Free Verse and Accented Verse

Verse remains classical if it retains its metrical scheme.

There are, however, types of verse which are not classical. The one most popular is what is called "vers libre" which is the French term for free verse. Free verse departs considerably from the strict require­ments of classical verse, but its departures are legalized. Free verse is recognized by lack of strictness in its rhythmical design. The term 'free verse' is used rather loosely by different writers; so much so that what is known as accented or stressed verse is also sometimes in­cluded.

Here we shall use the term 'free verse' to refer only to those varieties of verse which are characterized by: 1) a combination of various metrical feet in the line; 2) absence of equilinearity and 3) stanzas of varying length. Rhyme, however, is generally retained. Hence the term 'free verse' is limited in this work to verse in which there is a more or less regular combination of different metrical feet, different lengths of line and different lengths of stanza.

A good illustration of free verse in our sense of the term is Shelley's poem "The Cloud."

"I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

•In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder."

Here the odd lines are tetrameters in which there are combinations of iambic and anapaestic metres. The even lines are either dimeters or trimeters of iambic and anapaestic metre. So the metre is not homoge­neous within the lines; the lines are of different lengths and the stanzas have different numbers of lines: the first one has twelve lines, the second eighteen, the third fourteen. The remaining stanzas also vary in length. The number of syllables in each line also varies. The first line has nine syllables, the second—six, the third—nine, the fourth—five, the fifth— eleven, the sixth—six, the seventh—nine, the eightK—seven, the ninth— nine, the tenth—eight, the eleventh—ten, the twelfth—eight.

Yet in this irregularity there is a certain regularity. First of all there is a regular alternation of long and short lines; there is a definite com­bination of only two feet: iambic and anapaestic; there is a definite rhym-4 ing scheme: the long lines have internal rhyme, the short ones rhyme with each other. These regularities are maintained throughout the poem. And that is why we say that in spite of an appreciable departure from clas­sical principles it remains to a large extent syllabo-tonic verse. The

regularities we have pointed out prevent us from naming the instances of departure from the classic model 'modifications' since they have a defi­nite structural pattern. Classic modifications of the rhythm are acci­dental, not regular.

Free verse is not, of course, confined to the pattern just described. There may not be any two poems written in free verse which will have the same structural pattern. This underlying freedom makes verse less rigid and more colloquial-like.

The departure from metrical rules is sometimes considered a sign of progressiveness in verse, which is doubtful.

Classical English verse, free verse and the accented verse which we are about to discuss, all enjoy equal rights from the aesthetic point of view and none of these types of verse has any ascendancy over the others. Accented v e r se is a type of verse in which only the num­ber of stresses in the line is taken into consideration. The number of "syllables is not a constituent; it is irrelevant and therefore disregarded. Accented verse is not syllabo-tonic but only tonic. In its extreme form the lines have no pattern of regular metrical feet nor fixed length, there is no notion of stanza, and there are no rhymes. Like free verse, accented verse has very many variants, some approaching free verse and some de­parting so far from any recognized rhythmical pattern that we can hardly observe the essential features of this mode of communication. For the sake of illustration we shall quote two poems representing the two ex­tremes of accented verse.

1. "With fingers weary and worn;

With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread,— Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!

In poverty, hunger and dirt; “* And stilbwith a^-voice of dolorous pitch *She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

Work! Work! Work!

While the cock is crowing aloof! And work—work—work—

Till the stars-shine through the roof! It's O! to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save,

If this is Christian work!

Work—work—work—!

Till the brain begins to swim! Work—work—work—

Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,— Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in a dream." (Thomas Hood)

Even a superfluous analysis of the rhythmical structure of this poem clearly shows that the rhythm is mostly founded on stress. In the first line there are seven syllables and three stresses; the second has the same; but the third has ten syllables and four stresses; the fourth—seven and three; the fifth—three and three; and so on. But still we can find a regu­larity in the poem; for most of the lines have three stresses. At more or less regular intervals there appear longer lines with four stresses. Since the unstressed syllables are not taken into consideration, and therefore there are no secondary or tertiary stresses (as in classic verse), the stresses in accented verse are very heavy. The stanzas in this poem are all built on the same pattern: eight lines, each containing two four-stressed lines.

The lines are rhymed alternately. All this makes this verse half accent­ed, half free. In other words, this is borderline verse, the bias being in the direction of accented verse. This is not the case with the following poem by Walt Whitman: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

2. "Now I am curious what can ever be more stately and admira­ble to me than my mast-hemm'd Manhattan, My river and sunset, and my scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide, The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the

twilight, and the belated lighter;

Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my highest name as I approach;"

This type of poetry can hardly be called verse from a purely structural point of view; it is that kind of tonic verse which, by neglecting almost all the laws of verse building, has gradually run into prose. But somehow there is still something left of the structural aspect of verse, and this is the sirigling-out of each meaningful word making it conspicuous and self-determinative by the pauses and by the character of the junctures which precede and follow each of these words. Besides this, what makes,this text poetry is also the selection of words, the peculiar syntactical patterns, and the imagery.

Verse cannot do away with its formal aspects and remain verse. There­fore the extreme type of accented verse just given ceases to be verse as such. If has become what is sometimes called poetic prose.

Accented verse is nothing but an orderly singling-out of certain words and syntagms in the utterance by means of intonation. This singling-out becomes a constituent of this type of verse, provided that the distance between.each of the component parts presents a more or less constant unit. Violation of this principle would lead to the complete destruction of the verse as such.

