NOTATION OF RHYTHMICAL AND PROSODIAL ACCENT COM BINED. I.—" "Iambic" Metre. ¡" Ad | vanced in | view, Of | dread ful | length, |* "Blank" Verse. they | stand,|*a | horrid | front † | Of warriors | old |‡ with | ordered | spear and | shield."||99| "Heroic Couplet.” "Like | leaves on trees the | life of | man |is| found; 1991 "The way cold; The minstrel | following | spring withering |on the| supplies: || and successive | rise." || Octosyllabic "Couplet." was | long, the wind | was | was in | firm and old: "||99| "Quatrain" Stanza: Octosyllabic Couplets." "The spacious | firmament on high,|77| With all the blue e | thereal | sky, || And spangled | heavens, a shining | frame, Quatrain Stanza: Octosyllabic Lines, rhyming alternately. "The heavens | de | clare thy | glory, | Lord, || In every starthy | wisdom | shines; || But when our | eyes be | hold thy | word, | We read thy | name |in| fairer | lines." | 9|99 *"Demi-cæsural" pause. + "Final" pause. "Cæsural" pause. The pauses marked with the asterisk, &c. are founded primarily and necessarily on the sense; but the prosodial pauses, indispensable to the "rhythm" of every well-constructed verse, happen in the present instance, to coincide with the pauses of the meaning. Every line of verse has a “final pause," which detaches it from the following line, and a "cæsural" pause which divides it into two parts, equal or unequal, or two "demi-cæsural” pauses, which divide it into three parts. The "demi-cæsural" pauses are sometimes used in addition to the "casural," to subdivide the two parts which it separates. "Common Metre" Stanza. "Thy | love the power of | thought | bestowed; 91 To Theemy | thoughts | Thy mercy o'er my | life That mercy I adore." | would soar: 9 has | flowed; |99| "Short Metre" Stanza. "To ever | fragrant | meads, Where | rich a | bundance | grows, || His gracious | hand in | dulgent | leads, 1991 And guards my | sweet re | pose." | 1991 Elegiac Stanza. "Full many a | gem, |of| purest | ray The serene, dark | un | fathomed | caves of | ocean | bear: Full | many a | flower | is | born to | blush un ❘ seen, 1991 And waste its sweetness on the desert | air." | "Where'er we | tread, 'tis | haunted, || holy | ground:||69| | No | earth | of | thine || is | lost | in | vulgar | mould! l But | one | vast | realm round; || of | wonder | | spreads a | | | | Each hill and | dale, each deepening | glen | and | wold, | প| De | fies the power | which | crushed thy | temples | gone: 99 | Age | shakes A | thena's | tower, but | spares | Marathon."9|99| gray | "Softly sweet, | in | Lydian | measures, | Soon he soothed his | soul |to| pleasures.—|| War he sung is toil | and | trouble, 91 but an empty bubble." | Honor, And the swift-winged | arrows | of light." 91991 2. Lines of Four " Anapæsts." "The evening was glorious; | and | light | ▼ through the trees || Played the sunshine | the breeze; | The landscape lay and | raindrops, the birds and 91991 out stretching | in | loveliness, | On the lap of the year, in the | beauty | of | CHAPTER IX. EMPHASIS AND EXPRESSION. THE analysis of elocution has, in the preceding chapters, been extended so far as to comprehend all the chief topics of practical elocution. The subjects of emphasis and "expression," have been reserved for the conclusion of this manual; as they properly comprise a virtual review of the whole subject. I.-Impassioned Emphasis. Emphasis, in its usual acceptation, is limited to mere comparative force of utterance on an accented syllable. The term, properly defined, extends to whatever expedient the voice uses to render a sound specially significant or expressive. Thus, in the scornful challenge which Bolingbroke addresses to Mowbray. "Pale, trembling COWARD! there I throw my gage: The emphasis lies, doubtless, on the word coward, and is concentrated in the syllable cow-, by peculiar force of utterance. But the mere force or loudness used, is only one of the many elements of expression, which the syllable is made to comprise, in the intensely excited passion implied in the words. Attentive analysis will show that, in what is termed "emphasis," in this instance, there are included all of the following elements of vocal effect: 1st, the mere force or energy of the utterance, which produces the loudness of voice that accompanies violent or vehement excitement of feeling; 