Chaucer [73]
of Chaucerian versification. These rules and usages the present is not a fit occasion for seeking to explain. (It may, however, be stated that they only partially connect themselves with Chaucer's use of forms which are now obsolete--more especially of inflexions of verbs and substantives (including several instances of the famous final e), and contractions with the negative ne and other monosyllabic words ending in a vowel, of the initial syllables of words beginning with vowels or with the letter h. These and other variations from later usage in spelling and pronunciation--such as the occurrence of an e (sometimes sounded and sometimes not) at the end of words in which it is now no longer retained, and again the frequent accentuation of many words of French origin in their last syllable, as in French, and of certain words of English origin analogously--are to be looked for as a matter of course in a last writing in the period of our language in which Chaucer lived. He clearly foresaw the difficulties which would be caused to his readers by the variations of usage in spelling and pronunciation--variations to some extent rendered inevitable by the fact that he wrote in an English dialect which was only gradually coming to be accepted as the uniform language of English writers. Towards the close of his "Troilus and Cressid," he thus addresses his "little book," in fear of the mangling it might undergo from scriveners who might blunder in the copying of its words, or from reciters who might maltreat its verse in the distribution of the accents:--
And, since there is so great diversity In English, and in writing of our tongue, I pray to God that none may miswrite thee Nor thee mismetre, for default of tongue, And wheresoe'er thou mayst be read or sung, That thou be understood, God I beseech.
But in his versification he likewise adopted certain other practices which had no such origin or reason as those already referred to. Among them were the addition, at the end of a line of five accents, of an unaccented syllable; and the substitution, for the first foot of a line either of four or of five accents, of a single syllable. These deviations from a stricter system of versification he doubtless permitted to himself, partly for the sake of variety, and partly for that of convenience; but neither of them is peculiar to himself, or of supreme importance for the effect of his verse. In fact, he seems to allow as much in a passage of his "House of Fame," a poem written, it should, however, be observed, in an easy- going form of verse (the line of four accents) which in his later period Chaucer seems with this exception to have invariably discarded. He here beseeches Apollo to make his rhyme
somewhat agreeable, Though some verse fail in a syllable.
But another of his usages--the misunderstanding of which has more than anything else caused his art as a writer of verse to be misjudged--seems to have been due to a very different cause. To understand the real nature of the usage in question it is only necessary to seize the principle of Chaucer's rhythm. Of this principle it was well said many years ago by a most competent authority--Mr. R. Horne--that, it is "inseparable from a full or fair exercise of the genius of our language in versification." For though this usage in its full freedom was gradually again lost to our poetry for a time, yet it was in a large measure recovered by Shakspere and the later dramatists of our great age, and has since been never altogether abandoned again--not even by the correct writers of the Augustan period--till by the favourites of our own times it is resorted to with a perhaps excessive liberality. It consists simply in SLURRING over certain final syllables--not eliding them or contracting them with the syllables following upon them, but passing over them lightly, so that, without being inaudible, they may at the same time not interfere with the rhythm or beat of the verse. This usage, by adding to the variety, incontestably adds to the flexibility and beauty of Chaucer's versification.)
And, since there is so great diversity In English, and in writing of our tongue, I pray to God that none may miswrite thee Nor thee mismetre, for default of tongue, And wheresoe'er thou mayst be read or sung, That thou be understood, God I beseech.
But in his versification he likewise adopted certain other practices which had no such origin or reason as those already referred to. Among them were the addition, at the end of a line of five accents, of an unaccented syllable; and the substitution, for the first foot of a line either of four or of five accents, of a single syllable. These deviations from a stricter system of versification he doubtless permitted to himself, partly for the sake of variety, and partly for that of convenience; but neither of them is peculiar to himself, or of supreme importance for the effect of his verse. In fact, he seems to allow as much in a passage of his "House of Fame," a poem written, it should, however, be observed, in an easy- going form of verse (the line of four accents) which in his later period Chaucer seems with this exception to have invariably discarded. He here beseeches Apollo to make his rhyme
somewhat agreeable, Though some verse fail in a syllable.
But another of his usages--the misunderstanding of which has more than anything else caused his art as a writer of verse to be misjudged--seems to have been due to a very different cause. To understand the real nature of the usage in question it is only necessary to seize the principle of Chaucer's rhythm. Of this principle it was well said many years ago by a most competent authority--Mr. R. Horne--that, it is "inseparable from a full or fair exercise of the genius of our language in versification." For though this usage in its full freedom was gradually again lost to our poetry for a time, yet it was in a large measure recovered by Shakspere and the later dramatists of our great age, and has since been never altogether abandoned again--not even by the correct writers of the Augustan period--till by the favourites of our own times it is resorted to with a perhaps excessive liberality. It consists simply in SLURRING over certain final syllables--not eliding them or contracting them with the syllables following upon them, but passing over them lightly, so that, without being inaudible, they may at the same time not interfere with the rhythm or beat of the verse. This usage, by adding to the variety, incontestably adds to the flexibility and beauty of Chaucer's versification.)