Accented verse (tonic verse) has a long folklore tradition. Old English verse was tonic but not syllabo-tonic. The latter appeared in English poetry as a borrowing from Greek and Latin poetry, where the alterna­tion was not between stressed and unstressed but between long and short syllables. In the process of being adapted to the peculiarities of the pho­netic and morphological system of the English language, syllabo-tonic verse has undergone considerable changes, and accented verse may there-

fore conventionally be regarded as a stage in the transformational pro­cess of adapting the syllabo-tonic system to the organic norms of modern colloquial English. This is justified by the fact that present-day accented verse is not a mere revival of the Old English poetical system but a newly arranged form and type of English verse. Naturally, however, folklore traditions have influenced modern accented verse in a number of ways.

b) Lexical and Syntactical Features of Verse

The phonetic features of the language of poetry constitute what we have called its external aspect. These features immediately strike the ear and the eye and therefore are easily discernible; but the characteristics of this substyle are by no means confined to these external features. Lexical and syntactical peculiarities, together with those just analysed, will present the substyle as a stylistic entity.

Among the lexical peculiarities of verse the first to be mentioned is imagery, which being the generic feature of the belles-lettres style assumes in poetry a compressed form: it is rich in associative power, frequent in occurrence and varied in methods and devices of materiali­zation.

"An image," writes A. E. Derbyshire, "is a,use of language which relates or substitutes a given word or expression to or for an analogue in some grammatical way, and which in so doing endows that word or expres­sion with different lexical information from that which it has in its set. An image, in this sense, is merely a linguistic device for providing contex­tual information."1

In spite of its being rather complicated, there is a grain of truth in this definition of an image, for an image does give additional (contextual) information. This information is based on associations aroused by a pecul­iar use of a word or expression. An interesting insight into the essence of imagery is given by Z:;Paperny: "Poetical image," he writes, "is not a frozen picture, but movement;,not a static reproduction but the develop­ing idea of an artist."2 He calls the image a "double unit'," thus pointing to the twofold application of the word, word-combination or even whole sentence.

We here define imagery as a use of language media which will create a sensory perception of an abstract notion by arousing certain associa­tions (sometimes very remote) between the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, the conventional and the factual.

It is hardly possible to under-estimate the significance of imagery in the belles-lettres style of language. Imagery may be regarded as the antipode to precision, although'some stylicists hold the view that im­agery has its own kind of precision. "The essence of an image," writes L. V. Shcherba, "...is in the multifariousness of the associations it provokes." s

The image, as a purely linguistic notion, is something that must be decoded by the reader. So are the subtle inner relations between the parts of the utterance and between the utterances themselves. These relations are not so easily discernible as they are in logically arranged utterances. Instances of detached construction, asyndeton, etc. must also be interpret­ed.

An image can be decoded through a fine analysis of the meanings of the given word or word-combination. In decoding a given image, the dictionary meanings, the contextual meanings, the emotional colouring and, last but not least, the associations which are awakened by the image should all be called into play. The easier the images are decoded, the more intelligible the poetic utterance becomes to the reader. If the image is difficult to decode, then it follows that either the idea is not quite clear to the poet himself or the acquired experience of the reader is not suffi­cient to grasp the vague or remote associations hidden in the given image.

Images from a linguistic point of view are mostly built on metaphor, metonymy and simile. These are direct semantic ways of coining im­ages. Images maybe divided into three categories: two concrete (visual, aural), and one abstract (relational).

Visual images are the easiest of perception, inasmuch as they are readily caught by what is called the mental eye. In other words, visual images-are shaped through concrete pictures of objects, the impres­sion of which is present in our mind. Thus in:

"... and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth..." (Shakespeare)

the simile has called up a visual image, that of a lark rising.

Onomatopoeia will build an а и r a I i т a g e in our mind, that is, it will make us hear the actual sounds of nature or things (see, for example: "How the Water Comes Down at Ladore").

Arelational imaged one that shows the relation between objects through another kind of relation, and the two kinds of relation will secure a more exact realization of the inner connections between things or phenomena.

Thus in:

"Men of England, Heirs of Glory, Heroes of unwritten story. Nurslings of one mighty mother, Hopes of her, and one another." (3helley)

such notions as 4heirs of glory', 'heroes of unwritten story', 'nurs­lings of... mother', 'hopes of her...' all create relational images, inasmuch as they aim at showing the relations bet ween the constituents of the met­aphors but not the actual (visual) images of, in this case, 'heir', 'hero', 'nursling', 'hope'.

A striking instance of building up an image by means other than metaphor, metonymy and simile is to be seen in the following passage of emotive prose from "The Man of Property." Galsworthy has created

in this particular case an atmosphere of extreme tension at a dinner table. This is only part of the passage:

"Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the men.

In silence the soup was finished—excellent, if a little thick; and fish was brought. In silence it was handed.

Bosinney ventured: "It's the first spring day."

Irene echoed softly: "Yes—the first spring day."

"Spring!" said June: "There isn't a breath of air!" No one replied.

The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover. And Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with white.

Soames said: "You'll find it dry."

Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs. They were refused by June, and silence fell"

The first thing that strikes the close observer is the insistent rep­etition of words, constructions, phrases. The word 'silence' is repeated four times in a short stretch of text. The idea of silence is conveyed by means of synonymous. expressions: 'There was a lengthy pause', 'no one replied' ('answered'), 'Long silence followed!' Then the passive constructions ('fish was brought', 'it was handed', 'the fish was taken away', 'cutlets were handed', 'They were refused', 'they were borne away', 'chicken was removed', -'sugar was handed her', 'the charlotte was re­moved', 'olives... caviare were placed', 'the olives were removed', 'a silver tray was brought', and so on) together with parallel construction and asyndeton depict the slow progress of the dinner, thus revealing the strained atmosphere of which all those present were aware.

This example illustrates the means by which an image can be created by syntactical media and repetition. Actually we do not find any trans­ferred meanings in the words used here, i.e. all the words are used in their literal meanings. And yet-so.strong is the power of syntactical arrange­ment and repetition that the reader cannot fail to experience himself the tension surrounding the dinner table.

