Page 60 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

accompaniment to the words, which runs through the very sounds of the
words themselves.

Poe explained that poetry and music are alike in that both obey absolute

laws of time, and that the laws of time or rhythm in poetry are just as exact
as the laws of time in music. He wrote an essay entitled "The Rationale of
Verse," in which he demonstrated that all the rules for scanning poetry are

defective. Every one knows that the ordinary rules for meter have numerous
exceptions, but that if the rules were exact in the first place, there would be

no exceptions.

Perhaps you know something about musical notes. If so, a simple

illustration will show you what "feet" in poetry are. You have perhaps been
taught that a "foot" in verse is an accented syllable with one or more

unaccented syllables, and you scan poetry by marking all the accented
syllables. In Latin, poetry was scanned by marking long vowels and short.
Let us scan the first two lines of "The Raven":

"Once up I on a midnight I dreary, II while I I pondered I weak and I weary,

Over I many a I quaint and I curious I volume I of for I gotten I lore."

Observe that most of the feet have two syllables each, while two have three.

But if you read the lines in a natural tone you will see that you give just as
much time to one foot as to another, and where there are three syllables

they are short and can be pronounced quickly. Some syllables take more
time to pronounce than other syllables; and to accent a syllable simply
means to give it more time in pronouncing. In music, time is accurately

represented by notes, and a bar of music always contains exactly the same
amount of time, no matter how it is divided by the notes; for if you wish, in

place of a half note you can use two quarter notes, or in place of a quarter
note you can use two eighth notes. Represented in music, our lines will be
as follows:

[Illustration: (music) Once up on a midnight dreary, as I pondered, weak

and weary, O-ver man-y a quaint and cur-i--ous vol-ume of for- got-ten
lore.]