Characteristics of English poets from Chaucer to Shirley1874 |
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Page 24
... the versification of Chaucer . Chaucer's metre had been a vexed question ever since he had been reduced to print . The change of pronunciation had seriously affected the number of syllables in his verses 24 GEOFFREY CHAUCER :
... the versification of Chaucer . Chaucer's metre had been a vexed question ever since he had been reduced to print . The change of pronunciation had seriously affected the number of syllables in his verses 24 GEOFFREY CHAUCER :
Page 25
William Minto. had seriously affected the number of syllables in his verses ; and his editors , Thynne and Speght , while they valiantly abused detractors , could not , or at least did not , show how to supply the missing syllables ...
William Minto. had seriously affected the number of syllables in his verses ; and his editors , Thynne and Speght , while they valiantly abused detractors , could not , or at least did not , show how to supply the missing syllables ...
Page 26
... verse . It is musical to us- exquisitely so - but the music is not the music that de- lighted the Court of Richard II . We may learn to repeat the articulations of his contemporaries , but we cannot hear with their ears . Chaucer has ...
... verse . It is musical to us- exquisitely so - but the music is not the music that de- lighted the Court of Richard II . We may learn to repeat the articulations of his contemporaries , but we cannot hear with their ears . Chaucer has ...
Page 27
... verse " was the favourite form of the fifteenth century , and was frequently used in the sixteenth . It was , indeed , the great stanza of English poetry , till Spenser superseded it with the fuller music of his more elaborate structure ...
... verse " was the favourite form of the fifteenth century , and was frequently used in the sixteenth . It was , indeed , the great stanza of English poetry , till Spenser superseded it with the fuller music of his more elaborate structure ...
Page 28
... verse , he recast the whole into heavier ottava rima . But ottava rima ( the stanza of ' Don Juan ' ) , though strong enough for the vig- orous march of Drayton's narrative , would not have been sufficiently inwoven for the grave ...
... verse , he recast the whole into heavier ottava rima . But ottava rima ( the stanza of ' Don Juan ' ) , though strong enough for the vig- orous march of Drayton's narrative , would not have been sufficiently inwoven for the grave ...
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Common terms and phrases
admiration beauty Canterbury Canterbury Tales character Chaucer colour comedy Court Court of Love death Dekker delight doth drama dramatist edition Edward Elizabethan English expression eyes Faery Queen fair fancy favour feeling flowers genius Gorboduc Hamlet hath heart heaven hell Henry Hero and Leander heroes honour humour imagination imitation Italian Jean de Meun Jonson Julius Cæsar King lady language less lived look lovers ludicrous Lydgate Marlowe master ment mind Mirror for Magistrates moral nature never night Parliament of Birds passages passion personages plays poem poet poet's poetical poetry Prince probably prose revenge rhymes Richard Richard II romance satire scene seems sentiment Shakespeare shepherds song sonnets soul Spenser spirit stage stanza Stratford supposed Surrey sweet tale Tamburlaine tears thee things thou tion Tottel's Miscellany tragedy tragic translation Troilus Trouvères Venus verse wonder words write written wrote Wyatt youth
Popular passages
Page 279 - Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound...
Page 382 - Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep : methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.
Page 281 - Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime ; So thou through windows of thine age shalt see, Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
Page 285 - The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutor'd lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.
Page 277 - As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare ; witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared sonnets among his private friends, &c.
Page 367 - Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day; And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale!— Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood: Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse...
Page 368 - O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention ! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene...