Chapters on the Metric of the Chaucerian Tradition (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1910. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... repetition of 'stuff d, ' 'stuff' in that line And yet it can't be unintentional, I suppose?" (Upton Letters, Feb. 16, 1904.) Although Melton admits that Donne "differs from other poets only in excess.... both as to multiplicity of appearance and indications of purpose" (p. 152), it is evident that he considers the phenomenon sporadic in other poets. He says, for example (p. 191), "He (Donne) extends throughout a poem what is to be found in only one or two lines of a poem by another." He indulged "habitually in what others indulged in only occasionally." After mentioning the various suggestions made as to the source of Donne's style, Melton suggests Tottel's Miscellany as the probable source, and cites a few examples of Wyatt's use of the variation.8 It is the purpose of this chapter to show that Wyatt learned the art from Chaucer and the Chaucerians, and that they, in turn, inherited it from a much earlier source. The line of descent of arsis-thesis variation can, in short, be traced from the Latin hymns of the Church in England down to modern times. John Donne represents the apotheosis of the cult, and might have taken the idea from a number of sources. With this genealogy, and particularly with the florescence of the device in the highly artificial verse of the Chaucerian Tradition, we are now concerned. III. HlSTOEY OE THE VARIATION IN ENGLISH Veese. It is barely possible that iteration is, as Gummere would have it, a legacy of communal conditions.9 It is, undoubtedly, one of the commonest and most popular features of all poetry, primitive and modern, and a characteristic of artificial verse in all ages and tongues. The Greeks used it, and were especially artful when puns were to be made in the line. Here one finds early punning in which the play of accents, ...