Music of Verse, The: Metrical Experiment in Nineteenth-Century Poetry (Electronic book text)

For most nineteenth-century poets and readers, the 'music' of verse was a vital part of the experience of reading poetry. Poets worked hard to create complex and delicate metrical structures which counterpointed the sense of the verse, and experimented with new forms designed to increase the expressive range and precision of poetry. We have, however, gradually lost the ability to hear this music, and with it our ability to understand and appreciate this element of nineteenth-century poetry. Through a detailed analysis of the theory and practice of metrical experiment in the work of poets as diverse as Southey, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Whitman, Patmore, Hopkins, and Alice Meynell, this study attempts to make the 'music' of verse audible once more, offering new readings of some of the canonical texts of the period, and restoring others which have been unjustly neglected to prominence.