6

6

use old forms, as whilom was the antique worldes guize.' To suit the play of his melody or rhyme he could vary his forms, using 'dreriment', or drerihed', or 'dreariness', 'jollihed' or 'jollitee'. Or he would create a form of his own, such as the adjective 'daint', or the verb to cherry'. Yet these idiosyncrasies of his vocabulary, open as they are to serious attack as both arbitrary and illogical, are all grafted on to a firm and healthy stock of pure and simple English, free from the involved and pedantic mannerisms that were the snare of his age. Hence it is that though he was the first conscious inventor of a distinct poetic diction, which drew from 'well-languaged' Daniel a criticism of his aged accents and untimely words', and from Ben Jonson the charge that 'in affecting the ancients he writ no language', Coleridge could assert with a still more vital truth that there was no poet whose writings would safelier stand the test of Mr. Wordsworth's theory than Spenser'.

6

The individual quality of Spenserian melody found perfect expression in the verse form of the Faerie Queene. This stanza was his own invention, and it is his greatest contribution to the development of English prosody. Chaucer's rhyme royal (a babbcc) may have called his attention to the effectiveness of a stanza with an uneven number of lines, and indeed, the effects attainable in these two measures might well be said to represent the difference between the metrical genius of Chaucer and of Spenser. He has been supposed to owe something to the ottava rima (a b a b abcc), though the interlacing of his rhymes brings his measure nearer to the stanza that he had borrowed from Chaucer for the opening of his April and November Eclogues 1 (a b a bbcbc). But to admit this detracts in no way from the absolute originality of the Spenserian stanza. The added ninth line is a magnificent conclusion to the linked sweetness of the preceding eight, and in it the music of the whole stanza spreads and settles to a triumphant or a quiet close. Its logical value to the metrical scheme lies in the fact that, standing apart from the rest by reason of its length, it forms a distinct climax, and is in a manner detached; yet, because it is linked in rhyme with the foregoing quatrain, it never suffers the sharp isolation that occasionally marks the final couplet of the ottava rima or the rhyme royal. It is obviously fitted for sententious and reflective comment upon the situation :

Ill weares he armes, that nill them vse for Ladies sake (III. v. 11.) It is admirable for rounding off an episode, or concluding a canto. It is often the most beautiful line of a stanza, which gathers strength as it proceeds, giving the last splendid touch to a vivid description:

Loe where the dreadfull Death behind thy backe doth stond, (11. viii. 37.)

In the November Eclogue also may be noticed his first consistent use of the Alexandrine, and it may well be that in his composition of that poem the Spenserian stanza occurred to him.

or distilling into one perfect sentence the emotion that the rest of the stanza has evoked:

Ah Loue, lay downe thy bow, the whiles I may respire. (1. ix 8.)

This Alexandrine, as a rule, has an almost regular iambic beat, and a caesura which splits the line into two equal parts; and even so constructed it can be put to many different uses. It can express a tender beauty:

So faire a creature yet saw neuer sunny day. (1. ix. 13.)

It can roll magnificently as when it tells

Of old Assuracus, and Inachus diuine. (11. ix. 56.) or of

A sacrament prophane in mistery of wine. (III. ix. 30.) it can be utterly simple:

For all we haue is his :

what he list doe, he may. (v. ii. 41.)

A slight variation from the normal type voices the subtlest grades of feeling. The addition of a syllable to the fifth foot of the line makes it dance with the grace and lightness of a bride :

When forth from virgin bowre she comes in th'early morne.

(11. xii. 50.) By the avoidance of any marked caesura it seems to gain an added length and a more sustained and sinuous flow as of a snake that

Through the greene gras his long bright burnisht backe declares. (111. xi. 28.) When the line is split by the caesura into three equal parts instead of two it acquires a slow and halting movement, as of pain and weariness :

Their hearts were sicke, their sides were sore, their feete were lame.

(VI. v. 40.)

In all these lines an effect is attained which would be beyond the scope of a decasyllabic verse. But to quote isolated Alexandrines gives no just idea of their true value; for their effect they depend upon their vital relation with the metrical scheme of the whole stanza. (No poet has ever woven a web of verse as subtly intricate as Spenser's. Throughout the vast length of his poem he heightens the effect proper to his interlacing rhyme-system by a constant assonance and alliteration, and by the haunting repetition of word, phrase, cadence. Spenser's supreme tour de force in this manner is to be found in the oft quoted stanzas from the

1 This is true also of Spenser's decasyllables, which for the most part run with a smooth iambic beat, but are varied at times with telling effect: e. g. II. viii. 3, Come hither, come hither, O come hastily', a line which the Folio editor found too irregular for his taste,

SPENSER

Bower of Bliss (11. xii. 71, 74), but it is a manner habitual to him, and it is capable of infinite variation according to his mood. There are few of those rhetorical figures noted by Puttenham1 as both auricular and sensible, by which all the words and clauses are made as well tunable to the ear as stirring to the mind' that do not find perfect illustration in the Faerie Queene. At times a word is so repeated that it gives the line a metrical balance, or enforces an obvious antithesis, at times the iteration is little more than a play upon the meaning of the word; but more often, by the peculiar quality which it imparts to the music of the stanza it suggests a subtlety in the poet's thought or feeling :

Withall she laughed, and she blusht withall,

That blushing to her laughter gaue more grace,

And laughter to her blushing, as did fall. (11. xii. 68.)3

His skill in playing throughout a whole stanza with recurrent word and phrase and cadence is that of the deft juggler, who weaves in the air intricate patterns with balls of divers colours, and yet never allows one of them to fall out of his control :

Amongst those knights there were three brethren bold,
Three bolder brethren neuer were yborne,

Borne of one mother in one happie mold,

Borne at one burden in one happie morne,

Thrise happie mother, and thrise happie morne,

That bore three such, three such not to be fond;
Her name was Agape whose children werne
All three as one, the first hight Priamond,

3

The second Dyamond, the youngest Triamond. (IV. ii. 41.) 3 Puttenham would call this device the translacer, which is when you turn and translace a word with many sundry shapes as the Tailor doth his garment, and after that sort to play with him in your dittie'. Spenser may have been attracted by it in the prose of Sidney, but he caught its true poetic use from his study of the Latin poets. To Dryden 4 it was known as the 'turn' upon the word or the thought, and he rightly recognized that its English master was 'Spenser, who had studied Virgil, and among his other excellences had copied that '.

