Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads

by George Meredith

  Every foot has one principal stress or accent, and this or the syllable it falls on may be called the Stress of the foot and the other part, the one or two unaccented syllables, the Slack. Feet (and the rhythms made out of them) in which the stress comes first are called Falling Feet and Falling Rhythms, feet and rhythm in which the Slack comes first are called Rising Feet and Rhythms, and if the Stress is between two Slacks there will be Rocking Feet and Rhythms. These distinctions are real and true to nature; but for purposes of scanning it is a great convenience to follow the example of music and take the stress always first, as the accent or the chief accent always comes first in a musical bar. If this is done there will be in common English verse only two possible feet—the so-called accentual Trochee and Dactyl, and correspondingly only two possible uniform rhythms, the so-called Trochaic and Dactylic. But they may be mixed and then what the Greeks called a Logaoedic Rhythm arises. These are the facts and according to these the scanning of ordinary regularly-written English verse is very simple indeed and to bring in other principles is here unnecessary.

  But because verse written strictly in these feet and by these principles will become same and tame the poets have brought in licences and departures from rule to give variety, and especially when the natural rhythm is rising, as in the common ten-syllable or five-foot verse, rhymed or blank. These irregularities are chiefly Reversed Feet and Reversed or Counterpoint Rhythm, which two things are two steps or degrees of licence in the same kind. By a reversed foot I mean the putting the stress where, to judge by the rest of the measure, the slack should be and the slack where the stress, and this is done freely at the beginning of a line and, in the course of a line, after a pause; only scarcely ever in the second foot or place and never in the last, unless when the poet designs some extraordinary effect; for these places are characteristic and sensitive and cannot well be touched. But the reversal of the first foot and of some middle foot after a strong pause is a thing so natural that our poets have generally done it, from Chaucer down, without remark and it commonly passes unnoticed and cannot be said to amount to a formal change of rhythm, but rather is that irregularity which all natural growth and motion shows. If however the reversal is repeated in two feet running, especially so as to include the sensitive second foot, it must be due either to great want of ear or else is a calculated effect, the superinducing or mounting of a new rhythm upon the old; and since the new or mounted rhythm is actually heard and at the same time the mind naturally supplies the natural or standard foregoing rhythm, for we do not forget what the rhythm is that by rights we should be hearing, two rhythms are in some manner running at once and we have something answerable to counterpoint in music, which is two or more strains of tune going on together, and this is Counterpoint Rhythm. Of this kind of verse Milton is the great master and the choruses of Samson Agonistes are written throughout in it—but with the disadvantage that he does not let the reader clearly know what the ground-rhythm is meant to be and so they have struck most readers as merely irregular. And in fact if you counterpoint throughout, since one only of the counter rhythms is actually heard, the other is really destroyed or cannot come to exist and what is written is one rhythm only and probably Sprung Rhythm, of which I now speak.

  Sprung Rhythm, as used in this book, is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and for particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be used. It has one stress, which falls on the only syllable, if there is only one, or, if there are more, then scanning as above, on the first, and so gives rise to four sorts of feet, a monosyllable and the so-called accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First Paeon. And there will be four corresponding natural rhythms; but nominally the feet are mixed and any one may follow any other. And hence Sprung Rhythm differs from Running Rhythm in having or being only one nominal rhythm, a mixed or ‘logaoedic’ one, instead of three, but on the other hand in having twice the flexibility of foot, so that any two stresses may either follow one another running or be divided by one, two, or three slack syllables. But strict Sprung Rhythm cannot be counterpointed. In Sprung Rhythm, as in logaoedic rhythm generally, the feet are assumed to be equally long or strong and their seeming inequality is made up by pause or stressing.

  Remark also that it is natural in Sprung Rhythm for the lines to be rove over, that is for the scanning of each line immediately to take up that of the one before, so that if the first has one or more syllables at its end the other must have so many the less at its beginning; and in fact the scanning runs on without break from the beginning, say, of a stanza to the end and all the stanza is one long strain, though written in lines asunder.

  Two licences are natural to Sprung Rhythm. The one is rests, as in music; but of this an example is scarcely to be found in this book, unless in the Echos, second line. The other is hangers or outrides, that is one, two, or three slack syllables added to a foot and not counting in the nominal scanning. They are so called because they seem to hang below the line or ride forward or backward from it in another dimension than the line itself, according to a principle needless to explain here. These outriding half feet or hangers are marked by a loop underneath them, and plenty of them will be found.

  The other marks are easily understood, namely accents, where the reader might be in doubt which syllable should have the stress; slurs, that is loops over syllables, to tie them together into the time of one; little loops at the end of a line to show that the rhyme goes on to the first letter of the next line; what in music are called pauses , to show that the syllable should be dwelt on; and twirls ~, to mark reversed or counterpointed rhythm.

