DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61385#0132
cxxvi Chapter XI.—Metrical Structure of the Specrdicm.
§ 2. Construction of the Verse.
The normal line contains four stressed syllables with regularly
alternating thesis, fulfilling Ruskin’s requirement for the “ chief
poetry of energetic nations.” It produces the conventional iambic
tetrameter. A final unstressed syllable is admissible. The scheme
thus develops a catalectic or a hypercatalectic verse; a metrical
pause occurs generally after the second arsis. The same technique
is employed in Guy of Warwick, the first 7306 lines of the
Auchinleck text (cf. Zupitza’s edition, and Kolbing, Sir Beues,
p. xi.), in Sir Beues, verses 475—4620 (Auch. MS.), in Owl and
Nightingale, King Horn, and in a multitude of like works. Although
following the accentual system of versification imitated from French
poetry (cf. Pl. Grdr., vol. ii., p. 1042, § 33), yet the verse partakes
of the character of the native English short-line couplet.1 This is
recognized through the logical significance of its stress, through
freedom in the development of unstressed syllables, and through
incidental return to a modification of the elemental alliterative con-
struction. As medium for the expression of his own personality,
external form must be considered to a degree subservient to the
moral emotion of the poet. The merit of this quality in the verse is
emphasized by contrast with the evenly accentuated measures of the
phonetician Orrm, or of the “ moral2 Gower.” There the quanti-
tative standard of the Latin model3 is exemplified with painful
exactness. Lines from Orrm, in septenar, Gower, and the author
of the Speculum, both in tetrameter, placed side by side, display
to an advantage the pleasing dignity, the thoughtfulness, and the
melody of the verse of the present text. Compare as follows,
where the opening verses of the Orrmulum serve as characteristic
of the poem :
1 The short riming couplet is to be regarded as first consistently and
regularly employed in a metrical Paternoster composed in the south of England
in the second half of the 12th century, see ten Brink (ed. Kennedy, 1889),
p. 156, and also p. 267.
2 See Chaucer’s dedication of Troilus to
“. . moral Gower
To thee and to the philosophical Strode.”
Radulphus Strode nobilis poeta has earned attention from Dr. Furnivall and
a notice from Gollancz, in Pearl, pp. 1., li. See also Morley’s edition of Confessio
Amantis, p. xiv.
3 The Poerna Morale, illustrating to a degree principles of classical accentua-
tion in respect to precision in the alternation of the stressed and the unstressed
syllable, is to be distinguished from the Speculum, where the English element
predominates.
§ 2. Construction of the Verse.
The normal line contains four stressed syllables with regularly
alternating thesis, fulfilling Ruskin’s requirement for the “ chief
poetry of energetic nations.” It produces the conventional iambic
tetrameter. A final unstressed syllable is admissible. The scheme
thus develops a catalectic or a hypercatalectic verse; a metrical
pause occurs generally after the second arsis. The same technique
is employed in Guy of Warwick, the first 7306 lines of the
Auchinleck text (cf. Zupitza’s edition, and Kolbing, Sir Beues,
p. xi.), in Sir Beues, verses 475—4620 (Auch. MS.), in Owl and
Nightingale, King Horn, and in a multitude of like works. Although
following the accentual system of versification imitated from French
poetry (cf. Pl. Grdr., vol. ii., p. 1042, § 33), yet the verse partakes
of the character of the native English short-line couplet.1 This is
recognized through the logical significance of its stress, through
freedom in the development of unstressed syllables, and through
incidental return to a modification of the elemental alliterative con-
struction. As medium for the expression of his own personality,
external form must be considered to a degree subservient to the
moral emotion of the poet. The merit of this quality in the verse is
emphasized by contrast with the evenly accentuated measures of the
phonetician Orrm, or of the “ moral2 Gower.” There the quanti-
tative standard of the Latin model3 is exemplified with painful
exactness. Lines from Orrm, in septenar, Gower, and the author
of the Speculum, both in tetrameter, placed side by side, display
to an advantage the pleasing dignity, the thoughtfulness, and the
melody of the verse of the present text. Compare as follows,
where the opening verses of the Orrmulum serve as characteristic
of the poem :
1 The short riming couplet is to be regarded as first consistently and
regularly employed in a metrical Paternoster composed in the south of England
in the second half of the 12th century, see ten Brink (ed. Kennedy, 1889),
p. 156, and also p. 267.
2 See Chaucer’s dedication of Troilus to
“. . moral Gower
To thee and to the philosophical Strode.”
Radulphus Strode nobilis poeta has earned attention from Dr. Furnivall and
a notice from Gollancz, in Pearl, pp. 1., li. See also Morley’s edition of Confessio
Amantis, p. xiv.
3 The Poerna Morale, illustrating to a degree principles of classical accentua-
tion in respect to precision in the alternation of the stressed and the unstressed
syllable, is to be distinguished from the Speculum, where the English element
predominates.