Spenser's studied use of assonance and alliteration springs from the same musical instinct. He commonly employs assonance to give greater value to the vowel of the rhyme word, by anticipating it in some strong place within the line:

Weening some heauenly goddesse he did see,

Or else vnweeting, what it else might bee; (Iv. vi. 22.)

1 Puttenham, The Arte of English Poetrie, c. xix, pp. 208 f., ed. Arber.
2 Cf. also V. v. 31, II. vii. 41.

3 Cf. also III. xii. 24, VI. xi. 26, 11. iv. 35.

and this use is especially noticeable in the Alexandrine, where the assonance will often be found to emphasize the caesura :

A worke of wondrous grace, and able soules to saue. (1. ix. 19.)
That like a rose her silken leaues did faire vnfold. (vi. xii. 7.)

At times he carries his assonance through a whole stanza, as in the following, where he emphasizes the rhyme vowels ai ande by contrasting them with the harder sound of i:

So there that night Sir Calidore did dwell,

And long while after, whilest him list remaine,
Dayly beholding the faire Pastorell,

And feeding on the bayt of his owne bane.
During which time he did her entertaine
With all kind courtesies, he could inuent;
And euery day, her companie to gaine,

When to the field she went, he with her went:

So for to quench his fire, he did it more augment. (vi. ix. 34.)1 But Spenser's most persistent artistic device is alliteration, which he uses alike to mark his rhythm and knit his verse together, to enforce his meaning, and for its pure melodic beauty. He was attracted to it, doubtless, by his study of that earlier poetry which is alliterative by structure, but his knowledge of Chaucer had showed him its greater artistic value when it is accidental rather than structural; and he developed its musical possibilities to their utmost, so that it became for him an integral part of his melody, capable of sustaining his verse even when his poetic inspiration was at its lowest. Many of his favourite phrases, loving lord', 'girlonds gay', 'silver sleepe', 'lovely layes', 'wide wildernesse', are born of his love of alliteration, and so natural an element of his music does it become that at times it influences, almost unconsciously, his choice of words:

I knockt, but no man aunswred me by name;

I cald, but no man answerd to my clame. (IV. x. 11.)

Its use for emphasis is obvious enough, as in the description of the giant who with sturdie steps came stalking in his sight' (1. vii. 8), or of the studied hypocrisy of Archimago:

Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad, (1. i. 29.)

or of the gloom of the Cave of Despair:

Darke, dolefull, drearie, like a greedie graue. (1. ix. 33.)

Like Milton, he knew the power of alliteration upon w to give the sense of vastness and desolation :

In all his wayes through this wide worldes waue. (1. x. 34.)2

1 Cf. also VII. vii. 44, where Spenser enforces the contrast between Day and Night by emphasizing throughout the stanza the vowels a and i.

* Cf. also II. vii. 2, I. ix. 39.

Certain combinations of consonants, indeed, are associated in his mind with definite feelings or conceptions, and he will carry their use through several lines, sometimes through a whole stanza. Particularly effective is his alliteration upon s and I to convey a sense of peace, wherein the senses lulled are in slumber of delight'. The argument of Despair is rendered almost irresistible by the music in which it is phrased :

Is not short paine well borne, that brings long ease,
And layes the soule to sleepe in quiet graue?

Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,

Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please. (1. ix. 40.)

And so of Arthur, dreaming of the faerie queene :

Whiles euery sence the humour sweet embayd,
And slombring soft my hart did steale away,

Me seemed, by my side a royall Mayd

Her daintie limbes full softly down did lay. (1. ix. 13.)1

It will be noticed that in all these passages the effect of the alliteration is strengthened by the use of the alliterative letter in the middle and end as well as at the beginning of the words.

But apart from these special uses, assonance and alliteration run through all his verse as an integral part of its melody, a kind of sweet undertone, blending with the regular rise and fall of the verse and enhancing its rhythmical appeal, so as to form a total effect of indefinable grace and beauty.

The peculiar dangers and temptations of such a style are obvious, and Spenser did not escape them. Though his finest music is wedded to his noblest imaginings, he could convey, in music of a kind, any idea, however trivial, and it was not always worth the carriage. In such moments he parodies his poetic self; the inspiration is gone; and those devices which are the natural and inevitable expression of his mode of thought seem little better than the threadbare artifice of a cunning metrical trickster. He fills out the rhythmical structure of his stanza with words and phrases that add nothing to his picture, and gives whole lines of comment that is trite and commonplace. (His characteristic manner has the exuberance of a garden set in rich and fruitful soil, and it needs a careful tending; for even its choicest flowers may put on such luxuriant growth that they wellnigh choke each other, and if weeds chance to take root there they will grow apace. Spenser never learnt the art to prune, he was not over careful to weed. And his verse, though it has a vigour of its own, is seldom rapid; it is the counterpart of that brooding contemplative mood in which he looked habitually at life. Its sustaining principle was a slow circling movement that continually returned upon itself. Wordsworth's

1 Cf. also II. vi. 3, II. v. 30, 32, III. xii. 1.