be taken of the perfect
naturalness of polished metre, a wholesome reaction against the present
chaos must inevitably occur; so that the few remaining disciples of conservatism
and good taste may justly entertain one last, lingering hope of hearing
from modern lyres the stately heroics of Pope, the majestic blank verse
of Thomson, the terse octosyllabics of Swift, the sonorous quatrains of
Gray, and the lively anapests of Sheridan and Moore.
