Blank Verse - Paperback

PREFACE THIS Volume is published in obedience to the wishes of Mr. J. A. SYMONDS, thus expressed There are three Essays upon English Blank Verse, printed in small type as an Appendix to my Sketches and Studies in Italy. In that place they have been entirely lost to sight and observation. They ought published separately Sept. 1894. to be taken out and in a small volume. HORATIO F. BROWN., CONTENTS PREFATORY NOTE Ancient metre depends on quantity, modern metre on accent Decay of sense of quantity even in classical times English verse depends on accent Distinction between quantity and accent Pause and elision Lines scanned by accent less precise than lines scanned by quantity Hence the licence of Blank Verse Quantitative scansion of Blank Verse is not a right canon of criticism Complexity of the whole question of metre The best craftsmen work by instinct . Pp. 1-15 II THE HISTORY OF BLANK VERSE Varied and plastic quality of English Blank Verse Limitation of the iambic by the Greeks Sackville and Norton introduce Blank Verse Marlowes Tamburlaine Blank Verse per- fected by Marlowe His exuberance and variety Shakspere Musical quality of his verse His freedom from mannerism Ben Jonson Beaumont and Fletcher Marston Other Elizabethan Dramatists Licence of Webster His justification Milton Decadence of Blank Verse Dryden Thomson Cowper Coleridge Wordsworth Byron Revival of Blank Verse by Keats and Shelley Browning Swinburne Tennyson Tennysons mastery of the metre General considerations of the scope of Blank Verse Blank Verse only the metre of genius Pp. 16-72 vii