  Note on the nature and history of Sprung Rhythm—Sprung Rhythm is the most natural of things. For (1) it is the rhythm of common speech and of written prose, when rhythm is perceived in them. (2) It is the rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music, so that in the words of choruses and refrains and in songs written closely to music it arises. (3) It is found in nursery rhymes, weather saws,3 and so on; because, however these may have been once made in running rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by the change of language, the stresses come together and so the rhythm is sprung. (4) It arises in common verse when reversed or counterpointed, for the same reason.

  But nevertheless in spite of all this and though Greek and Latin lyric verse, which is well known, and the old English verse seen in Pierce Ploughman4 are in sprung rhythm, it has in fact ceased to be used since the Elizabethan age, Greene5 being the last writer who can be said to have recognised it. For perhaps there was not, down to our days, a single, even short, poem in English in which sprung rhythm is employed—not for single effects or in fixed places—but as the governing principle of the scansion. I say this because the contrary has been asserted: if it is otherwise the poem should be cited.

  Some of the sonnets in this book are in five-foot, some in six-foot or Alexandrine lines.

  Nos. 13 and 22 are Curtal-Sonnets, that is they are constructed in proportions resembling those of the sonnet proper, namely 6+4 instead of 8+6, with however a halfline tailpiece (so that the equation is rather 12/2 + 9/2 = 21/2 = 10-1/2).

  Notes

  1. Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Author’s Preface,” in Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Robert Bridges (London: Humphrey Milford, 1918).

  2. The preface was written in about 1883 and was part of the manuscript book of Hopkins’s poems.

  3. weather saws: A saw is a pithy saying; a weather saw would be a saying about the weather.

  4. Pierce Ploughman: more commonly spelled Piers Plowman, by William Langland, considered one of the greatest works of medieval English literature

  5. Robert Greene (1558–1592), Elizabethan playwright, famous for attacking Shakespeare.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins, Letter on “Harry Ploughman” (1887)1

  . . . I want Harry Ploughman to be a vivid figure before the mind’s eye; if he is not that the sonnet fails. The difficulties are of syntax no doubt. Dividing a compound word by a clause san
dwiched into it was a desperate deed, I feel, and I do not feel that it was an unquestionable success. But which is the line you do not understand? I do myself think, I may say, that it would be an immense advance in notation (so to call it) in writing as the record of speech, to distinguish the subject, verb, object, and in general to express the construction to the eye; as is done already partly in punctuation by everybody, partly in capitals by the Germans, more fully in accentuation by the Hebrews. And I daresay it will come. But it would, I think, not do for me: it seems a confession of unintelligibility. And yet I don’t know. At all events there is a difference. My meaning surely ought to appear of itself; but in a language like English, and in an age of it like the present, written words are really matter open and indifferent to the receiving of different and alternative verse-forms, some of which the reader cannot possibly be sure are meant unless they are marked for him. Besides metrical marks are for the performer and such marks are proper in every art. Though indeed one might say syntactical marks are for the performer too. But however that reminds me that one thing I am now resolved on, it is to prefix short prose arguments to some of my pieces. These too will expose me to carping, but I do not mind. Epic and drama and ballad and many, most, things should be at once intelligible; but everything need not and cannot be. Plainly if it is possible to express a subtle and recondite thought on a subtle and recondite subject in a subtle and recondite way and with great felicity and perfection, in the end, something must be sacrificed, with so trying a task, in the process, and this may be the being at once, nay perhaps even the being without explanation at all, intelligible. Neither, in the same light, does it seem to be to me a real objection (though this one I hope not to lay myself open to) that the argument should be even longer than the piece; for the merit of the work may lie for one thing in its terseness. It is like a mate which may be given, one way only, in three moves; otherwise, various ways, in many.

  Notes

  1. Gerard Manley Hopkins, 6 November 1887 Letter to Robert Bridges, in The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges, ed. Claude Collier Abbott (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 265–66. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Province of the Society of Jesus.

  Other Poetry

  Demonstrating the wide range of form and content in mid-Victorian poetry, the poems in this section might at first glance seem like an eclectic mix. They were chosen because each exemplifies key elements of Meredith’s verse: social commentary, sensory detail and synesthesia, narrativity, and the sonnet form. Reading the Modern Love poems in relation to these selections highlights Meredith’s use of these poetic devices, revealing the richly diverse nature of his verse.

  Any study of Victorian poetry depicting marriage would be incomplete without acknowledging the enormous influence of Coventry Patmore’s “The Angel in the House.” The poem breathes life into the gender and social expectations articulated in the prose selections in the “Social Commentary” section of this edition. It sets the scene with a compelling vision of marital harmony that would become the beau ideal for wifely devotion, though the later parts of this work—far less frequently anthologized—do dramatize a husband’s ambivalence.

