The Passion of Meter

Blank verse: of Cowper, 185-90, 226, 227; of Milton, 10, 39, 185-90, 225-37, 270n.5, 273n.35; Milton’s influence on Wordsworth’s, 225-37; sonnet structure in, 202-3, 271n.13; of Southey, 195-96, 271n.9; of Wordsworth, 117, 120-22, 182-225; Wordsworth’s theory of, 156, 179-82, 226-27, 270n.4

Brewster, Paul G., 267n.23

Bridges, Robert, 216, 234, 273n.25

Brogan, T. V. K, 254n.13, 267n.23

Browning, Robert, 5

Bürger, Gottfried August, 159, 269n.45

Burns, Robert, 4, 10, 59, 273n.33

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 164

Bysshe, Edward, 9, 93, 252n.18

Campbell, Patrick, 266n.14, 271n.14

Caraher, Brian G., 268n.35

Cento, 131, 243, 266n.16

Chandler, James K., 228

Chatterton, Thomas, 137

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 5, 10, 36, 81, 115, 155

Cockin, William, 39

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 4, 10, 40, 91, 266n.10; on Descriptive Sketches, 100-101; on meter and diction, 49–56, 58-60, 66, 257nn.1, 2; on metrical art, 8; on Milton’s blank verse, 273n.35; on the poet, 49, 198, 259n.3; on Shakespeare’s verse, 259n.3; on Wordsworth’s “inconstancy of style,” 4, 8, 50-52, 178, 250-51n.10

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, works of

—Christabel, 5, 251n.16, 255n.16, 269n.44—

—“Day Dream, A,” 54

—“Dejection: An Ode,” 54

—“Foster Mother’s Tale, The,” 119, 201, 265n.6

—“Lines: On An Autumnal Evening,” 101-2

—“Lines to a Beautiful Spring in a Village,” 262n.27

—“Love,” 120

—“Nightingale, The,” 118

—“Nil Pejus est Caelibe Vita,” 54

—”Ode to the Departing Year,” 54

—“Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The,” 5, 116-17, 136, 137-40, 145, 146, 165-69, 265n.3

—“Three Graves, The,” 267n.22

Collier, J. Payne, 156

Collins, William, 64, 137, 155

Concordia Discors, 73, 108

Corbet, Richard, 163-64

Cowper, William, 4, 39-40, 54, 81, 264n.58, 267n.24, 273n.33; blank verse of, 185-90, 226, 227

Crockett, Bryan, 268n.34

Culler, A. Dwight, 252n.18

Curran, Stuart, 1, 2, 262n.25

Daniel, Samuel, 4

Darbishire, Helen, 110

Darwin, Erasmus, 72, 273n.33

Davenant, William, 160

Deconstruction, 3, 250n.9

Della-Cruscans, The, 86

Denham, John, 107

DeQuincey, Thomas, 259n.2

DeSelincourt, Ernest, 80

Diabolus in prosodia. See Second-foot inversion

Dryden, John, 9-10, 79, 107, 260n.9, 264n.58; influence on Wordsworth, 4, 110, 160, 268-69n.41; on rhyme and meter, 39, 40-42

Dugas, Kristine, 267n.21

D’Urfey, Thomas, 163

Dyce, Alexander, 246, 274n.1, 275n.13

Dyer, John, 110

Ecclesiastes, 72

Elegiac stanza. See Heroic stanza

Elision: in eighteenth-century verse, 9, 261-62n.24; in Milton’s blank verse, 39; in nineteenth-century theory, 10, 30-31, 254–55n.15, 255n.16; in Wordsworth’s blank verse, 83-84, 182, 207-8, 216-19, 231-33; in Wordsworth’s early verse, 80-83, 92-93, 95; in Wordsworth’s stanzaic verse, 152, 268n.35

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 40

Enjambment: in Cowper’s blank verse, 188-90; in Milton’s blank verse, 188-90; in Wordsworth’s blank verse, 180, 181-82, 188-97, 203, 209-10, 218-20, 228-32; in Wordsworth’s cross-rhymed stanzas, 146-47; Wordsworth’s opinions on, 27, 150, 268n.31