In this connection it is worth mentioning one of the ways of building up images which Archibald A. Hill, an American scholar of linguistics, has called an i с о п. The icon 4s a direct representation, not necessarily a picture, of a thing or an event.

"Icons," he writes, "have not generally been included among the enu­merations of figures of speech, and in discussions of imagery, have usually been called simply descriptions." x

The excerpt from "The Man of Property" may serve as a good example of an icon. This device might justly be included in the system of stylistic devices and be given its due as one of the most frequent ways of image-building. However, an icon must always rest on some specific, concretizing use of words, and their forms (e.g. tenses of verbs), and/or the arrange-ment of sentences, which secure the desired image. These language unit

be likened to the colours in a painting which only in an adequate arrangement will reproduce the image. "An image," writes A. E. Derby­shire, evidently having in mind the process of iconizing, "is merely a way of using words in certain syntagmatic relationships."1

It was necessary to dwell so lengthily on the problem of icons because, to hazard a guess, icons seem to be a powerful means of creating images in the belles-lettres style. The simplicity and ease in decoding the icon outweighs the effect of other image-building media, the latter being more complicated because of their multi-dimensional nature. These properties of icons make it advisable to single the device out as one among other means of image-building. Icons may justly be promoted to canons in the belles-lettres style. '

Another feature of the poetical substyle is its volume of emotional colouring. Here again the problem of quantity comes up. The emotional element is characteristic of the belles-lettres style in general. But poetry has it in full measure. This is, to some extent, due to the rhythmic foun­dation of verse, but more particularly to the great number of emotionally coloured words. True, the degree of emotiveness in works of belles-lettres depends also on the idiosyncrasy of the writer, on the content, and on the purport. But emotiveness remains an essential property of the style in general and it becomes more compressed and substantial in the poetic substyle. This feature of the poetic substyle has won formal expression in poetic words which have beenjegarded as conventional symbols of poetic language.

In the history of poetic language' there are several important stages of development. At every stage the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement, which is the most characteristic feature of the substyle, remains its essence. As regards the vocabulary, it can be described as noticeably literary. The colloquial elements, though they have elbowed their way into poetry at some stages in its development, still remain essentially unimportant and, at certain periods, were quite alien to the style. But even common literary words become conspicuous because of the new significance they acquire in a line of poetry.

"Words completely colourless in a purely intellectual setting," writes S. Ullmann, "may suddenly disclose unexpected resources of expressive­ness in emotive or poetic discourse. Poets may rejuvenate and revitilize faded images by tracing them back to their etymological roots. When *T. S. Eliot says 'a thousand visions and revisions', 'revision' is suddenly illuminated and becomes transparent." 2

Poetry has long been regarded as "the domain of the few" and the choice of vocabulary has always been in accord with this principle. The words, their forms, and also certain syntactical patterns were usually chosen to meet the refined tastes of admirers of poetry.

In the chapter on poetic words, we have pointed out the character of these words and the role they have played in preserving the so-called "purity" of poetic language. The struggle against the conventionalities

of the poetic language found its expression in the famous "Preface to Lyrical Ballads" written by Wordsworth and Coleridge which undoubtedly bore some fruitful results in liberalizing poetic language. They tried to institute a reform in poetic diction which would employ "a selection of language really used by men" as they put it in their Preface. However, their protest against poetical words and phrases was doomed to failure. The transition from refined poetical language, select and polished, to a language of colloquial plainness with even ludicrous images and associa­tions was too violent to be successful. Shelley and Byron saw the reaction­ary retrograde aspect of the "reform" and criticized the poetic language of the^ Lake poets, regarding many of the words they used as new "poeti-cisms."

However, the protest raised by Wordsworth and Coleridge reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the conventionalities of poetic diction. Some of the morphological categories of the English language, as, for instance, the Present Continuous tense, the use of nouns as adjectives and other kinds of conversion had long been banned from poetical lan­guage. The Quarterly Review, a literary journal of the 19th century, blamed Keats for using new words coined by means of conversion. After the manifesto of Wordsworth and Coleridge the "democratization" of poetic language was accelerated, however. In Byron's "Beppo" and "Don Juan" we already find a great number of colloquial expressions and even slang and cant. But whenever Byron uses non-poetic words or expressions, he shows that he is well aware of their stylistic value. He does this either by foot-notes or by making a comment in the text itself, as, for example, such phrases as:

"He was 'free to confess'—(whence comes this phrase? Is't English? No—'tis only parliamentary)"

or:

"... „,,.......to use a phrase

By which such-things tire settled nowadays."

But poetical language remains and will always remain a specific mode of communication differing from prose. This specific mode of com­munication uses specific means. The poetic words and phrases, peculiar syntactical arrangement, orderly phonetic and rhythmical patterns have long been the signals, of poetic language. But the most important of all is the power of the wofds^used in poetry to express more than they usually signify in ordinary language.

A. A. Potebnya expresses this, idea in the following words:

"What is called 'common' language can at best be only a tech­nical language, because it presupposes a ready-made thought, but does not serve as a^means of shaping the thought. It (the common) is essentially a prose language." г

The sequence of words in an utterance is hardly, if at all, predictable In poetry.

Semantic entropy is, therefore, an inherent property of poetic language. But sometimes this entropy grows so large that it stuns and stupefies the reader, preventing him from decoding the message, or it makes him exert his mental powers to the utmost in order to discover the significance given by the poet to ordinary words. This is the case with some of the modern English and American poetry. Significant in this respect is the confession of Kenneth Allot, compiler of "The Penguin Book of Contem­porary Verse," who in his introductory note on William Empson's poetry writes: "I have chosen poems I understand, or think I understand, and therefore can admire... There are some poems I cannot understand at all." l

Poetry of this kind will always remain "the domain of the few." In­stead of poetic precision we find a deliberate plunge into semantic entropy which renders the message incomprehensible. The increase of entropy in poetic language is mainly achieved by queer word combinations, frag­mentary ^syntax—almost without logical connections.

