(3)______________________________________________________| || Mr. Morris regrets that a previous engagement || prevents his accepting Mr. and Mrs. Thompson's || kind invitation for Monday evening, December || the thirtieth. || |
(4)______________________________________________________| || Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Elliott request the || pleasure of Mr. John Barker's company at dinner || on Wednesday, December sixth, at seven o'clock. || || 1068 Euclid Ave. || |
(5)______________________________________________________| || Mr. Barker regrets his inability to accept || Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Elliott's invitation to || dinner at seven o'clock, Wednesday, December || sixth. || |
1. Write an invitation to a golden wedding.
2. Mrs. Homer A. Payne invites Miss Eva Milton to dine with her next week Thursday at eight o'clock. Write out a formal invitation.
3. Write regrets to Mrs. Payne's invitation.
4. Write an acceptance of the same invitation.
5. Write a formal invitation to a party to be given in honor of your guest, Miss Grace Mason.
+106. Informal Notes.+—Informal invitations and replies may contain the same subject-matter as formal invitations and replies. The only difference is in the form in which they are written. The informal invitation is in form similar to a letter except that the same exactness about the heading is not required. Sometimes the heading is written and sometimes it is omitted entirely. The address of the one sending the invitation and the date may be written below the body of the note to the left of the signature. The reply to an informal invitation should always be informal, but the date and hour should be repeated as in replies to formal invitations.
A great many informal notes not included in invitations and replies are constantly written. These are simply brief letters of friendship, and the purposes for which they are written are exceedingly varied. When we write congratulations or words of condolence, when we introduce one friend to another, when we thank some one for a gift, and when we give words of advice, and in many other instances, we make use of informal notes. They should be simple, personal, and as a rule confined to but one subject.
Notice the following examples of informal notes:—
(1)_________________________________________________________________| || My dear Mrs. Lathrop, || || Will you not give us the pleasure of your company || at dinner, on next Friday evening at seven o'clock? Miss Todd || of Philadelphia is visiting us, and we wish our friends to meet || her. || || Very sincerely yours, || Ethel M. Trainor. || 840 Forest Avenue, || Dec. 5, 1905. || |
(2)_________________________________________________________________| || Dec. 6, 1905. || || My dear Mrs. Trainor, || || I sincerely regret that I cannot accept your invitation || to dinner next Friday evening, for I have made a previous || engagement which it will be impossible for me to break. || || Yours most sincerely, || Emma Lathrop. || |
(3)_________________________________________________________________| || My dear Blanche, || || Mr. Gilmore and I are planning for a little party || Thursday evening of this week. I hope you have no other || engagement for that evening, as we shall be pleased to have || you with us. || Very cordially yours, || Margaret Gilmore. || |
(4)______________________________________________________________| || My dear Margaret, || || Fortunately I have no other engagement for this || week Thursday evening, and I shall be delighted to spend an || evening with you and your friends. || || Very sincerely yours, || Blanche A. Church. || |
Write the following informal notes:—
1. Write to a friend, asking him or her to lend you a book.
2. Write an invitation to an informal trolley, tennis, or golf party.
3. Write the reply.
4. Invite one of your friends to spend his or her vacation with you.
5. Write a note to your sister, asking her to send you your theme that youleft at home this morning.
6. Mrs. Edgar A. Snow invites Miss Mabel Minard to dine with her. Writeout the invitation.
7. Write the acceptance.
[Footnote:To the Teacher.—Since the expression of ideas in metrical form is seldom the one best suited to the conditions of modern life, it has not seemed desirable to continue the themes throughout this chapter. The study of this chapter, with suitable illustrations from the poems to which the pupils have access, may serve to aid them in their appreciation of poetry. This appreciation of poetry will be increased if the pupils attempt some constructive work. It is recommended, therefore, that one or more of the simpler kinds of metrical composition be tried. For example, one or two good ballads may be read and the pupils asked to write similar ones. Some pupils may be able to write blank verse.]
+107. Purpose of Poetry.+—All writing aims to give information or to furnish entertainment (Section 54). Often the same theme may both inform and entertain, though one of these purposes may be more prominent than the other. Prose may merely entertain, or it may so distinctly attempt to set forth ideas clearly that the giving of pleasure is entirely neglected. In poetry the entertainment side is never thus subordinated. Poetry always aims to please by the presentation of that which is beautiful. All real poetry produces an aesthetic effect by appealing to our aesthetic sense; that is, to our love of the beautiful.
In making this appeal to our love of the beautiful, poetry depends both upon the ideas it contains and upon the forms it uses. Like prose, it may increase its aesthetic effect by appropriate phrasing, effective arrangement, and subtle suggestiveness, but it also makes use of certain devices of language such as rhythm, rhyme, etc., which, though they may occur in writings that would be classed as prose, are characteristic of poetry. Much depends upon the ideas that poetry contains; for mere nonsense, though in perfect rhyme and rhythm, is not poetry. But it is not the idea alone which makes a poem beautiful; it is the form as well. The merely trivial cannot be made beautiful by giving it poetical form, but there are many poems containing ideas of small importance which please us because of the perfection of form. We enjoy them as we do the singing of the birds or the murmuring of the brooks. In fact, poetry is inseparable from its characteristic forms. To sort out, re-arrange, and paraphrase into second-class prose the ideas which a poem contains is a profitless and harmful exercise, because it emphasizes the intellectual side of a work which was created for the purpose of appealing to our aesthetic sense.