  “Modern Love” takes inspiration from the traditional sonnet form, and by challenging some of the sonnet’s formal requirements, turns it into something more modern. John Keats was a master of the form, and a favorite of Meredith, who especially appreciated Keats’s pagan imagery. Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and Rossetti’s “Monna Innominata” offer two examples of the Victorian recuperation of the sonnet sequence. The traditional Petrarchan sequence describes an unrequited, abstracted love—as opposed to a physical or consummated love—and both Barrett Browning and Rossetti’s sonnets take that spiritualized version of love as a starting point. Meredith, on the other hand, offers a critique of such disembodied desire by toying with the traditional fourteen-line sonnet and by introducing sensory description, descriptions of physical desire, and complicated, ambivalent emotions.

  If Barrett Browning and Rossetti’s poems provide examples of more typically Victorian encounters with the amatory sonnet, Baudelaire’s and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s sonnets present the opposite side of the coin. “Causerie,” from Baudelaire’s landmark volume Les Fleurs du Mal offers an important precedent for “Modern Love,” as it imbues the traditional sonnet with synesthesia, detailing sexual desire and repulsion in frank, though beautiful, language. Hopkins’s “Harry Ploughman” represents another effort to modernize the sonnet; his subject is a manual laborer—an uncommon subject for a traditional sonnet—and his close attention to vivid description encourages readers to imagine the sensory experience of the poet and his subject. Like Meredith, Hopkins adapts and expands the fourteen-line sonnet form to suit his own purposes.

  The exploration of the relationship between physical sensation and emotional experience is also evident in Tennyson’s Maud. The story of a thwarted lover who descends into madness, it was, like “Modern Love,” labeled “Spasmodic” for the introspection and extreme feelings of the poet narrator. Maud rejects any single form, instead linking a series of poems with different meters, rhythms, and rhyme schemes, to develop an extended narrative that interweaves elements of tragedy as well as comedy, the sublime and the ridiculous.

  John Keats, from “Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain . . .” (1817) and “On the Sea” (1817)1

  John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet. His association with the radical Leigh Hunt made him a target in the Tory press, which characterized his verse as prurient, overly sensuous, and pretentious. Even Wordsworth called his “Hymn to Pan” a “very pretty piece of Paganism.” It is no wonder, then, that Meredith would regard Keats as a kindred spirit, preferring his work over that of Shelley and Byron. Keats was also a favorite among many in Meredith’s intellectual circle, particularly those belonging to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His mastery of the sonnet form is clear from the two examples that follow. “Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain . . .” comprises three sonnets, the second of which begins “Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair,” and is printed here (the line numbers refer to the sonnet’s position within the series). This sonnet details the speaker’s conflicted desire: despite the woman’s obvious pride and vanity, he is charmed by her beauty and “voice divine.” The husband in “Modern Love” evinces a similar ambivalence toward his wife. “On the Sea” offers a vision of nature, in the form of the vast sea, as a curative to those whose senses of sight and sound are overwhelmed by modern life.

  From “Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain . . .”

  Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair; 15

  Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,

  Are things on which the dazzled senses rest

  Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.

  From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare

  To turn my admiration, though unpossess’d

  They be of what is worthy,—though not drest

  In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.

  Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;

  These lures I straight forget,—e’en ere2 I dine,

  Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark 25

  Such charms with mild intelligences shine,

  My ear is open like a greedy shark,

  To catch the tunings of a voice divine.

  On the Sea

  It keeps eternal whisperings around

  Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

  Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell

  Of Hecate3 leaves them their old shadowy sound.

  Often ’tis in such gentle temper found,

  That scarcely will the very smallest shell

  Be mov’d for days from where it sometime fell,

  When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.

  O ye! who have your eyeballs vex’d and tir’d,


  Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; 10

  O ye! whose ears are dinn’d with uproar rude,

  Or fed too much with cloying melody,—

  Sit ye near some old cavern’s mouth, and brood

  Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir’d!4

  Notes

  1. The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, ed. Horace E. Scudder (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1899), 3, 37.

  2. ere: before

  3. Hecate: Greco-Roman goddess associated with borders, doorways, and crossroads

  4. quir’d: choired, that is, to sing in chorus

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)1

  Although her work was deemed unfashionably “Victorian” in the early twentieth century, during her lifetime Elizabeth Barrett Browning was England’s most famous and admired woman poet—more famous than her husband, Robert Browning. Their courtship began when Robert Browning, having just read her poetry and never having met her, was nevertheless prompted to express his deep admiration in a letter to her: “I do as I say,” he wrote, “love these books with all my heart—and I love you too.”2 Written during the course of their courtship in 1845 and 1846 and first published in 1850 (after they were married), Sonnets from the Portuguese was an immediate success. Because they are semiautobiographical, Barrett Browning initially sought to preserve her privacy by suggesting that the sonnets were English translations of Portuguese poems by Luis de Camoëns. In a sequence of forty-four sonnets, Barrett Browning places before her readers a speaker who begins by seeking death, learns she is beloved but cannot accept it, and finally is transformed by love. Although a superficial reading might suggest these are banal love poems (portions of the sequence are often read at weddings), recent critical commentary has explored the ways in which they subvert the traditional courtly-love sonnet.