We have already pointed out that in the history of the development of the literary language, a prominent role was played by men-of-letters. There was a constant struggle between those who were dissatisfied with the established laws which regulated the functioning of literary English and those who tried to restrain its progressive march.

The same struggle is evident in the development of poetic language. In ascertaining the norms of 19th century poetic language, a most signif­icant part was played by Byron and^Shelley. Byron mocked at the efforts of Wordsworth and the other Lake poets to reform poetical language. In his critical remarks in the polemic poem "English Bards and Scotch Re­viewers" and in his other works, he showed that the true progress of po­etic language lies not in the denial of the previous stylistic norms, but in the creative reshaping and recasting of the values of the past, their adap­tation to the requirements of the present and a healthy continuity of long-established tradition. Language by its very nature will not tolerate sudden unexpected and quick changes. It is evolutionary in essence. Poetry, likewise, willrevolt against forcible impositions of strange forms and will either reject them or mould them in the furnace of regognized traditional patterns. Shelley in his preface to "The'Chenchi" writes:

"I have written more carelessly; that is, without an over-fas­tidious and learned choice of words. In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who assert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the familiar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient English poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do that foF our own- age which they have done for theirs. But it must be the real language of men in general and not that of any particular class to whose society the writer happens to belong."

In Shelley's works we find the materialization of these principles. Revolutionary content and the progress of science laid new demands on poetic diction and, as a result, scientific and political terms and im-

agery based on new scientific data, together with lively colloquial words poured into poetic language. Syntax also underwent noticeable changes' but hardly ever to the extent of making the utterance unintelligible* The liberalization of poetic language reflects the general struggle for a freer development of the literary language, in contrast to the rigorous restrictions imposed on it by the language lawgivers of the 18th century In poetry words become more conspicuous, as if they were attired in some mysterious manner, and mean more than they mean in ordinary neutral communications. Words-in poetic language live a longer life than ordinary words. They are intended to last. This is, of course achieved mainly by the connections the words have with one another and^ to some extent, by the rhythmical design which makes the words stand out in a more isolated manner so that they seem to possess a greater degree of independence and significance.

EMOTIVE PROSE

The substyle of emotive prose has the same common features as have been pointed out for the belles-lettres style in general; but all these fea­tures are correlated differently in emotive prose. The imagery is not so rich as it is in poetry; the percentage of words with contextual meaning is not so high as in poetry; the idiosyncrasy of the author is not so clearly discernible. Apart from metre and rhyfne, what most of all distinguishes emotive prose from the poetic style is the combination of the literary variant or the language, both in words and syntax, with the colloquial, variant. It would perhaps be more exact to define this as a combination of the spoken and written varieties of the language, inasmuch as there are always two forms of communication present—monologue (the writer's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters).

The language of the writer conforms or is expected to conform to the literary norms of the given period in ~the development of the English literary language. The language"of the hero of a novel, or of a story will in the main be chosen in order to characterize the man himself. True, this language is also subjected to some kind of reshaping. This is an indispensable requirement of any literary work. Those writers who neglect this requirement may unduly contaminate the literary language by flood­ing the speech of their characters with non-literary elements, thus over­doing the otherwise very advantageous device of depicting a hero through his speech.

It follows then that the colloquial language in the belles-lettres style is not a pure and simple reproduction of what might be the natural speech of living people. It has undergone'changes introduced by the writer. The colloquial speech has been made "literature-like." This means that only the most striking elements of what might have been a conversation in life are made use of, and even these have undergone some kind of transfor­mation.

Emotive prose allows the use of elements from other styles as well. Thus we find elements of the newspaper style (see, for example, Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here"); the official style (see, for example, the

business letters exchanged between two characters in Galsworthy's novel "The Man of Property"); the style of scientific prose (see excerpts from Cronin's "The Citadel" where medical language is used).

But all these styles under the influence of emotive prose undergo Ikind of transformation. A style of language that is made use of in prose I diluted by the general features of the belles-lettres style which subjects I to its own purposes. Passages written in other styles may be viewed only interpolations and not as constituents of the style. ЕтоШе prose as a separate form of imaginative literature, |at is fiction, came into being rather late in the history of the English Дегагу language. It is well known that in early Anglo-Saxon literature There was no emotive prose. Anglo-Saxon literature was mainly poetry, songs of a religious, military and festive character..The first emotive prose which appeared was translations from Latin of stories from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints.

Middle English prose literature was also educational, represented mostly by translations of religious works from Latin. In the llth and 12th centuries as a result of the Norman conquest, Anglo-Saxon literature fell into a decline. Almost all that was v/ritten was in French or in Latin.. In the 12th and 13th centuries, however, there appeared the "Tales of King Arthur and his Round Table", some of which were written in verse and others in prose. They were imitations of French models. In the 14th century there was an event which played an important role not only in the development of general standard English, but in the development of the peculiarities of emotive prose. This was the translation of the Bible made by Wyclif and his disciples.

Emotive prose actually began to assume a life of its own in the sec­ond half of the 15th century when romances and chronicles describing the life and adventures of semi-legendary kings and knights began to appear. One of the most notable of these romances was Malory V'Morte Darthur", printed byCaxton in 1471. It winds up a long series of poems and tales of chivalry begun in the 12th century. It was retold in prose from the French. "The Death of Arthur" is a work of. great historical, literary and stylistic interest. Attempts were made to introduce dialogue into the texture of the author's narrative before this, but here dialogue becomes an organic part of the work. Dialogue within the author's narra­tive is a stylistic constituent of the substyle of emotive prose. True, Malory's diabgues were far from even resembling the natural features of living colloquial speech. The speech of the heroes lacks elliptical senten­ces, breaks in the narrative and other typical features oj the spoken varie­ty of English. Emotional colouring is shown not in the syntactical design of the sentences but in the author's remarks and descriptions. But nev­ertheless "Morte Darthur" must be counted as a historical landmark in establishing the principles of emotive prose. The introduction of dialogue means that the road to the more or less free use of colloquial language was already marked out. Further on, colloquial elements began to infil­trate into poetic diction as well.

