"Criticism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

required for two ordinary, syllables. The excesses of measure are here
employed (perhaps without any definite design on the part of the
writer, who may have been guided solely by ear) with reference to
the proper equalization, of balancing, if we may so term it, of
time, throughout an entire sentence. This, we confess, is a novel
idea, but, we think, perfectly tenable. Any musician will understand
us. Efforts for the relief of monotone will necessarily produce
fluctuations in the time of any metre, which fluctuations, if not
subsequently counterbalanced, affect the ear like unresolved
discords in music. The deviations then of which we have been speaking,
from the strict rules of prosodial art, are but improvements upon
the rigor of those rules, and are a merit, not a fault. It is the
nicety of this species of equalization more than any other metrical
merit which elevates Pope as a versifier above the mere
couplet-maker of his day, and, on the other hand, it is the
extension of the principle to sentences of greater length which
elevates Milton above Pope. Knowing this, it was, of course, with some
surprise that we found the American Monthly (for whose opinions we
still have the highest respect,) citing Pope in opposition to Mr.
Willis upon the very point to which we allude. A few examples will
be sufficient to show that Pope not only made free use of the
license referred to, but that he used it for the reasons, and under
the circumstances which we have suggested.

Oh thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais easy chair.

Any person will here readily perceive that the third line

Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,

differs in time from the usual course of the rhythm, and requires some
counterbalance in the line which succeeds. It is indeed precisely such
a verse as that of Mr. Bryant's upon which we have commented,

Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close,

and commences in the same manner with a Trochee. But again, from
Pope we have-

Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines
Hence Journals, Medleys, Mercuries, Magazines.

Else all my prose and verse were much the same,
This prose on stilts, that poetry fallen lame.

And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand
And thrice he dropped it from his quivering hand.