" The editor of the "Dial" referred to it
as "the most striking and thoughtful exposition yet published
on the technics of English poetry." Within the past ten years
books on English verse have multiplied fast. In Germany, in England,
and in America, the discussion of metrics has gone on.
While dissenting from some of Lanier's conclusions, few of the writers
have failed to recognize his work as of great importance.*
One man rarely sees all round any great subject like this, --
each man sees some one special point and states it in an individual way,
and finally, in the course of time, the truth is evolved.
--
* See, for instance, Winchester's `Principles of Literary Criticism',
Alden's `English Verse', Paul Elmer More's `Shelburne Essays',
and Omond's `English Metrists'.
--
There is little objection to Parts II and III of the
"Science of English Verse". They are generally recognized
as strikingly suggestive and helpful. It is with the main thesis
of the first part that many disagree -- the author's insistence
that the laws of music and of verse are identical. According to Lanier,
verse is in all respects a phenomenon of sound. From time immemorial
the relation of music and of poetry has been spoken of in figurative terms,
as in Carlyle's discussion of the subject in the essay
on the "Hero as Poet". Lanier, however, was the first to work the idea out
in a thorough-going fashion. He was especially qualified to do so
because of his knowledge of the two arts.
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