With the coming of the s i x te e n t h century, which inciden­tally heralded a great advance in all spheres of English social life,

English emotive prose progressed rapidly. Numerous translations from Latin and Greek played a great role in helping to work out stylistic norms for the emotive prose of that period. Translations from modern languages, of Italian and French romances in particular, also began to influence the stylistic norms of emotive prose. The necessity to find adequate language means to convey the ideas and the stylistic peculiarities of the text in the source-language made the translators extend the scope of language resources already used in literature, thus enlarging the potentialities of stylistic4 devices and language media.

Sixteenth century professional literary men like Philip Sidney, Johi Lyly, Robert Greene and others known as the "University Wits," along side their interests in poetry and the dramatic art, did not neglect emo­tive prose. A special stylistic trend arose named after a literary work by Lyly entitled "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit." The whole book is written in a high-flown, over-refined manner. There is a fine subtlety of expres­sion combined with an unrestrained use of periphrasis. One can find allu­sions, parallel constructions, antithesis, similes and many other stylistic devices in such abundance that they pile up on one another or form long monotonous chains, the links of which are instances of a given stylistic device.

Inasmuch as this literary work has had rather a notable effect on the subsequent development of emotive prose (Lyly is called the pioneer of the English novel), it will not come amiss to give a sample of the prose of "Euphues":

"The merchant that travaileth for gain, the husbandman that toileth for increase, the lawyer that pleadeth for gold, the craftsman that seeketh to live by his labour, all these,.after they have fatted themselves with sufficient, either take their ease or less pain than they were accustomed. Hippomenes ceased to run when he had gotten the goal, Hercules to labour when he had ob­tained the victory,Mercury to pipe when he had cast Argus in a slum­ber. Every action hath his end; and then we leave to sweat when we have found the sweet. The ant, though she toil in summer, yet in winter she leaveth to travail. The bee, though she delight to suck the fair flower, yet is she at last cloyed with honey. The spider that weaveth the finest thread ceaseth at the last, when she hath finished her web.

But in the action and the study of the mind, gentlemen, it is far otherwise, for he that tasteth the sweet of his learning en-, dureth all the sour of labour. He that seeketh the depth of knowledge is as it were in a labyrinth.,."

This passage shows the prolixity of what came to be called the e u~ phuistic style1 with its illustrations built on semantic parallelism and the much-favoured device of mythological allusions; with its carefully chosen vocabulary, its refinement artd grace.

1 The word 'style' is used here not in the terminological sense employed in this book, but in a more general, looser application.

Lyly's aim was to write in a style that was distinct from colloquial speech and yet not poetry. He actually says that Englishmen wished "to hear a finer speech than the language will allow." Euphuism was orientated upon the language of the court and the nobility and marred all kinds of lively colloquial words and expressions. In general III 'is characterized by artificiality of manner.

Euphuism bred a liking for excessive embellishment, and this in Is turn, called forth an unrestrained use of rhetorical devices unmo-fvated by the content and unjustified by the purport of the communica-ton.

But not all 16th century emotive prose was of this character. Walter Raleigh's writing was much simpler, both in vocabulary and syntax; it was less embellished and often colloquial. Roger Ascham, though an excellent classical scholar, chose to write "English matter in the English speech for English men." He writes in a plain, straightforward, clear -manner with no attempt at elegance. Philip Sidney wrote prose that could be as clear as Ascham's. Even when his sentences are long, they do not lose their clarity. In contrast to Ascham he did npt scorn ornament, but, unlike Lyly, he used it in moderation. The prose of Richard Hooker, who wrote on contraversial religious themes, is restrained and has power I and balance. Hooker also had considerable influence on the development I of English emotive prose.

I Euphuism, however, had merits in its time. It made msn-oMetters I look for finer, more elegant forms of expression and this search inev­itably made them more form-conscious — they learned to polish their language and, to some extent, developed a feeling for prose rhythm. But at later periods euphuism became reactionary, inasmuch as it barred all kinds of lively colloquial words and expressions and hindered the process of liberating the belles-lettres style from rigid poetical restrictions. The "democratization" of the means of expression was incompatible with the aristocratic artificiality and prettiness of euphuism.

A great influence on the further development of the characteristic features of the belles-lettres style was exercised by Shakespeare. Although he never wrote prose, except for a few insertions in some of his plays, he declared his poetical credo and his attitude towards all kinds of embellish­ments in language in some of his works.1 Also in hi$ "Love's Labour Lost" Shakespeare condemns the embellishing tendencies of some of the poets. Here is a well-known quotation which has long been used to char­acterize the pompous, showy manner of expression.

"Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, * Three-pil'd' hyperboles, spruce affectation: Figures pedant ical; these summer flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them..."

On the whole the emotive prose of the 16th century had not yet shaped itself as a separate style. Verse and drama predominate among

works of belles-lettres. The small amount of prose written, in particular emotive prose, can be ascribed to the general strong tendency to regard the spoken variety of the English language as inferior and therefore un­worthy to be represented in belles-lettres. And without speech of char­acters there can be no true emotive prose. This perhaps explains the fact that most of the prose works of the period were histories, biographies, accounts of travels, essays on different philosophical and aesthetic problems. There were, of course, exceptions like Robert Greene's "Life and Death of Ned Browne" and Thomas N ash's "The Unfortunate Trav­eller, or The Life of Jack Wilton," tfie former being a story of crime and the latter an adventure story. These are precursors of the modern novel.