+108. Rhythm.+—There are several forms characteristic of poetry, by the use of which its beauty and effectiveness are enhanced. Of these, rhythm is the most prominent one, without which no poetry is possible. In its widest sense, rhythm indicates a regular succession of motions, impulses, sounds, accents, etc., producing an agreeable effect. Rhythm in poetry consists of the recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables in regular succession. In poetry, care must be taken to make the accented syllable of a word come at the place where the rhythm demands an accent. The regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables produces a harmony which appeals to our aesthetic sense and thus enhances for us the beauty of poetry. Read the following selections so as to show the rhythm:—
1.
We were crowded in the cabin;Not a soul would dare to speak;It was midnight on the watersAnd a storm was on the deep.
—James T. Fields.
2.
Break, break, break,At the foot of thy crags, O sea!But the tender grace of a day that is deadWill never come back to me.
—Tennyson.
3.
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor
—Poe.
4.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,Wind of the western sea,Low, low, breathe and blow,Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,Come from the dying moon and blow,Blow him again to me;While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.
—Tennyson.
5.
Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage;Minds innocent and quiet takeThat for a hermitage.
—Lovelace.
6.
Merrily swinging on brier and weed,Near to the nest of his little dame,Over the mountain side or mead,Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,Spink, spank, spink,Snug and safe is this nest of ours,Hidden among the summer flowers.Chee, chee, chee.
—Bryant.
7.
Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith, "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
—Browning.
+109. Feet.+—The metrical effect of the preceding selections is produced by the regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables. A group of accented and unaccented syllables is called a foot. There are four regular feet in English verse, the iambus, the anapest, the trochee, and the dactyl. Three irregular feet, the pyrrhic, the spondee, the amphibrach, are occasionally found in lines, but not in entire poems, and are often considered merely as substitutes for regular feet. For the sake of convenience the accented syllables are indicated thus: _, and the unaccented syllables thus: U.
An iambusis a foot consisting of two syllables with the accent on the last.
U| U| U| U| U _|Let not ambition mock their useful toil.
—Gray.
U|U| U|U|He prayeth best who loveth best
U| U| U _|All things both great and small;
U | U| U|U|For the dear God who loveth us,
U| U|U _|He made and loveth all.
—Coleridge.
An anapestis a foot consisting of three syllables with the accent on the last.
U U| U U|U U|I am monarch of all I survey.U U| U U| U U|I would hide with the beasts of the chase.
A trocheeis a foot consisting of two syllables with the accent on the first.
U |U |U |U|Double, double, toil and trouble.
—Shakespeare.
U |U |U |U |Let us then be up and doing,U|U |U ||With a heart for any fate,U |U |U|U |Still achieving, still pursuing,U |U |U ||Learn to labor and to wait.
—Longfellow.
A dactylis a foot consisting of three syllables with the accent on the first.
U U |U U | Cannon to right of them,U U |U U | Cannon to left of them,U U |U U | Cannon in front of them,U U |U | Volleyed and thundered.
—Tennyson.
It will be convenient to remember that two of these, the iambus and the anapest, have the accent on the last syllable, and that two, the trochee and the dactyl, have the accent on the first syllable.
A spondeeis a foot consisting of two syllables, both of which are accented about equally. It is an unusual foot in English poetry.
U|| U| U _ |Come now, blow, Wind, and waft us o'er.
A pyrrhicis a foot consisting of two syllables both of which are unaccented. It is frequently found at the end of a line.
U| U| U _|U ULife is so full of misery.
An amphibrachis a foot consisting of three syllables, with the accent on the second.
UU UU| UU| U|Creator, Preserver, Redeemer and friend.
+110. Names of Verse.+—A single line of poetry is called a verse. A stanza is composed of several verses. When a verse consists of one foot, it is called a monometer; of two feet, a dimeter; of three feet, a trimeter; of four feet, a tetrameter; of five feet, a pentameter; and of six feet, a hexameter.
_ UMonometer. Slowly.
U U|U U |Dimeter. Emblem of happiness.
_ U|U|U |Trimeter. Like a poet hidden.
U|U|U |U |Tetrameter. Tell me not in mournful numbers.
U|U|U| U| U _ |Pentameter. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.
U U |U U |U U |U U |UHexameter. This is the forest primeval; the murmuring pines andU |U |the hemlocks.
When we say that a verse is of any particular kind, we do not mean that every foot in that line is necessarily of the same kind. Verse is named by stating first the prevailing foot which composes it, and second the number of feet in a line. A verse having four iambic feet is called iambic tetrameter. So we have dactylic hexameter, trochaic pentameter, iambic trimeter, anapestic dimeter, etc.
A.Mark the accented and unaccented syllables in the following selections, and name the kind of verse:—
1.
