Historical Manual of English Prosody

General if not always consistent use of the term "foot"--Particular objections to its systematic use--"Quantity" in English--The "common" syllable--Intermediate rules of arrange...

§ A. Feet.--Feet composed of long and short syllables--Not all combinations actual--Differences from "classical" feet--The three usual kinds: iamb, trochee, anapæst--The spondee...

I. Old English Period: Scansion only dimly visible--II. Late Old English with _nisus_ towards Metre: "Grave" Poem--III. Transition Period: Metre struggling to assert itself in a...

Relations of "Old" to "Middle" and "New" English--generally--and in prosody--Anglo-Saxon prosody itself--Prosody of the Transition to Middle English--Contrast in Layamon--Examin...

Blank verse--Before Shakespeare--In him--and after him in drama--Its degeneration--Milton's reform of it--_Comus_--_Paradise Lost_--Analysis of its versification, with applicati...

I. Old English Period--II. Before or very soon after 1200: Earliest Middle English Period--III. Middle and Later Thirteenth Century: Second Early Middle English Period--IV. Earl...

Dearth of early prosodic studies--Gascoigne--His remark on feet-- Spenser and Harvey--Stanyhurst--Webbe--King James VI.-- Pattenham (?)--Campion and Daniel--Ben Jonson, Drayton,...

Bysshe's _Art of Poetry_--Its importance--Minor prosodists of the mid-eighteenth century--Dr. Johnson--Shenstone--Sheridan-- John Mason--Mitford--Joshua Steele--Historical and R...

#Accent#--Acephalous--Acrostic--Alexandrine--Alcaic--Alliteration --Amphibrach--Amphimacer--Note on Musical and Rhetorical Arrangements of Verse--Anacrusis--Anapæst--Anti-Bacchi...

#Arnold#, Matthew (1822-1888)--Barham, Richard H. ("Thomas Ingoldsby") (1788-1845)--Beaumont, Sir John (1583-1623)--Blake, William (1757-1827)--Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)...

A. Lines.--I. Alliterative--II. "Short" Lines--III. Octosyllable--IV. Decasyllabic--V. Alexandrine--VI. Fourteener--VII. Doggerel--VIII. "Long" Lines. B. Stanzas, etc.--I. Balla...

Abbot, E. A.--Alden, R. M.--[Blake, J. W.]--Brewer, R. F.--Bridges, R. S.--Bysshe, Edward--Calverley, C. S.--Campion, Thomas--Cayley, C. B.--Coleridge, S. T.--Conway, Gilbert--C...

Prosody, or the study of the constitution of verse, was, not so long ago, made familiar, in so far as it concerned Latin, to all persons educated above the very lowest degree, b...

The great difficulty attending the study of English prosody, and the cause of the fact that no book hitherto published can be said to possess actual authority on the subject, ar...

A strictly syllabic system of prosody has hardly at any time been a sufficient key, even in appearance, to English verse. But it has preserved a curious insistence of pretension...

Although the accentual and the syllabic systems--sometimes separate, but oftener combined--have, on the whole, dominated English preceptist prosody almost from the time when it...

#1. English poetry, from the first constitution of literary Middle English to the present day, can best be scanned by a system of _feet_, or groups of syllables in two different...

No better examples can be taken for this than two already used by Dr. Sievers--the close of the _Phœnix_ with its illuminative Latin admixture, and a bit of _Beowulf_ (205 _ff._...

The main fact, at once central and fundamental--a pivot whereon the whole structure at once rests and turns,--which it is necessary to understand in order to understand English...

It might be supposed, especially in face of the unquestionable reputation which Chaucer had attained before his death--and which he maintained undisturbed, and hardly approached...

The high and (it is believed) thoroughly well-deserved praise bestowed upon Spenser at the close of the last chapter must not lead the student to suppose that Spenser worked alo...

It is desirable, if not absolutely necessary, at this point (_circa_ 1660, which, though not in strict number of years or centuries, is in fact the central stage of English pros...

We must now take up, somewhat more minutely, the phenomena mentioned in the last chapter as showing revolt against, and recovery from, the partly beneficial but excessive tyrann...

The lesson of the last chapter, if properly learnt, will have shown the substitution of a more really "correct," because wider and freer, view of English prosody than that which...

Prosody rhythmical, not metrical; determined exclusively by alliteration and accent. Combinations of accented and unaccented syllables perhaps classifiable, but seldom, if ever,...

In hardly any language are studious investigations into the form of verse likely to be early, and in a language with such a history as English they could not possibly be so. We...

In 1702, just after the beginning of the new century, there appeared a book which, though it received little directly critical notice, and was spoken of with disapproval by some...

The amount of prosodic writing during the last seventy years has been very large. In the earliest and latest parts of the period it was principally devoted to the subject of Eng...

(The miniature glossary which I prefixed to my larger _History_ having been found useful, and indeed some complaints having been made that it was not fuller, I have determined t...

ARNOLD, MATTHEW (1822-1888).--Made various attempts (outside of his classical drama _Merope_) at rhymeless metres in English. Countenanced the English hexameter. Also made, but...

(It has seemed desirable to give some account (to an extent which would in most cases be disproportionate for the Glossary) of the ascertained, probable, or supposed origin of t...

(The following list contains almost everything with which any student, who is not making the subject one of exhaustive and practically original research, need make himself acqua...