The seventeen i h century saw a considerable develop­ment in emotive prose. It was an epoch of great political and religious strife, and much that was written had a publicistic aim. The decline in drama due to the closing of the theatres by the Puritans in 1648 may also have had its effect in stimulating the development of emotive prose.

The two contrary tendencies in the use of language means, so strik­ing in the 16th century, assume new forms in the 17th. There was first of all the continuation of the classical tradition, and secondly there was the less scholarly, but more English prose that had been em­ployed by the forty-seven translators of the "Authorized Version" of the Bible. As is known, during the 16th century the English literary language had received large additions from classical Greek and Latin and also from modern French and Italian. Some writers considered it good style to introduce not only lexical but also syntactical innovations: sentences were often built according to'classical patterns. Burton, Browne and oth­ers constructed long passages following Latin models. One of the 17th. century writers states:

"Many think 4hat they can never speak elegantly, nor write significantly, except* they do it in a language of their own devising; as if they were ashamed of their mother tongue, and thought it not sufficiently curious to express their fancies. By means whereof, more French and Latin words have gained ground upon us since - the middle of Queen Elisabeth's reign than were admitted by our ancestors..."1 „

The two tendencies' were combined in the prose works of Milton who, being a Puritan, recognized the Bible as the highest authority in all matters, but who had a deep knowledge of the ancient classics as well. -

The influence of the Bible on English emotive prose is particularly striking in the works of John Bunyan. "The Pilgrim's Progress" rep­resents a new trend in the development of emotive prose. Here is an ex­cerpt from the work:

"Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence; so when he was gone to bed, he told his wife what he had done,

to wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners and cast them into his dungeon, for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best to do further to them. So she asked what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound, and he told her. Then she counselled him, that when he arose in the morn­ing he should beat them without mercy....The next night she talked with her husband about them further, and understanding that they were yet alive, did advise him to counsel them to make away with themselves. So when morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner, as before, and perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison: for why, said he, should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness? But they desired him to let them go.... Then did the prisoners consult between themselves, whether it was best to take his counsel or no; and thus they began to discourse: —

Chr. Brother, said Christian, what shall we do? The life that we now live is miserable. For my part, I know not whether it is best to live thus, or die out of hand. My soul chooseth strangl­ing rather than life, and the grave is more easy for me than this dungeon! Shall we be ruled by the giant? Hope. Indeed our present condition is dreadful,...

Well, towards the evening the giant goes down into the dun­geon again, to s'ee if his prisoners had taken his counsel;,.."

In this excerpt the main peculiarities of the style of emotive prose of the puritan trend stand out clearly. Simplicity in choice of words and in syntax is the predominant feature of the language of this type of emo­tive prose. The speech of the characters is mainly shaped in the form of indirect discourse/When direct speech appears, it is arranged as in a play, that is, the speaker is indicated by giving his full name or its cont­racted form at the beginning of a line. The name is „not syntactically connected with the character's utterance. It is interesting to note in passing that the yet unestablished norms of emotive prose are reflected in a combination of the syntactical arrangement of a play and that of emotive prose, as, for example, in this passage where the name of the speak­er precedes the utterance as in plays, and the same name is mentioned within the direct speech as if it were introduced by the writer.

So there is a kind of mixture of two substyles, emotive prose and dra­ma. However, when incursions of direct speech are short, they are given within the author's narrative, for example,

"...their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themsel­ves, either with knife, halter, or poison: for why, said he, should you choose life, seeing it is attended with so much bitterness? But they desired him to let them go.

Another peculiarity of the prose of this period is a rather poorly developed system of connectives, The connectives and, so that,-then

are used abundantly and often in a way that does not comply with their generally accepted functions.

Bunyan's works have played a considerable role in establishing the most characteristic features of emotive prose.

Imagery, so characteristic of the belles-lettres language style in gen­eral, begins to colour emotive prose differently from the way it is used in poetry and plays of the non-puritan trend. The imagery in the "Pil­grim's Progress" is based on allegory. Allegory is akin to metaphor, but it differs from the latter by having a definite symbolic meaning. Alle­gory in its most common form is a variety of antonomasia. Words de­noting abstract notions are used as proper names. So, in the passage quoted above the name of the giant is 'Despair', his wife's name — 'Diffidence', the name of the Castle is 'Doubting Castle', the names of the pilgrims are 'Christian' and 'Hopeful.'

This type of imagery has considerable tenacity in emotive prose and particularly in plays.

• The puritan influence on the language of emotive prose at this time displays what may be called an anti-renaissance spirit. This is shown in the -disparagement of mythological imagery and any embellishment of language whatever. Bunyan's abstract way of treating ordinary everyday-life events and conflicts led to an abstract manner in depicting his charac­ters. They are, as a rule, devoid of individuality. There is no typification of a character's speech, and therefore there is practically no difference between the language of the author and that of the heroes. A tendency to simplify the literary language, resulting from the derogatory attitude of the puritans to classical learning, is apparent in seventeenth century emotive prose, at least among some writers.

However, the language of emotive prose at this period, as at pre­ceding and subsequent periods, did not progress along one line. The clas-. sical tradition and the over-use of embellishments were also alive, and can be seen at any period i“ the development of the English literary language, and tff emotive prose ^particular, in a greater or lesser de­gree right until the beginning of the 20th century.

The struggle between the two opposing tendencies in rendering ideas in the style of emotive prose reflects the political and religious strife between the Puritans and the Cavaliers, the name given to those who were on the side of Charles I against the Puritan Party during the Civil War of 1642—1652.X ч

Among representatives of "the "Cavalier" trend in literature we shall mention Jeremy Taylor, whose works, mainly sermons, are illustrative of this ornamental manner.

