-the difference between the prose reading of the words and the very artificial verse reading is so conspicuous that the lines sound thin and weak.

There are a few unusual lines in Shakespeare in which one stress is completely wanting, e. g.

Shall lose me. (

and

) Whát in a town of war.
(Othello, II, iii.)

With this thin hélm. ( ) Mine énemy's dóg.
(King Lear, IV, vii.)

If these lines are not read simply as tetrameter (in a context of pentameters) they may be considered as cases in which the sense of rhythm is satisfied by an interval of silence, like a rest in music, coming at the grammatical pause. In one case a whole time part is filled with silence; in the other, only a portion of a time part.13

Examples of extra accent are:

Fool! Foól! repeated hé while his eyes stíll.

(Keats: Endymion.)

Keên, crúel, pérceant, stínging, shé as well.

And tén low words ôft creep in óne dûll líne.

(Ibid.)

(Pope: Essay on Criticism.)

O'er bóg or steép, through straít, rough dénse, or ráre,
With head, hands, wings, or feét pursues his way.

(Milton: Paradise Lost, II, 948.)

Rôcks, caves, lâkes, féns, bôgs, déns and shades of death. (Ibid., II, 620.)

The line,

13 The dramatic emotion of the speakers in both these passages might be the reason for the break in the verse. For other examples see R. M. Alden: English Verse, p. 20.

Spouse! Sister! Ángel! Pilot of the fáte,

(Shelley: Epipsychidion.)

may be read, as indicated, with five stresses and five accents, not all coincident.

Again, in this line from Arnold's Scholar Gipsy,

Thou hadst one aím, ône búsiness, ône desíre,

if it is read as indicated, the first two occurrences of one (Italicized by the poet himself) are cases of extra accent, but in the third, accent and stress coincide. Though all three may receive the same force of voice in reading, with the first two it is emphasis within the time part, and with the third, emphasis that marks the time division.

For verse to be read well the time parts should be distributed so that the stresses coincide as far as possible with the sense accents. For instance,

At once I saw him fár on the great seá,

(Tennyson: Holy Grail.)

is-I think most people will admit-a more effective reading than,

At once I saw him fár on thè great seá;

though both are metrical, and both, of course, are allowable according to the principle of free choice in reading stated at the beginning of this book. Occasionally, in reading verse with archaic affectations like that of the Pre-Raphaelites, stress and accent cannot be made to coincide effectively in accordance with modern pronunciation,

as:

Upon my réd robe, strange in the twilight

(Morris: Arthur's Tomb.)

Now só it chanced upon a Máy Morning

(Morris: Proud King.)

Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain."
(Rossetti: House of Life.)

Such a wrenching of accents, which has usually been avoided by the best poets, apparently gave a quaint pleasure to Morris and Rossetti. Another similar point to be noted in reading is that Shakespeare seems to have shifted the accent of certain dissyllabic words according to the requirements of his meter, e. g.

He is compléte in feature and in mind

(Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, iv.)

O maid of grace and cómplete majesty

(Love's Labors Lost, I, i.)

Most of the words, however, in which this change is said to occur, can be read with the same accent in the different lines in which they happen, unless the reader tries to make regular and unvaried lines of them all In the two following cases, for instance,

An extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.

To qualify the fire's extreme rage.

(Lucrece, 230.)

(Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, vii.)

we may read éxtreme or extréme consistently in both lines and still divide them satisfactorily, into five equal time parts. Isn't it better, then, to give all such words the modern accent, except where this makes a distinctly awkward reading? 15

"To read Máy Mórning or life fountain would sound very awkward to most of us, because English poets, for some reason, have not given this particular rhythmical ending to a line; therefore our ears are not accustomed to it.

Nearly all the cases of "recession of accent" given in Robert Bridges' Milton's Prosody (p. 55) can be read with agreeable effect without altering the modern prose accent.

. Professor Bright (Bright and Miller: English Versification) has a theory

In general, if the poet has done his work well, the reader will find that giving the words in verse their normal sense accent, will bring out a division of the lines into approximately equal time parts.

which explains this accentual shifting, as well as what I have alluded to as a conscious effect of archaism with the Pre-Raphaelites, as survivals, in verse, of earlier pronunciation. For instance, words of French origin when first introduced into English were accented on the last syllable. When, in the development of the language, the accent of these words shifted in ordinary speech, poets had their choice of continuing the old or adopting the new form, wherever one or the other pleased them better. This theory, only a part of which I have explained, is too comprehensive. It very well explains the Shakespearian usage I have just mentioned, but why carry it so far as to insist on our reading, Who knows on whom fortúne would then have smiled,

or

(Henry IV, Part II, iv.)

Is súccess still attendant on desert?

(Browning: Ring and Book.)

Furthermore, the lines from Rossetti and Morris quoted above are not cases of accentual shifting that are common in modern verse, but obviously attempts to add a flavor of Chaucer or the ballads. When Chaucer wrote,

or,

And whán that hé was slaýn in this manére,

(Troilus, II.)

And bathed évery veýne in swich licoúr,

(Canterbury Tales Prologue.)

he was giving manner and liquor their usual prose accent in his time. But Twilight and Morning are not real archaisms, either consciously or unconsciously surviving, but merely effects that suggest the freedom of ballad versification, or possibly the way Chaucer sounds to a modern reader. When accentual shifts occur in the ballads, it is safe to consider that the unsophisticated ear of the author or listener was willing to sacrifice sense to obey them, whenever this made versifying easier. In the ballad King Henry, lády and ladý both occur, though I believe there is no reason to think that the second pronunciation was ever used outside of verse.

Says, "lády, hap your lingean."

"An what meat's in this house lady."

CHAPTER III

SCANSION

Scansion is a means of indicating for the purpose of study the division of verse into feet. The scansion of a line should not differ from the natural verse reading of it except in exaggerating the special characteristics of that reading. That a scansion should be an indication or a record of somebody's reading; or, conversely, that any good reading is merely a refinement of scansion, is a principle to which the method of this book adheres.

The student should listen carefully to his own reading and to that of others and learn to detect and mark quickly the points at which the dividing stresses occur.1 According to the conclusions of the psychologists the stress occurs on the attack of the vowel. Strictly then, following the musical analogy of placing the bar before each stress, a line would be divided thus:

or,

Souls of poets d- | ead and g- one,

The curfew tolls the kn- | ell of p-| arting d- | ay,

but practically it is more convenient to include with the vowels the consonants which belong in the same syllable, thus:

or,

Souls of poets | dead and | gone.

1 A good exercise for a class is to have one student read verses written on a blackboard, another to mark the division of the verses as read, a third to read them as the second student has marked them, and the rest of the class to criticise the work of all three.

See also T. D. Goodell: op. cit., p. 88.