Build me straight, O worthy Master!Stanch and strong, a goodly vesselThat shall laugh at all disasterAnd with wave and whirlwind wrestle.
—Longfellow.
2.
I know not where His islands liftTheir fronded palms in air,I only know I cannot driftBeyond His love and care.
—Whittier.
3.
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crossed the bar.
—Tennyson.
4.
Chanting of labor and craft, and of Wealth in the pot and thegarner;Chanting of valor and fame, and the man who can, fall with theforemost,Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his fatherbequeathed him,Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned new lessons formortals.
—Kingsley.
5.
Have you read in the Talmud of old,In the Legends the Rabbins have told,Of the limitless realms of the air,Have you read it,—the marvelous storyOf Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
—Longfellow.
B.1. Find three poems written in iambic verse, and three written in trochaic verse.
2. Write at least one stanza, using iambic verse.
3. Write at least one stanza, using the same kind of verse that you find in Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade."
4. Write two anapestic lines.
+111. Variation in Rhythm.+—The name given to a verse is determined by the foot which prevails, but not every foot in the line needs to be of the same kind. Just as in music we may substitute a quarter for two eighth notes, so may we in poetry substitute one foot for another, provided it is given the same amount of time.
Notice in the following that the rhythm is perfect and the beat regular, although a three-syllable anapest has been substituted in the second line for a two-syllable iambus:—
U| U| U| U| U|Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,U| U| U| U U| U|Where heaves the turf in many a moldring heap,U | U| U| U|U|Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,U| U| U| U| U|The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The following fromEvangelineillustrates the substitution of trochees for dactyls:—
U U |U |U U |U U |U U |U |Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed.
U U |U |U U |U |U U|UScattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
U U |U U |U |U U |U U |U |Seize them and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
U U |U U |U U |U U |U U |UNaught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.
It is evident that one foot can be substituted for another if the accent is not changed. Since both the iambus and the anapest are accented on the last syllable, they may be interchanged. The trochee and the dactyl are both accented on the first syllable and may, therefore, be interchanged.
There are some exceptions to the general rule that in substituting one foot for another the accented syllable must be kept in the same part of the foot. Occasionally a poem in which the prevailing foot is iambic has a trochee for the first foot of a line in order that it may begin with an accented syllable. At the beginning of a line the change of accent is scarcely noticeable.
U | U| U|U| Over the rail my hand I trail.
U | U| U| U| Silent the crumbling bridge we cross!
But if the reader has once fallen into the swing of iambic verse, the substitution of a trochee will bring the accent at an unexpected place, interrupt the smooth flow of the rhythm, and produce a harsh and jarring effect. Such a change of accent is justified only when the sense of the verse leads the reader to expect the changed accent, or when the emphasis thus given to the sense of the poem more than compensates for the break in the rhythm produced by the change of accent.
Another form of metrical variation is that in which there are too few or too many syllables in a foot. This generally occurs at the end of a line, but may occur at the beginning. If a syllable is added or omitted skillfully, the rhythm will be unbroken.
When the feet are accented on the last syllable,—that is, when the verse is iambic or anapestic,—an extra syllable may be added at the end of a line.
U|U U|U _ | UI stood on the bridge at midnight,
U U| U|U U _ |As the clocks were striking the hour;
U U| U| U _|UAnd the Moon rose o'er the city,
U| U| U _ |Behind the dark church tower.
—Longfellow.
U| U|U| U| U| U|Girt round with rugged moun[tains], the fair Lake Constance lies,
U| U| U| U| U|U|In her blue heart reflect[ed] shine back the starry skies;
U| U| U| U|U| U|And watching each white cloud[let] float silently and slow,
U| U| U| U| U| U|You think a piece of heav[en] lies on our earth below.
—Adelaide A. Procter.
In the second illustration the extra syllables have the same relative position in the metrical scheme as in the first, though they appear to be in the middle of the line. The pauses fill in the time and preserve the rhythm unbroken.
When the feet are accented on the first syllable—as in trochaic or dactylic verse—a syllable may be omitted from the end of a line as in the second and fourth below.
U U |U U |U U|U | Up with the lark in the first flush of morning,
U U |U U |U U ||Ere the world wakes to its work or its play;
U U|U U |U U |U |Off for a spin to the wide-stretching country,
U U |U U |U U||Far from the close, stifling city away.
Sometimes we find it necessary to suppress a syllable in order to make the rhythm more nearly perfect. Syllables may be suppressed in two ways: by suppressing a vowel at the end of a word when the next word commences with a vowel; by suppressing a vowel within a word. The former method is termed elision, and the latter, slurring.
U| U|U| U| U _ |Thou glorious mirror where the Almighty's formU U
U |U| U _ | UGlasses itself in tempests.
—Byron.
An accented syllable often takes the place of an entire foot. This occurs most frequently at the end of a line, but it is sometimes found at the beginning. Occasionally whole lines are formed in this way. If a pause or rest is made, the rhythm will be unbroken.
u| u| u _ |Break, break, break,
U U| U| U _ |On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
U U| U U| U _|UAnd I would that my tongue could utter
U| U U|U _|The thoughts that arise in me.
—Tennyson.
