TABLE OF CONTENTS. Couplet.-Triplet.-Stanza.-Quatrain.- Hymn Metres. -Stanzas of five, six, seven, eight, and nine Lines. Anglo-Saxon. -Early English. -Its Abuse.-False Use. drine. Latin Septenary. - Poulter's Measure. - Ballads and Lyrics.Iambic Pentameter. - Its Laws. - Chaucer. -- ENGLISH VERSIFICATION. PART I-PRINCIPLES. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. 1. LANGUAGE, spoken or written, may take the form either of prose or of verse. Prose is the form of ordinary speech. Verse differs from this chiefly in a certain regularity of movement. 2. This regularity of movement is called RHYTHM. Rhythm, in verse, is caused by the occurrence of similar phenomena of sound at regular intervals. 3. In the Greek and Latin languages, the chief feature which produced rhythm was the length or duration of sound. At regular intervals, the voice was drawn out upon the long syllables, as in a musical chant. This is called QUANTITY. It will be more fully explained in a subsequent chapter. 4. In English, rhythm is produced by the occurrence, at regular intervals, of sounds having more FORCE, or loudness, than the others. 5. This force, or loudness, is called STRESS. Stress is of two kinds, ACCENT and EMPHASIS. Accent is the force which is 1 |