Complete Essays, Literary Criticism, Cryptography, Autography, Translations & Letters. Эдгар Аллан По
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Название: Complete Essays, Literary Criticism, Cryptography, Autography, Translations & Letters
Автор: Эдгар Аллан По
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027219209
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Here is a specimen of the Longfellow hexameter:
Also the / church with / in was a / dorned for / this was the / season /
In which the / young their / parent’s / hope and the / loved ones of / Heaven /
Should at the / foot of the / altar re / new the / vows of their / baptism /
Therefore each / nook and / corner was / swept and / cleaned and the / dust was /
Blown from the / walls and / ceiling and / from the / oil-painted / benches. /
Mr. Longfellow is a man of imagination, but can he imagine that any individual, with a proper understanding of the danger of lockjaw, would make the attempt of twisting his mouth into the shape necessary for the emission of such spondees as “parents,” and “from the,” or such dactyls as “cleaned and the,” and “loved ones of”? “Baptism” is by no means a bad spondee — perhaps because it happens to be a dactyl — of all the rest, however, I am dreadfully ashamed.
But these feet, dactyls and spondees, all together, should thus be put at once into their proper position:
“Also the church within was adorned; for this was the season in which the young, their parents’ hope, and the loved ones of Heaven, should, at the foot of the altar, renew the vows of their baptism. Therefore, each nook and corner was swept and cleaned; and the dust was blown from the walls and ceiling, and from the oil-painted benches?
There! — That is respectable prose, and it will incur no danger of ever getting its character ruined by anybody’s mistaking it for verse.
But even when we let these modern hexameters go as Greek, and merely hold them fast in their proper character of Longfellowine, or Feltonian, or Frogpondian, we must still condemn them as having been committed in a radical misconception of the philosophy of verse. The spondee, as I observed, is the theme of the Greek line. Most of the ancient hexameters begin with spondees, for the reason that the spondee is the theme, and the ear is filled with it as with a burden. Now the Feltonian dactylics have, in the same way, dactyl for the theme, and most of them begin with dactyls — which is all very proper if not very Greek — but unhappily, the one point at which they are very Greek is that point, precisely, at which they should be nothing but Feltonian. They always close with what is meant for a spondee. To be consistently silly they should die off in a dactyl.
That a truly Greek hexameter cannot, however, be readily composed in English, is a proposition which I am by no means inclined to admit. I think I could manage the point myself. For example:
Do tell! / when may we / hope to make / men of sense / out of the Pundits
Born and brought / up with their / snouts deep / down in the / mud of the / Frog-pond?
Why ask? / who ever / yet saw / money made / out of a / fat old
Jew, or / downright / upright / nutmegs / out of a / pine-knot?
The proper spondee predominance is here preserved. Some of the dactyls are not so good as I could wish, but, upon the whole the rhythm is very decent — to say nothing of its excellent sense.
1. Verse, from the Latin vertere, to turn, is so called on account of the turning or re-commencement of the series of feet. Thus a verse strictly speaking is a line. In this sense, however, I have preferred using the latter word alone; employing the former in the general acceptation given it in the heading of this paper.
2. A stanza is often vulgarly, and with gross impropriety, called a verse.
The Poetic Principle
In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By “minor poems” I mean, of course, poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it flags — fails — a revulsion ensues — and then the poem is, in effect and in fact, no longer such.
There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum that the “Paradise Lost” is to be devoutly admired throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity — its totality of effect or impression — we read it (as would be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alteration of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book — that is to say, commencing with the second — we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before condemned — that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity:— and this is precisely the fact.
In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem were popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again.
That the extent of a poetical work is, ceteris paribus, the measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it a proposition sufficiently absurd — yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly considered — there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the sublime — but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material grandeur of even “The Columbiad.” Even the Quarterlies have not instructed us СКАЧАТЬ