The Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification: With Especial Reference to the So-Called Iambic Lines of and Syllables (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from The Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification: With Especial Reference to the So-Called Iambic Lines of and Syllables

To carry such an investigation into all the topics usually treated under the head of versification, would of course be impracticable within the ordinary limits of a doctor's thesis. I have therefore limited myself as narrowly as possible to one topic, - the one that seemed to me most essential. I have disregarded all questions as to stanza-form, rime, alliteration, euphony of vowels, and the like, and considered only the internal mechanicalstructure of the individual verse. Even here, to avoid complication, I have for the most part confined my attention to the two types of iambic verse which prevail so conspicuously in English poetry - choosing those two types not only because they are of the greatest literary importance, but also because the story of their evolution illustrates, in the most clear and straight-forward way, the principles which seem to me to control the devel opment of verse. Moreover, as to certain matters which seemed to have been already argued thoroughly enough by others, I have given only the barest possible state ment of facts. This will be found especially true of the matters covered in the last chapter, - intrinsically the most important part of the whole. Sievers seems almost to have said the last word about pure Old English versi fication, and Schipper, in observing the facts of Middle English verse-development, has left nothing undone that was needed for my present purposes: and I have there fore contented myself, for the most part, with a brief and somewhat fragmentary review of their conclusions.

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