"... he strongly resembles Spenser in his prolific fancy and diction, in a certain musical arrangement and sweetness of ex-. pression, in prolonged description, and in delicious musings and reveries, suggested by some favourite image or metaphor, on which he dwells with the fondness and enthusiasm of a young poet. In these passages he is also apt to run into excess; epithet is heaped upon epithet, and figure upon figure; all the quaint

conceits of his fancy, and the curious stores of his learning are drag­ged in, till both precision and propriety are sometimes lost." l

There was also a third trend in emotive prose which began to develop in the 17th century and which became more apparent in subsequent periods. Representative of this trend are Thomas Sprat and in particu­lar John Dryden. This trend is responsible for the introduction into writ­ing of common words and phrases known as colloquialisms. True, in 17th century emotive prose these elements were yet few. But this third trend, as it were, broke the ice and a trickle of colloquial words began to flow into emotive prose.

Thomas Sprat raised his voice against luxury and redundance of speech. He beheld "with indignation how many mists and uncertainties these specious tropes and figures have brought on our knowledge." He was all for a "close, naked, natural way of speaking, positive expressions, clear senses, a native easiness". He preferred "the language of artisans, countrymen and merchants before that of wits, and scholars."2

The models of prose writing at Dryden's disposal were the colloquial manner "of Bunyan and similar writers, on the one hand, and, on the other, the elaborate manner of Lyly, Sidney, Browne,- Jeremy Taylor and others. Dryden retained the simple diction, and disciplined the loose everyday expressions of the former, he cut off the awkward Latinisms and long-winded elegance of the latter. The features of Dryden's prose are clarity, simplicity of sentence structure, lack of ornament, fluency and rhythm. The influence of Dryden on both emotive prose and pub-licistic prose, which began to develop rapidly in*the 18th century, was felt throughout the century. Dryden has been called the father of English literary criticism.

After the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 a new trend arose in literature which was also reflected in prose. The critical spirit was more and more taking the place of the imaginative. Emotive prose was becoming a weapon of satire and not simply a means of describing and interpreting the life of the day. This trend, materialized mainly in essays, was outstanding in the prose works of Dryden (his "Essay on Dramatic Poesy" in particular) and continued into the 18th century, where it became conspicuous.

Eighteenth century emotive prose when compared to that of the seventeenth is, in its most essential, leading features, character­ized by the predominance of the third trend. This third trend, which may justly be called realistic, is not the further development of the puritan tendencies described above, although, doubtless, these tendencies bore some relevance to its typical features. The motto of this trend may be expressed by the phrase "call a spade a spade." By this phrase the ad­herents of the realistic trend in literature, and in emotive prose in partic­ular, expressed the idea that all things should be called by their right names, that the writers should use plain, blunt wot*ds. This was a kind

of protest against the complicated and elaborate periphrases by which the most common concepts were often described.

The history of English literature gives their due to such prominent men-of-letters as Defoe, Swift and Fielding who were ardent apologists of this direction in prose writing, and who created fascinating novels, most of which ^re still reckoned among the masterpieces of English literature. The aim of this new school of writers was to make the language clear, precise, well-balanced, and moderate. They developed a manner of writing which by its strength, simplicity and directness was admirab­ly adapted to ordinary every-day needs. But still the general philosophi­cal and aesthetic views dominating at this period greatly influenced the manner of writing.

The writers of the 18th century did much to establish emotive prose as an independent form of literary art.

They considered that, being educated representatives of their society, it was their dity to safeguard the purity of the English language. How­ever, tfie principles they followed were obscure and even contradictory. On the one hand, some of them, like Johnson, were against the intro­duction into literary English of any colloqual elements, regarding the latter as being inferior to the polished language of educated people. On the other hand, many others felt an urgent necessity to bridge the gap between literary and colloquial modes of expression in order to achieve a greater vividness and flexibility of utterance. Therefore, though using the general language of this period, at the same time they sought to subject it to conventional stylistic norms. *

These stylistic norms were very rigid. So much so, that the individual peculiarities of the authors were frequently over-weighed by the general requirement of the stylistic norms.

These norms are revealed in the levelling-off of the differences be­tween the literary language and the spoken language of the time. The author's speech and that of the heroes resemble each other, so there is no speech characterization; А1ГШе characters speak alike and almost in the same way as the author himself does.

Another stylistic feature of the emotive prose of the 18th century is a peculiar manner of conveying the impression that the event narrated actually occurred, that the narrative possessed authenticity. This man­ner of writing imparts.some of the features of official documents to emo­tive prose. Some of the works of emotive prose therefore, with their wealth of detail and what seems to be genuine fact,-resemble chronicles. When the narrative is written in the first person singular, as it very often is, it reads almost like a diary. The narrative itself is generally impassionate, devoid of any emotional elements, with strict observance of syntactical rules governing the structure of the sentences. In such works there are very few epithets, there is almost no imagery. Such are most of the nov­els by Defoe, Swift, Fielding and others,

Illustrative in this respect are the works of Defoe. He really deserves the title of the originator of the "authenticated" manner in emotive prose. His novel "Robinson Crusoe" is written in a language which by its lexical and syntactical peculiarities has very much in common with the style of an official report.

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, whose essays were written for the journals "The Tatler" and "The Spectator" also followed the general stylistic principles of this period. The most striking feature, of course, is the inadequate representation of direct speech. The most lively con­versations (dialogues) are generally rendered in indirect speech and only fragments of lively direct intercourse can be found in long passages of the narrative. These are mostly exclamatory sentences, like "Sir Clou-desley Shovel! A very gallant man!" or "Dr. Busby! A great man! He whipped my grandfather; a very great man!"

The 18th century is justly regarded as the century which formed: emotive prose as a self-sufficient branch of the belles-lettres style. But still, the manner in which emotive prose used language means and sty­listic devices in some cases still resembled the manner of poetic style. At this time also it was difficult to tell a piece of emotive prose from an essay or even from scientific prose. This was mainly due to the fact that the most essential and characteristic features of these styles were not yet fully shaped.

