From Decasyllable to Pentameter: Gower's Contribution to English Metrics

Abstract

an earlier essay (in Chaucer Review 34 [2000]; see JGN 19.2), Duffell credited Chaucer with invention of pentameter in English, but he noted Gower's use of new meter in In Praise of Peace, referring both to influence of Italian models. He also mentioned Gower's experiments with a 10-syllable line in French in CB. This essay presents results of a much closer collaborative examination of Gower's 10-syllable lines and credits Gower with an important role in development of metrics. Gower's interest in metrical experimentation, authors argue, is demonstrated by regularity of octosyllables in both MO, in contrast to looseness of his Anglo-Norman contemporaries, and CA, in which perfectly iambic octosyllables (395), regular than Chaucer's of same period, mark Gower as the first poet to employ canonical tetrameter in English (396). Chaucer introduced 10-syllable line in in Troilus and Criseyde, following his trip to Italy, and Gower's pentameters (in IPP and in Amans' petition to Venus in CA 8:2217-2300) come afterwards, but following his practice in rest of CA, his pentameters are iambic, and they are more regular than Chaucer's in both rhythm and syllable (394). The authors conclude that we should ... regard two poets as collaborators in a series of metrical experiments (involving verse in two languages), and acknowledge Gower as first poet to employ meters that were stress-syllabic in strictest sense, regular in both syllable count and (395-96). A large part of this essay consists of a classification of Gower's decasyllables into 8 types, 4 common in French and 4 common in Italian, based on use and placement of caesura. More interesting is authors' establishment of regularity of Gower's verse, because they offer some specific observations on how they assume that his verse should be recit¬ed. Final schwa, they note, is elided before all words beginning with a vowel or a diphthong, and also before all words beginning with letter h, whether of Romance or Germanic (387). They also list a certain number of common words in which final schwa was not pronounced even when it stood before a consonant, and some others in which medial schwa appears regularly to be elided (387). They count only 12 lines in which a strong syllable falls on what should be a weak position, but 10 of these involve disyllabic prepositions, which because of their grammatically subordinate status probably did not receive prominent metrical stress on either syllable (391). Other apparent exceptions involve words of French origin which may have retained their original accentuation (392-93) and seven words of Germanic origin, which may represent genuine inversion but which also might also, authors claim, have borne a stress on second syllable. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 28.2]