On the Measures of English Verse

Abstract

The theory of English verse structure has never been completely formulated. Inheriting the lineage of bothGermanic and Romance traditions, it nevertheless is a system in its own right. This paper explores, with examples from the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the problems arising from the traditional attitude of Englishmetrists up to the twentieth century to scan English verse from the viewpoint of Romance syllabotonic. To thecontrary, I argue that English verse is driven, metrically and rhythmically, also by the Germanic accentualstress-timed system.RésuméThis paper is a preliminary sketch toward developing a theory of English verse. By the twentiethcentury, English verse had become so flexible and varied in its forms that the question was evenraised as to the death of the English pentameter. Contemporary poets' responses to that questionreveal that although the English pentameter is very much alive, a complete theory of English verse still has not been written. Historically, English metrical studies have based their theory on the assumptionthat the French Romance tradition of syllable alternation displaced the Germanic stress-timed systemof Old English poetry. As a result, many lines of poetry written in iambic pentameter are consideredunmetrical. The paper explores two examples of English poetry from the sixteenth and nineteenthcenturies to show that, far from being metrically irregular, as claimed by most English metrists, theyreflect a lineage from Old English metrical forms. Using Conceptual Integration Theory (or "blending"as it is commonly known in cognitive linguistics), the paper shows that English verse is the childof two parents, Germanic and Romance, whose emergent structure in the blend exists in neither parent.In analysis of examples from Thomas Wyatt's and Emily Dickinson's poetry, it is evident that the Germanicstress-timed system, modified by Romance syllabotonic, guides the rhythmic beat of the Englishmetrical line. Building on the work of recent scholars in versification studies, the paper notes thata complete theory of the measures of English poetry still needs to be developed.