It was only by the end of the 18th century that the most typical fea­tures of the emotive prose style became really prominent. Laurence Sterne with his "Tristram Shandy" contributed greatly to this process. Sterne thought that the main task of emotive prose was"... to depict the inner world of man, his ever-changing moods. Therefore at the foundation of his novel lies the emotional and not the logical principle."1

With Sterne, emotive prose began to use a number of stylistic de­vices which practically determined many" of its characteristic features. In "Tristram Shandy" there appear rudimentary forms of represented speech; the speech of the characters approaches the norms of lively col­loquial language; the narrative itself begins to reflect the individuality of the author, not only in his world outlook but, which is very impor­tant for linguistic analysis, in his manner of using the language means of his time. He attempts to give speech characteristics to his characters, uses the different stylistic strata of the English vocabulary widely both in the individual speech of his characters and in the language of the author himself.

The role of Sterne in the shaping of the typical features of emotive prose of the following centuries is under-estimated. He was the first to make an attempt to overcome the traditional form of the then fashion­able narrative in depicting characters, events, social life and human conflicts. It was necessary to enliven the dialogue and it was Laurence Sterne who was able to do so. The great realistic writers of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries to some extent followed in his footsteps.

Nineteenth century emotive prose can already be regarded as a substyle of the belles-lettres language style complete in its most fundamental properties as they are described at the beginning of this chapter.

The general tendency in English literature to depict the life of all strata of English society called forth changes in regard to the language used for this purpose. Standard English begins to actively absorb elements of the English vocabulary which were banned in earlier periods from the language of emotive prose, that is, jargonisms, professional words, slang, dialectal words and even vulgarisms, though the latter were used spar­ingly and euphemistically—damn was printed d—, bloody, b—and the like. l Illiterate speech finds its expression in emotive prose through the distortion of the spelling of words, and the use of cockney and dia­lectal words; there appears a clear difference between the speech of the writer and that-of his characters. A new feature begins to establish it­self as a property of emotive prose alone, namely, what may be called multiplicity of stytes. Language means typical of other styles of the literary language are drawn into the system of expressive means and stylistic devices of this particular substyle. It has already been pointed out that these insertions do not remain in their typical form, they are recast to comply writh the essential principles of emotive prose.

Here is an example of a newspaper brief found in Thackeray's "Van­ity Fair":

"Governorship of Coventry Island.—H. M. S. Yellowjack, Com­mander Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from Coventry Island. H. E. Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing fever at Swampton. His loss is deeply felt in the flour­ishing colony. We hear that the governorship has been offered to Colonel Rawdon Crawley, С. В., a distinguished Waterloo officer. We need not only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talefits to superintend the affairs of our colonies; and we have no doubt that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to fill the lamented vacancy which has occur­red at Coventry Island is admirably calculated for the post which he is about to occupy".

By the end of the nineteenth century and particularly at the begin­ning of the twentieth, certain stylistic devices had been refined and continue to be further developed and perfected. Among these must be mentioned represented speech, both uttered and unuttered (inner), and also various ways of using detached construction, which is particu­larly favoured by present-day men-of-letters. Syntax, too, has under­gone modifications in the emotive prose of the last century and a half.

Present-day emotive prose is to a large extent characterized by the breaking-up of traditional syntactical designs of the preceding

periods. Not only detached construction, but also fragmentation of syntactical models, peculiar, unexpected ways of combining sentences, especially the gap-sentence link and other modern syntactical patterns, are freely introduced into present-day emotive prose. Its advance is so rapid that it is only possible to view it in the gross.

Many interesting investigations have been made of the character­istic features of the language of different writers where wfiat is typical and what is-idiosyncratic are subjected to analysis. But so far no deduc­tions have been made as to the general trends of emotive prose of the nineteenth century, to say nothing of the twentieth. This work awaits investigators who may be able to draw up some general principles distinguishing modern emotive prose from the emotive prose of the preceding periods.

LANGUAGE OF THE DRAMA

The third subdivision of the belles-lettres style is the language of plays. The first thing to be said about the parameters of this variety of belles-lettres is that, unlike poetry, which, except for bal­lads, in essence excludes direct speech and therefore dialogue, and unlike emotive prose, which is a combination of monologue (the author's speech) and dialogue (the speech of the characters), the language of plays is entirely dialogue. The author's speech is almost entirely excluded ex-,cept for the playwright's remarks and stage directions, significant though they may be.

But the language of the characters is in no way the exact reproduction of the norms of colloquial language, although the playwright seeks to reproduce actual conversation as far as the norms of the written language will allow. Any variety of the belles-lettres style will use the norms of the literary language of the given period. True, in every variety there will be found, as we have already shown, departures from the estab­lished literary norms. But in genuinely artistic work these departures will never go beyond the boundaries of the permissible fluctuations of the norms, lest the aesthetic aspect of the work should be lost.

It follows then that^the language of plays is always stylized, that is, it strives to retain the modus of literary English, unless the play­wright has a particular aim which requires the use of non-literary forms and expressions. However, even in this case a good playwright will use such forms sparingly. Thus in Bernard Shaw's play "Fanny's First Play," Dora, a street-girl, whose language reveals her upbringing, her lack of education, her way of living, her tastes and aspirations, nevertheless uses comparatively few non-literary words. A bunk, a squiffer are exam­ples! Even these are explained with the help of some literary device. This is due to the stylization of the language.

The stylization of coHoquial language is one of the features of plays 'which at different stages in the history of English drama has manifested itself in different ways revealing, on the one hand, the general trends of the literary language and, on the other hand, the personal idiosyncrasies of the writer.

In the 16th century the stylization of colloquial language was scarcely maintained due to several facts: plays were written in haste for the com­panies of actors eagerly waiting for them, and they were written for a wide audience, mostly the common people. As is known, plays were staged in public squares on a raised platform almost without stage properties.