The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [724]
Blending is the plain English for synaeresis- but there should be no blending; neither is an anapaest ever employed for an iambus, or a dactyl for a trochee. These feet differ in time, and no feet so differing can ever be legitimately used in the same line. An anapaest is equal to four short syllables- an iambus only to three. Dactyls and trochees hold the same relation. The principle of equality, in verse, admits, it is true, of variation at certain points, for the relief of monotone, as I have already shown, but the point of time is that point which, being the rudimental one, must never be tampered with at all.
To explain:- In further efforts for the relief of monotone than those to which I have alluded in the summary, men soon came to see that there was no absolute necessity for adhering to the precise number of syllables, provided the time required for the whole foot was preserved inviolate. They saw, for instance, that in such a line as
or laugh / and shake / in Rab / elais ea / sy chair /
the equalisation of the three syllables elais ea with the two syllables composing any of the other feet could be readily effected by pronouncing the two syllables elais in double quick time. By pronouncing each of the syllables e and lais twice as rapidly as the syllable sy, or the syllable in, or any other short syllable, they could bring the two of them, taken together, to the length, that is to say to the time, of any one short syllable. This consideration enabled them to effect the agreeable variation of three syllables in place of the uniform two. And variation was the object-variation to the ear. What sense is there, then, in supposing this object rendered null by the blending of the two syllables so as to render them, in absolute effect, one? Of course, there must be no blending. Each syllable must be pronounced as distinctly as possible (or the variation is lost), but with twice the rapidity in which the ordinary short syllable is enunciated. That the syllables elais ea do not compose an anapaest is evident, and the signs of their accentuation are erroneous. The foot might be written with inverted crescents expressing double quick time; and might be called a bastard iambus.
Here is a trochaic line:
See the / delicate-footed / rain-deer.
The prosodies- that is to say the most considerate of them- would here decide that "delicate" is a dactyl used in place of a trochee, and would refer to what they call their "rule, for justification. Others, varying the stupidity, would insist upon a Procrustean adjustment thus (del'cate) an adjustment recommended to all such words as silvery, murmuring. etc., which, it is said, should be not only pronounced but written silv'ry, murm'ring, and so on, whenever they find themselves in trochaic predicament. I have only to say that "delicate," when circumstanced as above, is neither a dactyl nor a dactyl's equivalent; that I think it as well to call it a bastard trochee; and that all words, at all events, should be written and pronounced in full, and as nearly as possible as nature intended them.
About eleven years ago, there appeared in "The American Monthly Magazine" (then edited, I believe, by Messrs Hoffman and Benjamin,) a review of Mr. Willis's Poems; the critic putting forth his strength, or his weakness, in an endeavor to show that the poet was either absurdly affected, or grossly ignorant of the laws of verse; the accusation being based altogether on the fact that Mr. W. made occasional use of this very word "delicate," and other similar words, in "the Heroic measure, which every one knew consisted of feet of two syllables." Mr. W. has often, for example, such lines as
That binds him to a woman's delicate love-
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm
With its invisible fingers my loose hair.
Here of course, the feet licate love, verent in and sible fin, are bastard iambuses; are not anapaests and are not improperly used. Their employment, on