Lines Where The Number of Syllables Is Not Ten
Bridges describes the cases where there are:
- less than 10 syllables
- more than 10 syllables
He notes that there are no examples in Paradise Lost of a line having less than ten syllables, other than X.827 as it appeared in the first edition. It was corrected to a ten syllable line in the 1647 edition. He also notes that Milton would have been aware of Chaucer's practice of omitting the first unaccented syllable on rare occasions.
The section on where there are more than ten syllables in a line is mainly taken up with a detailed description of elision; see Robert Bridges' Theory of Elision for more details of this. He does categorize lines with extra syllables thus:
- lines with an extra syllable (or syllables) at the end
- lines with an extra syllable mid-line
Read more about this topic: Bridges' Analysis Of Paradise Lost
Famous quotes containing the words lines, number, syllables and/or ten:
“Who will in fairest book of Nature know
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices’ overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason,”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, ... [but] I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)