2d, the abrupt and explosive articulation with which the accented syllable is shot from the mouth, in the expression of anger and scorn; 3d, the comparatively low pitch on which the syllable cow- is uttered, as contrasted with the high note on the opening word "pale," and which indicates the deep-seated contempt and indignation of the speaker; 4th, the comparatively long duration of the accented syllable, and the consequent effect of deliberate and voluntary emotion, as contrasted with the rapid rate of hasty and rash excitement; 5th, the downward "slide," the inseparable characteristic of all impetuous, violent, and angry emotion; 6th, the "pectoral," guttural,' and strongly aspirated quality" of voice, with which the utterance seems to burst from the chest and throat, with a half-suffocated and hissing sound, peculiarly characteristic of fierce and contemptuous emotion. 66 66 It may appear, at first view, that this analysis extends beyond emphasis into "expression." But emphasis is, in fact, nothing else than " expression," concentrated and condensed into an accented syllable. For confirmation of this assertion we may refer to the result, in cases of acknowledged imperfect emphasis, that a failure, as regards the full effect of any one of the above elements, produces the fault. Let the student himself bring the matter to the test of his own observation, by uttering the word 86 coward," six times in succession, dropping, each time, one of the elements of expression," enumerated in the preceding analysis; and he will perceive that he loses, in every instance, the emphasis of impassioned accent.- Similar illustrations might be be drawn from all the emotions, in turn. But the verification may left for the practice of oral illustration, by the student, or the teacher. It may be thought, however, that, although the emphasis of pas sion does include many elements, the common emphasis of meaning, in unimpassioned intellectual communication, may be sufficiently expressed by mere comparative force of accent. This impression, too, will, on examination, be found erroneous. The simplest distinctive emphasis that can be given, comprises several points of effect, which are easily detected by analysis. We may take, for an example of unimpassioned emphasis, the expressions in the moral of the fable of the Discontented Pendulum, "Let any man resolve always to do right now, leaving then to do as it can; and if he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he would never do wrong.' The words “now” and “then," in this passage, are instances of distinctive emphasis: they are marked, 1st, by the usual superior force of utterance, which belongs to important and significant words; 2d, by a jerking stress, repeated at the beginning and end of each "tonic element of sound in the two words, and constituting what is technically termed in elocution "compound stress; "3d, by the comparatively high pitch on which each of these two words is set, relatively to the rest of the sentence; 4th, by a significant turn or "double slide" of voice, termed the "wave," or, perhaps, in the spirit of very keen and peculiarly marked distinction, by a double turn, constituting a quadruple "slide" and a "double wave," in the style peculiar to the prolonged utterance of acute verbal distinctions; 5th, by the protracted sound of the words, which is inseparable from the enunciation of significant expressions, in general, but particularly, as just mentioned, from the style of verbal distinctions and subtle discriminations; 6th, by the "oral quality of voice, with which the words are uttered. -By" oral quality is not meant that "pure" or "head tone," which always accompanies unimpassioned and merely intellectual communication, addressed to the understanding, and not to the passions, and hence divested of deep "pectoral" or harsh guttural" quality, but that distinctly marked and exclusively oral tone, which causes the voice to sound as if it emanated from, or originated in, the mouth alone, and designedly threw the utterance into the shape of a mere process of articulation, dependent, for its whole effect, on the tongue, the palate, the teeth or the lips. All nice distinctions in grammar, in logic, and even in ethics, are given in this purely "oral" form. This mode of voice is, as it were, the an utterance |