We frequently find verses in which a syllable is lacking at the close of the line; we also find many verses in which an extra syllable is added. Verse that contains the number of syllables required by its meter is said to be acatalectic; if it contains more than the required number of syllables, it is said to be hypercatalectic; and if it lacks a syllable, it is termed catalectic. It is difficult to tell whether a line has the required number of syllables or not when it is taken by itself; but by comparing it with the line prevailing in the rest of the stanza we are enabled to tell whether it is complete or not. Shakespeare'sJulius Caesaris written in iambic pentameter verse. Knowing this, we can detect the hypercatalectic and catalectic lines.
U| U| U| U| U _ |You all did see that on the Lupercal
U| U| U|U| U _|I thrice presented him a kingly crown
U| U|U| U| U _| UWhich he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
U| U| U| U| UYet Brutus says he was ambitious.
—Shakespeare.
+112. Cesura.+—Besides the pauses caused by rests or silences there is the cesural pause which needs to be considered in reading verse. A cesura is a pause determined by the sense. It coincides with some break in the sense. It is found in different parts of the verse and may be entirely lacking. Its observance does not noticeably interfere with the rhythm. In the following selection it is marked thus: ||.
U| U| U| U|The sun came up || upon the left,
U| U| U _ |Out of the sea || came he;
U| U| U| U|And he shone bright, || and on the right
U| U| U _ |Went down || into the sea
—Coleridge.
Lives of great men || all remind usWe can make our lives || sublime,And, departing, || leave behind us,Footprints || on the sands of time.
—Longfellow.
Read the selections on page 197 so as to indicate the position of the cesural pauses.
+113. Scansion.+—Scansion is the separation of a line into the feet which compose it. In order to scan a line we must determine the rhythmic movement of it. The rhythmic movement determines the accented syllables. Sometimes in scanning, merely the accented syllables are marked. Usually the whole metrical scheme is indicated, as in the examples on page 199.
Scan the following selections. Note substitutions and elusions.
1.
The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world diesWith the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,And the heart but one;Yet the light of a whole life diesWhen love is gone.
—Francis W. Bourdillon.
2.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you,Weep, and you weep alone;For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
3.
Hear the robin in the rain,Not a note does he complain.But he fills the storm refrainWith music of his own.
—Charles Coke Woode.
4.
The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,The holly branch shone on the old back wallAnd the baron's retainers are blithe and gay,And keeping their Christmas holiday.
—Thomas Haynes Bagley.
+114. Rhyme.+—Rhyme is a regular recurrence of similar sounds. In a broad sense, it may include sounds either terminal or not, but as here used it refers to terminal sounds.
Just as we expect a recurrence of accent in a line, so may we expect a recurrence of similar sounds at the end of certain lines of poetry. The interval between the rhymes may be of different lengths in different poems, but when the interval is once established, it should be followed throughout the poem. A rhyme out of place jars upon the rhythmic perfection of a stanza just as an accent out of place interferes with the rhythm of the verse.
Not only should the rhymes occur at expected places, but they should be the expected rhymes; that is, real rhymes. If we are expecting a word which will rhyme withblossomand findbosom, or if we are expecting a rhyme forbreathand findbeneath, the effect is unpleasant. The rhymes named above are based on spelling, while a real rhyme is based on sound. A correct rhyme should have precisely the same vowel sounds and the final consonants should be the same, but the initial consonant should be different. For example:death, breath; home, roam; tongue, young; debating, relating.
Notice the arrangement of the rhymes in the following selections:—
1.
My soul to-day is far away,Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;My winged boat, a bird afloat,Swims round the purple peaks remote.
—T. Buchanan Read.
2.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,I make a sudden sally,And sparkle out among the fern,To bicker down the valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,Or slip between the ridges,By twenty thorps, a little town,And half a hundred bridges.
—Tennyson.
3.
I know it is a sinFor me to sit and grinAt him here;But the old three-cornered hatAnd the breeches, and all that,Are so queer!
—Holmes.
4.
The splendor falls on castle wallsAnd snowy summits old in story;The long light shakes across the lakesAnd the wild cataract leaps in glory.Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
—Tennyson.
5.
Breathes there a man with soul so deadWho never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land!Whose heart hath ne'er within him burnedAs home his footsteps he hath turnedFrom wandering in a foreign strand!If such there be, go mark him well:For him no minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim:Despite those titles, power, and pelf,The wretch concentered all in self,Living, shall forfeit fair renownAnd, doubly dying, shall go downTo the vile dust from whence he sprung,Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
—Scott.
+115. Blank Verse.+—When rhyme is omitted, we have blank verse. This is the most dignified of all kinds of verse, and is, therefore, appropriate for epic and dramatic poetry, where it is chiefly found. Most blank verse makes use of the iambic pentameter measure, but we find many exceptions. Read the following examples of blank verse so as to show the rhythm:—
1.
So live, that when thy summons comes to joinThe innumerable caravan that movesTo the pale realms of shade, where each shall takeHis chamber in the silent halls of death,Thou go not like the quarry slave at nightScourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothedBy an unfaltering trust, approach the graveLike one who wraps the drapery of his couchAbout him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
—Bryant.
