He desired, however,
to formulate for himself and for students certain metrical laws.
What differentiates poetry from prose? How does a writer produce
certain effects with certain rhythms and vowel and consonant arrangements?
The student wishes to know why the forms are fair and hear how the tale
is told. By the study of rhythm, tune, and color, Lanier believed
that one might receive "a whole new world of possible delight."
He believed with Sylvester that "versification has a technical side
quite as well capable of being reduced to rules as that of painting
or any other fine art." His book was intended to furnish students
with such an outfit of facts and principles as would serve for pursuing
further researches.
The time was ripe for such a study. Lanier wrote to Mr. Stedman
that "in all directions the poetic art was suffering from
the shameful circumstance that criticism was without a scientific basis."
The book at once received commendation from competent critics.
Edward Rowland Sill wrote Dr. Gilman that it was "the only thing
extant on that subject that is of any earthly value.
I wonder that so few seem to have discovered its great merit," --
an opinion afterwards repeated by him in the "Atlantic Monthly".
The late Richard Hovey, in a series of articles in the "Independent"
on the technic of poetry, said that Lanier had begun such a scientific study
with "great soundness and common sense;" the book is
"accurate, scientific, suggestive.
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