The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer - Softcover

Reseña del editor

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830. Excerpt: ... The Metres which they used, and which we seem to have borrowed from them, were plainly copied from the Latin (42) rythmical verses, which, in the thirty years before Le Brut, which Fauchet had placed at the head of his list of French Poems. I shall take occasion in another place to shew, that the real author of Le Brut was Wace (the same who wrote the Roman de Hon,) and not Wistace, as Fauchet calls him. (42) The Latin Rythmical verses resembled the Metrical in the number of syllables only, without any regard to quantity. "Anna cano virumque qui primus Trojae ab oris" would pass for a very good Rythmical Hexameter. The greatest part however of these compositions were in imitation of the Iambic and Trochaic metres; and in them, if the Accents fell luckily, the unlearned ear would often be as well pleased as if the laws of Quantity were observed. The two Rythmical Hymns quoted by Beda De Metris, edit. Putsch, p. 2380. are sufficient to prove this. The first, he observes, "ad instar Iambici metri pulcherrime factus est." O rex sterne Domine Rerum creator omnium, &c. The other is " adformam metri Trochaici." Apparebit repentina dies magna Domini Fur obscura velut nocte improvisos occupans. Tn the former of these Hymns, " Domine," to a modern ear at least, sounds as well as "nomine;" and in the latter, "dies" and " velut," being accented upon their first Syllables, affect us no otherwise than " dices" and " velum" would have done. From such Latin Rythms, and chiefly those of the Iambic form, the present Poetical measures of all the nations of Roman Europe are clearly derived. Instead of long and short Syllables, the Feet of our Poetry are composed of Syllables accented and declension of that language, were current in various forms among those, who either did n...