2.
I stood upon the steps—The last who left the door—and there I foundThe lady and her friend. The elder turnedAnd with a cordial greeting took my hand,And rallied me on my forgetfulness.Her eyes, her smile, her manner, and her voice.Touched the quick springs of memory, and I spokeHer name. She was my mother's early friendWhose face I had not seen in all the yearsThat had flown over us, since, from her door,I chased her lamb to where I found—myself.
—Holland.
+116. The Stanza.+—Some of our verse is continuous like Milton'sParadise Lostor Shakespeare's plays, but much of it is divided into groups called stanzas. The lines or verses composing a stanza are bound together by definite principles of rhythm and rhyme. Usually stanzas of the same poem have the same structure, but stanzas of different poems show a variety of structure.
Two of the most simple forms are the couplet and the triplet. They often form a part of a continuous poem, but they are occasionally found in divided poems.
1.
The western waves of ebbing dayRoll'd o'er the glen their level way.
—Scott.
2.
A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;Her satin snood, her silken plaid,Her golden brooch such birth betray'd.
—Scott.
A stanza of four lines is called a quatrain. The lines of quatrains show a variety in the arrangement of their rhymes. The first two lines may rhyme with each other and the last two with each other; the first and fourth may rhyme and the second and third; or the rhymes may alternate. Notice the example on page 208, and also the following:—
1.
I ask not wealth, but power to takeAnd use the things I have aright.Not years, but wisdom that shall makeMy life a profit and delight.
—Phoebe Cary.
2.
I count this thing to be grandly true:That a noble deed is a step toward God,—Lifting the soul from the common sodTo a purer air and a broader view.
—Holland.
A quatrain consisting of iambic pentameter verse with alternate rhymes is called an elegiac stanza.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And all the air a solemn stillness holds,Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
—Gray.
The Tennysonian stanza consists of four iambic tetrameter lines in which the first line rhymes with the fourth, and the second with the third.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,But more of reverence in us dwell;That mind and soul, according well,May make one music as before.
—Tennyson.
Five and six line stanzas are found in a great variety. The following are examples:—
1.
We look before and after,And pine for what is not;Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
—Shelley.
2.
And if I should live to beThe last leaf upon the treeIn the spring.Let them smile as I do now,At the old forsaken boughWhere I cling.
—Holmes.
3.
The upper air burst into life;And a hundred fire flags sheen,To and fro they were hurried about;And to and fro, and in and out,The wan stars danced between.
—Coleridge.
The Spenserian stanza consists of nine lines: the first eight are iambic pentameters, and the last line is an iambic hexameter or Alexandrine. Burns makes use of this stanza inThe Cotter's Saturday Night.The following stanza from that poem shows the plan of the rhymes:—
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toilBe blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!And oh! may Heaven their simple lives preventFrom luxury's contagion, weak and vile!Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,A virtuous populace may rise the while,And stand a wall of fire around their much beloved isle.
A.Scan the following:—
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The soul that rises with us, our life's star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God, who is our home.
—Wordsworth.
Into the sunshine,Full of light,Leaping and flashingFrom morn to night!
—Lowell.
B.Name each verse in the following stanza:—
Hear the sledges with the bells—Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that oversprinkleAll the heavens seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight—Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhymeTo the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells—From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
—Poe.
+117. Kinds of Poetry.+-There are three general classes of poetry: narrative, lyric, and dramatic.
A. Narrative poetry, as may be inferred from its name, relates events which may be either real or imaginary. Its chief varieties are the epic, the metrical romance or lesser epic, the tale, and the ballad.
An epicpoem is an extended narrative of an elevated character that deals with heroic exploits which are frequently under supernatural control. This kind of poetry is characterized by the intricacy of plot, by the delineation of noble types of character, by its descriptive effects, by its elevated language, and by its seriousness of tone. The epic is considered as the highest effort of man's poetic genius. It is so difficult to produce an epic that but few literatures contain more than one. Homer'sIliadandOdyssey, Virgil'sAeneid, the GermanNibelungenlied, the SpanishCid, Dante'sDivine Comedy, and Milton'sParadise Lostare important epics found in different literatures.
Ametrical romanceor lesser epic is a narrative poem, shorter and less dignified than the epic. Longfellow'sEvangelineand Scott'sMarmionandLady of the Lakeare examples of this kind of poetry.
A metrical tale isa narrative poem somewhat simpler and shorter than the metrical romance, but more complex than the ballad. Longfellow'sTales of a Wayside Inn, Tennyson'sEnoch Arden, and Lowell'sVision of Sir Launfalare examples of the tale.
A balladis the shortest and most simple of all narrative poems. It relates but a single incident and has a very simple structure. In this kind of poetry the interest centers upon the incident rather than upon any beauty or elegance of language. Many of the Robin Hood Ballads are well known. Macaulay'sLays of Ancient Romeand Longfellow'sWreck of the Hesperusare other examples of the ballad. It may be well to note here that it is not always possible to draw definite lines between two different kinds of narrative poetry. In fact, there will sometimes be a difference of opinion as regards the classification.
