TO POETRY FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE BY RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN, PH.D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN LELAND STANFORD Οὐ πολλὰ ἀλλὰ πολύ NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PREFACE This book is to some extent a result of the kind reception accorded English Verse, a volume of annotated selections, illustrating the principles and history of English versification, which appeared about six years ago. Some who have made use of that book have felt the need of a treatise which should undertake to give a more extended account of matters of which the plan of the earlier volume allowed only brief mention in notes. And when it came to the point of preparing such a treatise, it seemed likely that similar needs would be served by including some account of the elements of poetry other than versification, so far as students of English literature have to analyze them. The present volume, then, differs from English Verse in three principal ways: it is more frankly dogmatic, attempting to state principles with some fullness instead of merely bringing together the materials for the inductive study of the subject; it includes a discussion of the imaginative and spiritual aspects of poetry, instead of limiting itself to verse form; and it omits altogether the historical treatment of the material, except where this is necessarily involved in clearness of definition. For the most part only such brief and simple discussion has been undertaken as is suited to an introductory handbook, and this inevitably results in a certain appearance of assertiveness or dogmatism which would be avoidable in a more elaborate work; but the attempt has been made always to indicate the still unsettled aspects of the subject, and to include-in the sections printed in smaller type-a brief account of the state of opinion on such doubtful matters, with references to the most helpful sources of information. These smaller-type sections, then, give the more thoughtful student a very simple introduction to the study of the history of poetic theory. Furthermore, the table of contents and the index have been prepared with some care, with a view to the possibility that students who do not care (or whose teachers do not care to have them) to follow the book from beginning to end may conveniently take up any of its sections in any desired order, or use it rather as a work of reference. One cannot help feeling that there is room for much doubt on questions of proportion and emphasis, in the case of so brief a manual on so large a subject. It has been the writer's effort to settle these questions on the basis of actual teaching experience, asking always what is most important for the student of poetry, aside from what he can supply through his own intelligence and taste. And in the choice of illustrative examples and of references fo collateral reading, theoretical excellence and com pleteness have been subordinated to the considera tion of what the student may be presumed actually to be reading, to have read, or to undertake to read. It can hardly be hoped, however, that the judgment of any one will wholly satisfy others in these respects. In particular, it may be thought unfortunate that the chapters on metrical form should bulk more largely than those dealing with the inner elements of poetry; to which there is only the reply that matters of metrical form appear to be, not the most important, but those that present most difficulty to the student and require the most careful examination of details still under debate. Chapter Four, on the fundamental problems of English rhythm, deals with the point of greatest difficulty in the whole range of the subject, and is to be regarded, not as making claim to originality, but as the most individual portion of this book. So recently as the time of publication of the earlier volume, English Verse, it seemed impracticable to dogmatize on the elements of our metres, with any hope of doing more than adding another note to the discordant jangle of voices on that dangerous subject. But there is evidence that conditions have become more hopeful; recent writers have seemed to tend more and more toward agreement on certain substantial principles; and while one must still wait, no doubt, for a generally accredited science of English prosody, it is perhaps safe to offer for the use of students a rather more pretentious body of doctrine than would have been reasonable hereto |