English Metre Once More

Abstract

Although hundreds of books and articles have been written on the subject, there is still no agreement upon the question: What is the basis of English metre? There have been three schools of metrics: that of a strict count of syllables; that of accent; and that of equal times. The latest work which I have found to consider a strict count of syllables the sole basis of English metre was published in Heidelberg in 1902. But both of the other schools have their representatives today. It is my purpose to raise the question once more, and to throw light upon it from a hitherto unexplored source of unusual value, The English School of Lutenist Song Writers. I hope to show that the theory of equal times marked by stress best explains the varying phenomena of modern English verse, and especially the inclusion in metrical verse of such extremely irregular poems as “The Listeners” by De la Mare. And I hope also to clarify several metrical terms: the so-called “trochaic substitution” in iambic metre, the “caesura,” and the “run-on line.”