B. Lyric poetrywas the name originally applied to poetry that was to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, but now the name is often applied to poems that are not intended to be sung at all. Lyric poetry deals primarily with the feelings and emotions. Love, hate, jealousy, grief, hope, and praise are emotions that may be expressed in lyric poetry. Its chief varieties are the song, the ode, the elegy, and the sonnet.
Asongis a short poem intended to be sung. Songs may be divided into sacred and secular.Jerusalem, the Golden, andLead, Kindly Light, are examples of sacred songs. Secular songs may be patriotic, convivial, or sentimental.
Anodeexpresses exalted emotion and is more complex in structure than the song. Some of the best odes in our language are Dryden'sOde to St. Cecilia, Wordsworth'sOde on Intimations of Immortality, Keats'sOde on a Grecian Urn, Shelley'sOde to a Skylark, and Lowell'sCommemoration Ode.
Anelegyis a lyric pervaded by the feeling of grief or melancholy.Milton'sLycidas, Tennyson'sIn Memoriam, and Gray'sElegy in aCountry Churchyardare all noted elegies.
Asonnetis a lyric poem of fourteen lines which deals with a single idea or sentiment. It is not a stanza taken from a poem, but is a complete poem itself. In the Italian sonnet and those modeled after it, the emotional feeling rises through the first two quatrains, reaching its climax at or near the end of the eighth line, and then subsides through the two tercets which make up the remaining six lines. If the sentiment expressed does not adjust itself to this ebb and flow, it is not suitable for a sonnet. Milton's sonnet on his blindness is one of the best. Notice the emotional transition in the middle of the eighth line. This sonnet will also illustrate the fixed rhyme scheme:—
When I consider how my light is spentEre half my days, in this dark world and wide,And that one talent, which is death to hide,Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he, returning, chide;Doth God exact day labor, light denied?I fondly ask. But Patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, God doth not need,Either man's work or his own gifts. Who bestBear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His stateIs kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,And post o'er land and ocean without rest;They also serve who only stand and wait.
There is a form of sonnet called the Shakespearean which differs in its arrangement from the Italian sonnet.
C. Dramatic poetryrelates the occurrence of human events, and is designed to be spoken on the stage. If the drama has an unhappy ending, it isa tragedy. As is becoming in such a theme, the language is dignified and impressive, and the whole appeals to our deeper emotions. If the drama has a happy conclusion, it isa comedy. Here the movement is quicker, the language less dignified, and the effort is to make the whole light and amusing.
Description, Narration, Exposition, and Argument have been treated in an elementary way in Part I. A more extensive treatment of each is given in Part II. It has been deemed undesirable to repeat in Part II many things which have been previously treated. The treatment of any one of the forms of discourse as given in Part II is not complete. By reference to the index all the sections treating of any phase of any one subject may be found.
[Illustration: See page 224,C.]
+118. Description Defined.+—By means of our senses we gain a knowledge of the world. We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel; and the ideas so acquired are the fundamental elements of our knowledge, without which thinking would be impossible. It, therefore, happens that much of the language that we use has for its purpose the transmission to others of such ideas. Such writing is called description. We may, therefore, define description as that form of discourse which has for its purpose the formation of an image.
As here used, the termimageapplies to any idea presented by the senses. In a more limited sense it means the mental picture which is formed by aid of sight. It is for the purpose of presenting images of this kind that description is most often employed. It is most frequently concerned with images of objects seen, less frequently with sounds, and seldom with ideas arising through touch, taste, and smell. In this chapter, therefore, we shall consider chiefly the methods of using language for the purpose of arousing images of objects seen.
+119. Order of Observation.+—In description we shall find it of advantage to use such language that the reader will form the image in the same way as he would form an image from actual observation. There is a customary and natural order of observation, and if we present our material in that same order, the mind more easily forms the desired image. Our first need in the study of description is to determine what this natural order of observation is.
Look at the building across the street. Yourfirstimpression is that of size, shape, and color. Almost instantly, but neverthelesssecondly, you add certain details as to roof, door, windows, and surroundings. Further observation adds to the number of details, such as the size of the window panes or the pattern of the lattice work. Our first glance may assure us that we see a train, our second will tell us how many cars, our third will show us that each car is marked Michigan Central. The oftener we look or the longer we look, the greater is the number of details of which we become conscious. Any number of illustrations will show that we first see the general outline, and after that the details. We do not observe the details one by one and then combine them into an object, but we first see the object as a whole, and our first impression becomes more vivid as we add detail after detail.
Following this natural order of observation a description should begin with a sentence that will give the reader a general impression of the whole. Notice the beginnings of the following selections. After reading the italicized sentence in each, consider the image that it has caused you to form.
The door opened upon the main or living room.It was a long apartment with low ceiling and walls of hewn logs chinked and plastered and all beautifully whitewashed and clean.The tables, chairs, and benches were all homemade. On the floor were magnificent skins of wolf, bear, musk ox, and mountain goat. The walls were decorated with heads and horns of deer and mountain sheep, eagle's wings, and a beautiful breast of a loon, which Gwen had shot and of which she was very proud. At one end of the room a huge stone fireplace stood radiant in its summer decorations of ferns and grasses and wildflowers. At the other end a door opened into another room, smaller, and richly furnished with relics of former grandeur.
