Criticisms of The Form
When discussing the auditory impression created by the sound of the decasyllabic quatrain, Ralph Waldo Emerson described how he would hum the tune created by the pattern of the rhyme scheme then long to fill the sounds in with the words of a poem. However, Henry David Thoreau, when writing about Emerson's "Ode to Beauty" criticizes the use of the decasyllabic quatrain by suggesting that its tune is unworthy of the thoughts expressed.
George Saintsbury, in A History of English Prosody from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day, argues that the heroic quatrain, while breaking from the conventions of the heroic couplet, contains limitations that outweigh its liberating characteristics. To Saintsbury, the decasyllabic quatrain contains a stiffness that can not be overcome:
You can not vary your stops, as in blank verse or the Spenserian, there is not room enough: and the recurrent divisions necessatated by the stanza lack at once the conciseness and the continuity of the couplet, the variety and amplitude of the rhyme-royal, octave, or Spenserian itself.
In his essay on Annus Mirabilis, A. W. Ward suggests that the decasyllabic quatrain used by Davenant and Dryden, with its insistence on providing each quatrain with the "completeness" given by the final period, causes the verse to strike the reader as "prosy". While Ward respects Dryden's willingness to use a new form despite his mastery of the heroic couplet, he believes that Annus Mirabilis exemplifies the weaknesses of the form and hinders Dryden's ability to use poetry to fully express his philosophical conceits. Saintsbury, agreeing with this assessment, suggesed that Dryden's choice to revert to the heroic couplet for his three poems on the restoration.
Read more about this topic: Decasyllabic Quatrain
Famous quotes containing the words criticisms of the, the form, criticisms of, criticisms and/or form:
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian, or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)