Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:54:16.440Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Metrical Theory and Practice of Thomas Campion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

R. W. Short
R. W. Short*
Affiliation:
Sweet Briar College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Most of the scant attention paid by critics to the poetry of Thomas Campion has been sidetracked by two considerations which, however interesting in themselves, have little to do with his real poetic accomplishments. One of these considerations is that he was a musician and almost alone among his contemporaries composed settings for his own poems; the other is that he played some part in the guerilla warfare waged by a few Elizabethan writers against rhyme. Before we can make a fresh adjustment to his poetry, we must dispose of the first and reckon with the second.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 59 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1944 , pp. 1003 - 1018
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944

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 RES, (Jan., 1939), p. 100, reviewing M. M. Kastendieck, England's Musical Poet. Thomas Campion (Oxford, 1938).

2 Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith (Oxford, 1904), ii, 358.

3 Campion's Works, ed. Percival Vivian (Oxford, 1909), p. 33. All quotation of Campion have been taken from this edition of his works.

4 Op. cit., p. 36.

5 “Iambick and Trochaick feete, which are opposd by nature, are by all Rimers confounded.” Op. cit., p. 36.

6 Op. cit., p. 36.

7 Op. cit., p. 40.

8 Elizabethan Critical Essays, i, 205.

9 A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (New York, 1912), pp. 301, 302.

10 Ibid., p. 304.

11 Op. cit., p. 53.

12 It should perhaps be emphasized that Campion's postulate: “But above all the accent of our words is diligently to be observ'd, for chiefely by the accent in any language the true value of the sillables is to be measured” (Op. cit., p. 53), refers mainly to the determination of “value” within words rather than within lines. As shown, Campion was clear that accenting a short syllable in a line of poetry did not necessarily increase its quantity.

13 Op. cit., p. 41.

14 “ Op. cit., p. 54.

15 Op. cit., p. 29.

16 Op. cit., p. 132.

17 G. Gregory Smith, however, had no doubt that this point was expressed in the Observations: “If he is aiming at anything tangible it is at equality in the reading length of the lines, and his rules to this end assume the propriety of syllabic equivalence.” Op. cit., i, liv.

18 Op. cit., p. 37.

19 Op. cit., p. 39.

20 “Pitch, as William Thompson has strenuously maintained, has nothing whatever to do with rhythm, but one of its many functions is the heightening of logical emphasis, for we frequently elevate the pitch of a syllable when we give it heavy stress. In those cases, not altogether infrequent in modern English verse, when we are obliged to reduce the stress of a logically emphatic syllable in order to preserve the metre, we often allow it to keep the higher pitch, thus saying, in effect: ‘I cannot stress this syllable as fully as its meaning requires, because the metre demands that I give accentual precedence to its neighbor. Take note, however, that it is logically superior’.” John Collins Pope, The Rhythm of Beowulf (New Haven, 1942), p. 13n.

21 Op. cit., p. 12.

22 Op. cit., p. 55.

23 This line presents a special question: “beauteous” might be divided into three syllables and “spirits” considered as having only one. My treatment seems preferable, because Campion usually indicated by spelling which of the two current forms, “spirits” or “sprites,” he intended. Cf. esp., “With a Spirit to contend,” Op. cit., p. 185, where there can be no doubt that two syllables are needed.

24 Op. cit., p. 17.

25 Op. cit., p. 37.

26 Op. cit., p. 39.

27 Op. cit., p. 7.

28 Op. cit., p. 26, 163, 178.

29 Ralph W. Berringer, arguing that Rosseter rather than Campion composed the lyrics of A Booke of Ayres, Part II, cites this poem as a climax of ineptitude. “Finally, it is almost impossible to believe that the author of ‘Thou art not faire for all thy red and white’ could have had anything to do with such a confused and faltering appeal as ‘Shall I come, if I swim?‘” PMLA, lviii (Dec, 1943), 943. I concur rather with T. S. Eliot's estimate of the poem. In “Swinburne as Poet,” from Selected Essays (Faber and Faber, 1932), p. 311, Mr. Eliot refers to the poem, then after quoting a lyric by Shelley, comments: “I quote from Shelley, because Shelley is supposed to be the master of Swinburne; and because his song, like that of Campion, has what Swinburne has not—a beauty of music and a beauty of content.”

30 Op. cit., p. 124.

31 Op. cit., p. 163.

32 Random samplings of Paradise Lost suggest that the musician's ear of Milton also sought lines of the same time-value. Groups of lines, from four to ten in number, were found to possess a given number of long syllables. The groups vary considerable in density.

Great variation was found in Shakespeare's highly dramatic and highly colloquial passages of blank verse, much less variation in the “set pieces” of sustained splendor. A good example occurs in the Tempest, iv, i, 1.146, through Prospero's famous speech. The opening Unes addressing Ferdinand are irregular in time-span. The first three lines of the “set piece” have 5 long syllables each; then beginning with “And like the baseless fabric of this vision,” the next five lines have 6 long syllables. Three more lines of S long syllables each conclude the incomparable dirge. In the last five lines, Prospero addresses Ferdinand and present reality. These lines have 7, 5, 3, 6, and 7 long syllables respectively.

33 The “fairness” of subjecting others' poetry to Campion's rules for determining quantity might be questioned. The rules are especially deficient in meeting the problem, merely hinted at, of the influence of meaning on quantity, a defect more apparent when scanning other poetry than when scanning Campion's own marvellously controlled harmonies. Yet whereas a more complete system might ascribe different values to some individual syllables, it is doubtful if the conclusions would be different. The troublesome empiricism of the rules is their best guarantee of approximate accuracy. We may apply them with no more humble an apology than Campion's own: “Others more methodical!, time and practise may produce. In the meane season, as the Grammarians leave many sillables to the authority of Poets, so do I likewise leave many to their judgments; and withall thus conclude, that there is no Art begun and perfected at one enterprise.” Op cit., p. 56.