Ferguson, Frances, 265n.5

Field, Barron, 1-2, 6, 274n.1

Finch, Anne, 4

Fitzgerald, Edward, 144, 268n.29

Fleming, John, 259n.2

Fraistat, Neil, 265n.7, 269n.45

Fussell, Paul, 38-39, 163-64, 251n.15, 256nn.31, 33, 265n.4

Garner, Margaret, 269n.50

Gascoigne, George, 65

Gill, Stephen, 1, 179-80, 253n.7, 265-66n.8

Gillies, Robert Pierce, 180-81, 261n.20, 266-67n.20

Godwin, Catharine Grace, 179

Godwin, William, 256n.29

Goldsmith, Oliver, 72-73, 101-4, 259n.2, 264n.47

Gomm, William Maynard, 256n.36

Graver, Bruce E., 262n.29

Gray, Thomas, 54 62-63, 155, 160, 259nn, 2, 17

Greenbie, M. L. [Barstow], 261n.22, 262n.29

Greenwood, William, 72

Guest, Edwin, 254-55n.15

Hamilton, William, of Bangour, 262n.28

Hamilton, William Rowan, 42, 179, 260n.13

Hardison, O. B., Jr., 230

Hardy, Thomas, 115, 254n.11

Harmon, William, 16-17, 151

Hartman, Geoffrey, 262–63n.32, 272n.20

Hartman, Herbert, 267n.23

Häublein, Ernst, 253n.6

Havens, R. D., 226, 259n.2

Hazlitt, William, 5, 11, 36-37, 111, 261n.23

Heroic couplet, 9, 73, 75-83, 90-114

Heroic stanza, 159-63, 268-69n.41

Herrick, Robert, 137

Hiatus, 80, 93

Hogg, James, 266-67n.20

Hollander, John, 1, 36, 242-43, 250n.6, 251n.12, 269n.50

Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 251n.12

Horace, 155-56

Hughes, Ted, 255n.21

Hutcheson, Francis, 253n.2

Hutchinson, Mary, 120

Jacobus, Mary, 242, 269n.46

Jewsbury, Maria Jane, 260n.13

Johnson, Lee M., 213, 255n.20, 268n.33, 271nn.12, 13, 272n.21, 275n.14

Johnson, Samuel, 10, 73, 226, 254n.9, 261n.20

Jones, John, 51, 257-58n.5

Jonson, Ben, 4

Keats, John, 270n.6

Kelley, Theresa M., 213, 264n.50

Knight, Richard Payne, 254n.9

Lamb, Charles, 226

Land, Stephen K., 249n.4

Langhorne, William, 262n.28

Legouis, Emile, 91, 259-60n.4, 262-63n.32

McKusick, James, 256-57n.40

MacPherson, James, 6, 259n.2, 273n.36

Mad Song stanza, 163-65

Malof, Joseph, 131, 261n. 18

Manwaring [Mainwaring], Edward, 39

Mathews, William, 111-12, 265n.59

Mayo, Robert, 115

Milton, John, 4, 36, 42, 109, 179, 260n.9; blank verse of, 10, 39, 185-90, 225–37, 270n.5, 273n.35; “L’Allegro” and “II Penseroso,” 87; “Lycidas,” 151-52; stress-contour rhyme in, 212, 220-21

Mitchell, Jerome, 268n.36

Moore, Edward, 126

Moore, Thomas, 41, 256n.35

Native measure. See Ballad stanza

Newton, John, 226

Omond, Thomas Stewart, 253nn.5, 8

Orpheus, 170-71, 230, 239, 274n.2

Ossian. See MacPherson, James

Ostriker, Alicia, 251n.16, 260n.9, 267n.25, 273n.32

Page, Judith W., 228-29, 273n.40, 273–74n.41

Parrish, Stephen, 265n.5, 269n.42

Parry, Charles Henry, 252n.20

Patmore, Coventry, 254n.11

Pause, placement of: in Cowper’s blank verse, 185-90; in Milton’s blank verse, 185-90; in Pope’s verse, 9-10, 76-79, 101-2; in Wordsworth’s blank verse, 185-201; in Wordsworth’s early verse, 76-79, 101-4, 108

Payne, Richard, 265n.3

Percy’s Reliques: ballad stanza and meter in, 117, 132, 136-37, 144–45, 269n.44; influence on Wordsworth of, 10, 129, 267n.21, 273n.33; Mad Song stanza in, 163-65

Perkins, David, 3, 250n.6, 252n.22, 253n.7

Pope, Alexander, 4, 9–10, 73, 76-83, 260n.9, 264n.58; Windsor Forest, 101–2, 106-10

Pottle, Frederick, 101, 262-63n.32

Potts, Abbie Findlay, 260-61n.15, 264n.47

Poulter’s measure, 163–64

Pound, Ezra, 200, 271n.11

Priestley, Joseph, 253n.2

Prior, Matthew, 54, 258n.7

Prosodic terms defined: beats and offbeats, 12; dislocation, 31-36; double offbeat, 15-16; duple rhythm, 16; implied offbeat condition, 15-16; initial inverse condition, 15-16; meter, 12, 48; meter v. rhythm, 31; metrical set, 15, 33, 36-37; promotion and demotion, 13-15; rhythm, 12; stress and unstress, 12–15, 252n.24, 254n.12; stress-final pairing, 15; stress-initial pairing, 15; syllable, 252n.24; verse, 32-33

Prosodic theory: of Derek Attridge, 11-16, 32-37, 209, 234, 252, 234, 252n.23, 259n20, 272nn.19, 23; of Edward Bysshe, 9-10, 93; of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 8, 49-61, 66, 255n.16, 257nn.1, 2; eighteenth-century, 9-10, 31, 38-40, 73-84, 91-93; of George Saintsbury, 5-6, 11, 115, 138; of Robert Southey, 82, 255n.16; of John Thelwall, 26-31, 37, 38-39, 65, 82, 253n.5, 255n.16; twentieth-century, 2-3, 31

Pythagorean tradition, 240-43

Quillinan, Edward, 270n.4

Reed, Mark L., 257n.4, 265n.7, 268n.31

Reynolds, Joshua, 253n.2

Rhyme, terms defined: assonance, 17; augmented, 17; consonance, 17; homoeote-leuton, 17; promotion and demotion, 16-17, 58

Richardson, Samuel, 126

Ricks, Christopher, 218-19, 253n.7

Riffaterre, Michael, 272n.20

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 257n.41, 271nn.13, 15, 271-72n.16

Roethke, Theodore, 270n.53

Ruoff, Gene W., 258n.10

Saintsbury, George, 5-6, 11, 115, 138

Schneider, Ben Ross, 110-11

Scott, John, 90

Scott, Walter, 10, 159, 261n.181

Second-foot inversion, 11, 81, 117, 209, 272n.19

Sewell, Elizabeth, 269n.50, 274n.2

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of, 254n.14

Shakespeare, William, 4, 10, 36, 72, 126, 152, 250n.8, 259n.3

Sheats, Paul, 219, 262n.29, 262-63n.32, 263n.43, 264n.50, 265n.60, 266n.19, 270n.1

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 5, 115

Shenstone, William, 83

Sidney, Philip, 167

Smart, Christopher, 155, 156

Smith, Adam, 253n.2

Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, 256n.34

Smith, Charlotte, 4, 86

Sonnet, 42, 86, 246-47, 271n.15. See also Blank verse: sonnet structure in

Sotheby, William, 257n.2

Southey, Robert, 59, 82, 122-23, 156, 266n.9, 271n.9. See also Blank verse

Spenser, Edmund, 4, 36, 48, 54, 137, 156, 221

Spenserian stanza, 118

Steele, Joshua, 26, 254n.13

Steele, Timothy, 250n.6

Stein, Edwin, 251n.11, 274n.5

Stress-contour rhyme, 212, 220-21

Strong, Caroline, 268n.36

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 5-6, 115

Tail-rhyme stanza, 62, 133, 155-59, 258n.16, 268n.36

Tarlinskaja, Marina, 184, 233, 268n.34, 272n.19, 274n.45

Taylor, Anne, 72, 74, 113

Taylor, Dennis, 254n.11

Taylor, Henry, 270n.4

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 115, 144, 268n.29

Tennyson, Hallam, 268n.29

Thelwall, John, 26-31, 38-38, 65, 82, 96, 253n.5, 255n.16

Thomson, James, 4, 64, 94, 114 262n.28, 266n.16, 270n.5

Verse: accentual, 138-40, 255n.16; accentual-syllabic, 5, 9-10, 15-16, 36-37, 119, 138–40; compared to dance, 39, 40; defined, 32-33; equated with geometric form, 39, 40, 255n.20; measured by “cadences,” 29-31

Virgil, 72, 107

Walker, Eric, 224 257n.3, 272n.20

Waller, Edmund, 9, 79

Walsh, William, 79

Wasserman, Earl R., 258n.7

Webb, Daniel, 77

Weismiller, Edward R., 255n.16, 261-62n.24

Wesling, Donald, 106

Whitehead, Alfred North, 240-41

Whitman, Walt, 115, 251n.12

Williams, Ann, 256-57n.40

Wilson, John, 269n.43

Wimsatt, William K., 67, 105

Woodring, Carl, 251n.14

Woods, Suzanne, 268-69n.41

Wordsworth, Christopher, 97

Wordsworth, Dora, 247

Wordsworth, Dorothy, 120, 267n.21

Wordsworth, Jonathan, 233-34, 249n.4, 271n.9

Wordsworth, William: critical reputation of, 1-6, 8, 50-52, 178, 240-50n.5, 250-51n.10; on distinction between poetry and prose, 3, 21, 28, 254n.9; and fitting of language to meter, 7-9, 22-26, 37-43, 48-67, 150, 155, 201, 234-37; on intertexture in verse, 28-29, 48-49, 54, 126; on metrical dislocation, 29-37, 180, 181; and passion of meter, 26-37, 177–78 on the poet, 1-2, 3, 22, 42-43, 51-52, 61, 249n.4, 258n.15; and principle of similitude in dissimilitude, 6-9, 21-37, 48-50, 60-61, 66-67, 113-14 119-20, 177-78; range of stanzas and verse forms of, 4, 117-23, 248; on the real language of men, 23, 24 38-40, 44, 256n.34 on the sonnet, 246-47, 271n.15; on symbolic function of meter, 44-47; and use of Cumberland dialect, 110-12

Wordsworth, William, works of

—“A Poet!—He hath put his heart to school,” 41, 42

—“A slumber did my spirit seal,” 121 137, 152-54, 176

—“A whirlblast from behind the hill,” 121

—“Alice Fell,” 50

—“Andrew Jones,” 121

—“Anecdote for Fathers,” 50 117, 119, 143, 154, 173, 265n.6

—“Animal Tranquillity and Decay,” 179 201-6, 265n.6

—“Ballad, A,” 137

—Borderers, The, 119, 180, 183

—“Brothers, The,” 120 182-83, 201

—“Cento,” 266n.16

—“Character, A,” 122 269n.48

—“Childless Father, The,” 122 269n.48

“Complaint of a Forsaken Indian
Woman, The,” 118 119, 124-28, 136, 176

—“Convict, The,” 118 119, 120

—“Description of a Beggar,” 180

—Descriptive Sketches, 9, 71-75, 90-94, 95-114, 186, 259–60n.4, 260n 12 262n.30

—“Egyptian Maid, The,” 270n.52

—“Ellen Irwin,” 122 137, 155

—“Emigrant Mother, The,” 125

—Evening Walk, An, 9, 71-75, 90-106, 110-14, 185-86, 259n.4, 262n.30

—Excursion, The, 183, 201

—“Expostulation and Reply,” 117 118, 136-49, 154-55, 265n.6

—“Female Vagrant, The,” 118 119, 265n.6

—“Force of Prayer, The,” 137 267n.21

—“Fountain, The,” 121 136, 154

—“Fragment, A” (“The Danish Boy”), 121, 134, 136

—“Goody Blake and Harry Gill,” 63-67, 118, 119, 136, 167

—”Green Linnet, The,” 170

—Guilt and Sorrow. See William Wordsworth, works of: “Salisbury Plain”

—“Hart-Leap Well,” 122 123, 155, 159–63, 269n.42

—Home at Grasmere, 218

—”Humanity,” 51

—”Hymn for the Boatmen,” 170 268n.39

—“I Heard a Thousand Blended Notes,” 110

—“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” 143

—“Idiot Boy, The,” 51 118, 119, 121, 155, 163–69, 265n.6

—“Idle-Shepherd Boys, The,” 121 134-35

—“If Nature, for a favorite child,” 122

—“Kitten and the Falling Leaves, The,” 89 170

—“Last of the Flock, The,” 51 118, 119, 124–26, 265n.6

—“Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,” 118 176, 179, 185, 191-94 195-201; geometric pattern in, 271n.12; as ode, 270–71n.8; in relation to Wordsworth’s stylistic range, 8, 51, 90, 117, 178; view of youthful poet in, 75

—“Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew Tree,” 179 183

—“Lines Written as a School Exercise at Hawkshead,” 75-82, 101

—“Lines Written at a Small Distance from my House,” 117 143, 268n.30

—”Lines Written in Early Spring,” 117 154

—“Lines Written near Richmond, upon the Thames at Evening,” 63-66, 118, 119, 120, 121, 259n.18

—“Lines Written with a Slate pencil … Rydal,” 185

—“Louisa,” 155

—“Lucy Gray,” 121

—Lyrical Ballads, 9, 63, 115-24, 161, 177-78, 179-206, 265n.3, 266n.10

—“Mad Mother, The,” 51 118, 119, 124-26, 128-30. 136 265n.6

—“Michael, “ 120 184, 189-91, 194–95, 201, 265-66n.8

—“My Heart Leaps Up,” 35-36, 143

—“Night-Piece, A,” 180 206-25

—“Oak and the Broom, The,” 122

—“Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” 54 90

—“Ode: The Morning of the Day Appointed for a General Thanksgiving,” 156

“Ode to Duty,” 54

—“Old Cumberland Beggar, The,” 32 33-35, 96, 201

—“Old Man Travelling.” See William Wordsworth, works of: “Animal Tranquillity and Decay”

—“On Seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams Weep at a Tale of Distress,” 85 86 87, 90, 95

—“On the Power of Sound,” 9 238-48, 266n.16, 274n.1

—“Pet-Lamb, The,” 122 123, 173-75, 177

—Peter Bell 118 163

—“Poems founded on the Affections,” 51 125

—Poems, in Two Volumes, 123, 170

—“Poems of the Fancy,” 51

—“Poems of the Imagination,” 51

—“Poems on the Naming of Places,” 201

—“Poems Referring to the Period of Old Age,” 51

—“Poems Written in Youth,” 75

—“Poets Epitaph, A,” 122

—“Power of Music,” 170-71

—Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 3-4, 7-9, 21-25, 28, 37-38, 42-47, 119, 169

—Preface to Poems (1815), 1–2, 40, 46-47, 242

—Preface to The Excursion, 123

—Prelude, The, 7, 51, 120, 180, 248; elision in, 84; enjambment in, 218-19, 228-29; view of youthful poet in, 71-72, 112, 114

—“Prospectus” to The Excursion, 112, 180, 231-37

—Recluse, The, 113, 247-48

—“Reverie of Poor Susan, The,” 122 171, 176, 269n.48

—River Duddon, The, 200, 246

—“Rob Roy’s Grave,” 136

—Ruined Cottage, The, 119, 120, 180

—“Rural Architecture,” 122 269n.48

—“Ruth,” 122 155-59

—“Sailor’s Mother, The,” 8 50, 52-61, 66, 202

—Salisbury Plain, 118, 119

—“September 1819” 155

—“Septimi Gades,” 155

—“Seven Sisters, The,” 266n.13

—“She dwelt among th’untrodden ways,” 121 150-52, 176, 268n.35

—“Simon Lee,” 118 119

—“So Fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive,” 170

—“Song for the Spinning Wheel,” 268n.39

—“Song for the Wandering Jew,” 122 158, 172-73, 178

—“Sonnet written by Mr._____Immediately after the Death of his Wife,” 83

—“Stepping Westward,” 25-26

—“Strange Fits of Passion,” 121

—“Tables Turned, The,” 117 118, 137-40, 145-49, 154

—“There is an Eminence—of these our hills,” 185 201

—“Thorn, The,” 62-64, 66, 118, 119, 121, 130-36, 155, 168

—“Three years she grew in sun and shower,” 122 155

—“Tintern Abbey.” See William Wordsworth, works of: “Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey”

—“’Tis said that some have died for love,” 122 123, 175-77

—“To a Sexton,” 122

—“To a Skylark” (“Ethereal minstrel!”), 248

—“To a Skylark” (“Up with me!”), 170

—“To Joanna,” 183 184

—“To M. H.,” 201

—“To My Sister.” See William Wordsworth, works of: “Lines Written at a Small Distance from my House”

—“To the Cuckoo,” 170

—“To the Daisy,” 170

—“Two April Mornings, The,” 121 143

—“Two Thieves, The,” 122 269n.48

—“Triad, The,” 244 275n.10

—“Vale of Esthwaite, The,” 86-90, 95, 97, 111

—“Waterfall and the Eglantine, The,” 122 155

—“We Are Seven,” 117 119, 173, 265n.6

—White Doe of Rylstone, The, 267n.21

—“Wishing Gate, The,” 155

—“Wren’s Nest, A,” 170

—“Written in Germany on one of the Coldest Days of the Century,” 122 269n.48

—“Written in March at the Foot of Brother’s Water,” 51 89, 170

—“Yes, it was a mountain echo,” 170

—“Yew Trees,” 206 212-25, 245

Wright, George T., 250n.8, 255n.8

Wu, Duncan, 254n.9

Young, Edward, 270n.5