Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:08:27.730Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Objective Study of Syllabic Quantity in English Verse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Blank Verse  and
Ada L. F. Snell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is my purpose in this paper to consider the quantity of, the syllables in twenty-five lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. The selection, given below, was read by three different men. The first is an instructor in vocal expression, the second is a graduate student in language and phonetics, and the third is a professor in the Department of General Linguistics. All three are connected with the University of Michigan.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , 1918 , pp. 396 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1918

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 A complete 'description of the instrument, and a detailed reading of two plates is given in my thesis on Pause, a Study of its Nature and its Rhythmical Function in Verse, Especially Blank Verse. Edited by Fred Newton Scott in Contributions to Rhetorical Theory.

2 The problem of syllabification is now under investigation at the University of Michigan. The solution of the difficulties involved will be a very material aid in verse analysis.

3 Doubtful division.

4 In my investigation of pause, I found that the syllable or word before the pause is usually greatly lengthened.

5 Other articles dealing with the same subject by Professor Cobb are: “A Type of Four Stress Verse in Shakespeare,” New Shakespearana, Jan. 1911; “A Scientific Basis for Metrics,” Modern Language Notes, xxviii, pp. 142–145.

6 Since there might be a difference of opinion as to how the words in a spondee should be classified, I have omitted these: small drop, line 607; viewed first, line 617; all of line 18; and life dies, death lives, line 624.