The Rhythm of English Verse

Abstract

THE CONCEPT OF A FOOT, as used in scanning English verse, was borrowed many years ago from the prosodists of Greece and Rome; and as Omond (1907) has remarked, it was borrowed without enquiry into the actualities of English speech-sounds. These actualities have subsequently demanded attention: they have led to progressive revisions of the concept, with the result that it is now more suited to English than it used to be. But the concept continues to be perplexing. It still shows signs of not being at home in our language. Those who seek a more instructive prosody, accordingly, can proceed in one of two ways. They can revise the concept of a foot more thoroughly; or they can reject it, replacing it by one or more concepts of another sort. In the present paper I shall deal with the second of these alternatives. I shall outline an analysis of verse-rhythms that rejects the foot, together with the more specific concepts (of iambs, trochees, etc.) that are used in classifying feet. In that way, and with the help of neighboring concepts, I shall attempt to show that English prosody can be at once simplified and strengthened. My views will often be mine only by adoption. I am much indebted to the work of G. R. Stewart (1930) and C. E. Andrews (1918), and to the work of the musically-minded prosodists whose progenitor was Joshua Steele (1775).