Prosody Author(s): Harriet Monroe Reviewed work(s): Source: Poetry, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Jun., 1922), pp.

148-152 Published by: Poetry Foundation Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20573636 . Accessed: 09/11/2011 04:53
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POETRY:

A Magazine

of Verse

COMMENT
PROSODY

RECENT

discussion of prosody in The Freeman

disputants to the fore, each with

a different point of view, as to remindat least one of themof thewelter of chaos and confusioninwhich that itself so-calledsciencefinds foundering today. Since poets and scholiasts are so at loggerheadsabout the funda one mental techniqueof the verse-artpracticed by the, group and analyzed by the other, it may be well to remind ourselvesof the basic originsof rhythm, and of but of not thehistory, of poetry itself, of thesystem laws from study the formulated developedbygrammarians and of poetry. Rhythm is of course a universal principle, the very pulse-beatof lifeand of all the arts. From the amoeba toman, from the atom to the star, rhythm, power or moving regularlyin time-beats,is a recognizable law must obey. The more closely which all creation modern science studies the universe-throughmicroscope, tele scope, or the naked eye and brain of man-the more astonishingand magnificentbecomes this infinite har mony: an intricate weaving of small patterns within great ones, a march of ordered melody, outreaching human eyes and ears, outracingeven that "only reality" the human imagination. The arts are.an effortto join in, toweave little imitation patterns,sound little imita [148]

brought so many

Prosody tion tunes. Even the static arts must respondwith balanced form and c 3lor in painting,sculpture, architec are ture-else their -manifestations temporary and in congruous, part of theperishablescum and waste. Music and poetryseem tohave been among theearliest of and most direct humanmanifestations the universal were united-lyric rap rhythmic impulse. At firstthey ture instinctively fitted words tomelody, as it does still like keening in certain formsof spontaneous folk-song of over thedead or otherprimitive rhapsodies prayerand praise. But as lifebecamemore complex, the two arts separated, developedeach itsown imaginative and techni cal expression therhythmic instinct. Literaturebegan of in thecreation poems toobeautifulto be leftto chance of memoriesand tongues, and therefore committedtowrit ing. After the passing centuries had heaped up an accumulationof thesemasterpieces, the analysts took hold of them; and out of the practice of dead poets grammarians began tomake rules for poets yet to come. Thus prosody was born, And thus gradually it a developed intoa rigidscienceof verse-structure,science from themodern point of view, as about as scientific, or of theastronomy chemistry the classic andmediaeval periods. For a brief reviewof its historyone need go no further thanEdmund Gosse's articleon Verse in the a Britannica. It was Aristoxenusof Tarentum,- gram with Alexander the Great and marian contemporary much laterthan thegoldenage ofGreek poetry, therefore [I49]

POETRY:

X Magazine

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prosodyas a depart who "firstlaiddowndefinitelaws for ment ofmusical art." From his time
of fromthe theories The theories verse tended to release themselves nature,were drawn up of music. Rules, often of a highlyarbitrary who founded theirlaws on a scholiasticstudyof the by grammarians, ancientpoets.

One Hephaestion wrote a manual of Greek metres in the second centuryA. D., which became an authority Alexandrian schools,and, in both theByzantine and the printed at last in I526, carried on his influenceinto modern languages. Of the elaborate systemof classic set Mr. verse-structure forth theseand other analysts by us: Gosse reminds
thatthe of Greeks, Itmust not be forgotten prosodical terminology the writers as somethingscientific which is often treatedby non-poetical had lost dates froma time when ancient literature and even sacrosanct, and was exclusivelythestudyof analysts and impulse, all its freshness and grammarians.

However, the classic nomenclature-the dactyls, ana etc.,ofGreek andLatin, languages paests,spondees,iambs, whose syllabic quantitieswere fairlyrigid-was carried over into modern tongues of much more changeable quantitiesand emphaticstresses. Naturally ithas proved
a misfit;

leading-a mediaeval remainderstrangelyanachronistic one and influence, would have been perhaps a destructive had not preservedeither an if the poets,most of them, or indifference against invincible ignorance a cold-hearted [I50]
in this age of scientific research. It has been a hampering

especially

in English

it is inaccurate

and mis

Prosody all thewiles of prosodic theory. I know twoor three of who don't know an iamb froma cellar high distinction door, and couldn't scan their poems accordingto formula to save their necks fromtheLord High Executioner. But thisvirginal innocence, howeverdesirable in the much to itsadvantage faceof a falseprosody, might learn a from prosodyas accurate and scientifically completeas the systemofmusical notationwhich has so enormously stimulated musical production. As I said in the Freeman:
In any inquiry into poetic rhythms, one is seriouslyhandicapped of by the inexactness theold terms. Prosody, regardedas the science of verse-notation, todayabout as scientific pre-Galileanastronomy. is as ancient terms-iambic,trochaic, Its inherited etc. anapestic, dactylic, deserveno betterfate than thescrap-heap, after which a modern science of prosody might be built upon sound foundations. Indeed, a begin ninghas beenmade. There isquite a bibliography scientific of articles by philologists,chiefly German, on the subject of speech-rhythms and verse-rhythms; Dr. William Morrison Patterson, formerly and of Columbia University,has made a most valuable contributionin his volume, The Rhythmof Prose, and in the phonographicresearches which ledup to it. In reviewing book in this April, I9I8, I said: "I am quite out of sympathy with those sensitivepoetic soulswho resent this intrusion science. The truthcan do no harm, and in of thiscase itmust do incalculablegood in the enrichment our sense of of rhythmic values. The poet of the future,discarding the wilful will of upon exactknowledge, greatly empiricism thepast and proceeding are develop and enrichour language-rhythms as music-rhythms just beingdeveloped and enriched composersfully educated in their by art, who add knowledgeand trainingto that primal impulseof heart and has mind whichwe call genius. The poet hitherto worked in thedark, or at least in a shadow-land illuminedonly by his own intuition. Henceforth sciencewill lend her lamp; she will hand him the laws of
rhythm just as she hands

to thearchitectthe lawsof proportion and stress."

to the painter

the laws of light and color, or

[5'

POETRY:

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of Verse

Mr. Bridges, recognize including Of coursemodern investigators, that even commonhuman speech falls necessarily intowhat Sievers or rhythm being a universal lawwhich calls Sprechtakte, speech-bars, prosemust obey as well as poetry. So Mr. Bridges is in accordwith measures thenat thescientistsindeclaring that"in English accentual must be supreme." ural speech-groupings

a were interrupted few Prof. Patterson's researches by years ago, unfortunately, his resignationfromthe of faculty Columbia University. At presenthe is living in old Charleston, where, accordingto a recentletter, he hopes soon to resume his study of this subject. The scientific mind in this much-befogged workof a progressive H. M. specialtycannot fail to be illuminating. REVIEWS
CHARLOTTE MEW

Saturday Market, by Charlotte Mew. Macmillan Co. A slimbook of verse ladenwith somuch observation, knowledge, sentiment, that it is likean apple-tree pabssion, burdenedby the excessof itsown beauty. Almost each poem has the material in it forinnumerable poems, and almost each poem is weighed down with words. Yet Miss Mew lackssimplicity, never lacksinterest. she though I think,in fact, that thisbook would appeal to a larger audience than any book of verse published in the past two years,with the possible exceptionof Edna St. Vin cent Millay's Second April; because thepoems tellstories,
[I52]