—Connor:The Sky Pilot.
The stranger was of middle height, loosely knit and thin, with a cunning, brutal face.He had a bullet-shaped head, with fine, soft, reddish brown hair; a round, stubbly beard shot with gray; and small, beady eyes set close together. He was clothed in an old, black, grotesquely fitting cutaway coat, with coarse trousers tucked into his boot tops. A worn visored cloth cap was on his head. In his right hand he carried an old muzzle-loading shotgun.
—George Kibbe Turner:Across the State("McClure's").
+120. The Fundamental Image.+—The first impression of the object as a whole is called the fundamental image. The beginning of a description should cause the reader to form a correct general outline, which will include the main characteristics of the object described. While the fundamental image lacks definiteness and exactness, yet it must be such that it shall not need to be revised as we add the details. If one should begin a description by saying, "Opposite the church there is a large two-story, brick house with a conservatory on the left," the reader would form at once a mental picture including the essential features of the house. Further statements about the roof, the windows, the doors, the porch, the yard, and the fence, would each add something to the picture until it was complete. The impression with which the reader started would be added to, but not otherwise changed. But if we should conclude the description with the statement, "This house was distinguished from its neighbors by the fact that it was not of the usual rectangular form, but was octagonal in shape," the reader would find that the image which he had formed would need to be entirely changed. It is evident that if the wordoctagonalis to appear at all, it must be at the beginning. Care must be taken to place all the words that affect the fundamental image in the sentence that gives the general characteristics of that which we are describing.
Hawthorne beginsThe House of the Seven Gablesas follows:—
Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon street; the house is the old Pyncheon house; and an elm tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon elm. On my occasional visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom failed to turn down Pyncheon street, for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two antiquities,—the great elm tree and the weather-beaten edifice.
Later he gives a detailed description of the house on the morning of its completion as follows:—
Maule's lane, or Pyncheon street, as it were now more decorous to call it, was thronged, at the appointed hour, as with a congregation on its way to church. All, as they approached, looked upward at the imposing edifice, which was henceforth to assume its rank among the habitations of mankind. There it rose, a little withdrawn from the line of the street, but in pride, not modesty. Its whole visible exterior was ornamented with quaint figures, conceived in the grotesqueness of a Gothic fancy, and drawn or stamped in the glittering plaster, composed of lime, pebbles, and bits of glass, with which the woodwork of the walls was overspread. On every side the seven gables pointed sharply towards the sky, and presented the aspect of a whole sisterhood of edifices, breathing through the spiracles of one great chimney. The many lattices, with their small, diamond-shaped panes, admitted the sunlight into hall and chamber, while, nevertheless, the second story, projecting far over the base, and itself retiring beneath the third, threw a shadowy and thoughtful gloom into the lower rooms. Carved globes of wood were affixed under the jutting stories. Little spiral rods of iron beautified each of the seven peaks. On the triangular portion of the gable, that fronted next the street, was a dial, put up that very morning, and on which the sun was still marking the passage of the first bright hour in a history that was not destined to be all so bright. All around were scattered shavings, chips, shingles, and broken halves of bricks; these, together with the lately turned earth, on which the grass had not begun to grow, contributed to the impression of strangeness and novelty proper to a house that had yet its place to make among men's daily interests.
A.Select the sentence or part of a sentence which gives the fundamental image in each of the following selections:—
1. It was a big, smooth-stone-faced house, product of the 'Seventies, frowning under an outrageously insistent Mansard, capped by a cupola, and staring out of long windows overtopped with "ornamental" slabs. Two cast-iron deer, painted death-gray, twins of the same mold, stood on opposite sides of the front walk, their backs toward it and each other, their bodies in profile to the street, their necks bent, however, so that they gazed upon the passer-by—yet gazed without emotion. Two large, calm dogs guarded the top of the steps leading to the front door; they also were twins and of the same interesting metal, though honored beyond the deer by coats of black paint and shellac.
—Booth Tarkington:The Conquest of Canaan("Harper's").
2. At the first glance, Phoebe saw an elderly personage, in an old-fashioned dressing gown of faded damask, and wearing his gray or almost white hair of an unusual length. It quite overshadowed his forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared vaguely about the room. After a very brief inspection of his face, it was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one as that which, slowly, and with as indefinite an aim as a child's first journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet there were no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a free and determined gait. It was the spirit of a man that could not walk. The expression of his countenance—while, notwithstanding, it had the light of reason in it— seemed to waver, and glimmer, and nearly to die away, and feebly to recover itself again. It was like a flame which we see twinkling among half-extinguished embers; we gaze at it more intently than if it were a positive blaze, gushing vividly upward—more intently, but with a certain impatience, as if it ought either to kindle itself into satisfactory splendor, or be at once extinguished.
—Hawthorne:The House of the Seven Gables.
3. One of the best known of the flycatchers all over the country is the kingbird. He is a little smaller than a robin, and all in brownish black, with white breast. He has also white tips to his tail feathers, which look very fine when he spreads it out wide in flying. Among the head feathers of the kingbird is a small spot of orange color. This is called in the books a "concealed patch," because it is seldom seen, it is so hidden by the dark feathers.
—Mary Rogers Miller:The Brook Book.(Copyright, 1902, by Doubleday, Page and Co.)
Notice the use of a comparison in establishing a correct fundamental image in example 3.
B.Select five buildings with which the members of the class are familiar. Write a single sentence for each, giving the fundamental image. Read these sentences to the class. Let them determine for which building each is written.
C.Notice the pictures on page 218. Write a single sentence for each, giving the fundamental image.
+Theme LII.+—Write a paragraph, describing something with which you are familiar.
Suggested subjects:— 1. The county court house. 2. The new church. 3. My neighbor's house. 4. Where we go fishing. 5. A neighboring lake. 6. A cozy nook.
(Underscore the sentence that gives the fundamental image. Will the reader get from it at once a correct general outline of the object to be described? Will he need to change the fundamental image as your description proceeds?)
+121. Point of View.+—What we shall see first depends upon the point of view. Seen from one position, an object or a landscape will present a different appearance from that which it will present when viewed from another position. A careful writer will give that fundamental image that would come from actual observation if the reader were looking at the scene described from the point of view chosen by the writer. He will not include details that cannot be seen from that position even though he knows that they exist.
Notice that the following descriptions include only that which can be seen from the place indicated in the italicized phrases:—
Forward from the bridgehe beheld a landscape of wide valleys and irregular heights, with groves and lakes and fanciful houses linked together by white paths and shining streams. The valleys were spread below, that the river might be poured upon them for refreshment in day of drought, and they were as green carpets figured with beds and fields of flowers and flecked with flocks of sheep white as balls of snow; and the voices of shepherds following the flocks were heard afar. As if to tell him of the pious inscription of all he beheld, the altars out under the open sky seemed countless, each with a white-gowned figure attending it, while processions in white went slowly hither and thither between them; and the smoke of the altars half risen hung collected in pale clouds over the devoted places.
Wallace:Ben-Hur.(Copyright, 1880. Harper and Bros.)
The house stood unusually near the river, facing eastward, and standing four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of steps in front, spreading broadly downward, as we open our arms to a child.From the verandanine miles of river were seen; and in their compass near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers; farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters of the slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of cypress forest.
—Cable:Old Creole Days.
+122. Selection of Details Affected by Point of View.+—A skillful writer will not ask his reader to perform impossible feats. We cannot see the leaves upon a tree a mile away, and so should not describe them. The finer effects and more minute details should be included only when our chosen point of view brings us near enough to appreciate them. In the selection below, Stevenson tells only as much about Swanston cottage as can be seen at a distance of six miles.
So saying she carried me around the battlementstowards the opposite or southern side of the fortress and indeed to a bastionalmost immediately overlooking the place of our projected flight. Thence we had a view of some foreshortened suburbs at our feet, and beyond of a green, open, and irregular country rising towards the Pentland Hills. The face of one of these summits (say two leagues from where we stood) is marked with a procession of white scars. And to this she directed my attention.
"You see those marks?" she said. "We call them the Seven Sisters. Follow a little lower with your eye, and you will see a fold of the hill, the tops of some trees, and a tail of smoke out of the midst of them. That is Swanston cottage, where my brother and I are living."
—Stevenson:St. Ives.(Copyright, 1897. Charles Scribner's Sons.)
Notice in the selection below that for objectsnear at handdetails so small as the lizard's eye are given, but that these details are not given, when we are asked to observe things far away.
Slow though their march had been, by this timethey had come to the end of the avenue, and were in the wide circular sweep before the castle.They stopped here and stood looking off over the garden, with its somber cypresses and bright beds of geranium, down upon the valley, dim and luminous in a mist of gold. Great, heavy, fantastic-shaped clouds, pearl-white with pearl-gray shadows, piled themselves up against the scintillant dark blue of the sky. In and out among the rose treesnear at hand, where the sun was hottest, heavily flew, with a loud bourdonnement, the cockchafers promised by Annunziata,—big, blundering, clumsy, the scorn of their light-winged and businesslike competitors, the bees. Lizards lay immobile as lizards cast in bronze, only their little glittering, watchful pin heads of eyes giving sign of life. And of course the blackcaps never for a moment left off singing.
—Henry Habland:My Friend Prospero("McClure's").
We round a corner of the valley, and beyond, far below us, looms the town of Sorata. From this distancethe red tile roofs, the soft blue, green, and yellow of its stuccoed walls, look indescribably fresh and grateful. A closer inspection will probably dissipate this impression; it will be squalid and dirty, the river-stone paving of its street will be deep in the accumulation of filth, dirty Indian children will swarm in them with mangy dogs and bedraggled ducks, the gay frescoes of its walls will peel in ragged patches, revealing the 'dobe of their base, and the tile roofs will be cracked and broken. But from the heights at this distance and in the warm glow of the afternoon sun it looks like a dainty fairy village glistening in a magic splendor against the Titanic setting of the Andes.