— 12—

Im folgenden Jahrhundert griff dies Metrum dann sogar mit Milton's Paradise Lost und Paradise Regained in das bisher den gereimten fünftaktigen Rhythmen teilweise erhalten gebliebene Gebiet des Epos hinüber, doch ohne sich dauernd daselbst behaupten zu können. Ja, wenige Decennien später war es sogar in Gefahr, die Oberherrschaft im Drama an seinen unter französischem Schutz und unter Dryden's Anführerschaft zu einem kurzen Eroberungskriege sich aufraffenden Rivalen, den heroic verse, zu verlieren. Doch der blank verse ging schliess- lich dennoch, da Dryden bei besserer Einsicht ihm alsbald seine Gunst wieder zuwandte, sieg- reich aus dem Kampfe hervor: ihm blieb das dramatische, dem heroic verse das lyrische, satirische und didaktische Gebiet unterworfen, soweit nicht die anderen Vers- und Strophenarten schon einzelne Teile davon occupiert hatten oder sich anzueignen suchten.

The dramatic(ut ita dicam) blank verse simply consisting of ten or eleven syllables, after the last syllable either an unaccented syllable, or two, may be added without any prosodical effect. Craik gives the following modifications of this law.

1) Excepting two adjoining feet, the usual accent on the second syllable mag be drawon bach ko the first syllable(according to ancient metrics we may say: instead of a jambus, a trochaeus can be placed), which modification is particularly employed in the fifth and siæth syllables.

2) Every syllable before or behind a regularly accented foot(2) may also be accented: accentus brevem syllabam longam reddere potest.

3) The syllables alternating with the accented ones may be accented also.

4) In any of the places which may be occupied by an unaccented syllable, even two or more such unaccented syllables may be introduced. Hence an anapaest(G 2) may be substituted for a jambus(2); but this construction, habitually employed, crowds and cumbers the rhythm, and gives it a quivering and feeble character. These four modifications are in some measure to be compared with intermixture of dactyls and spondees in the Greek and Latin hexameter, and with logaoedical versification in the ancient languages.

5) In this place we quote the hemistichs i. e. any portion of a perfect decasyllabic verse, which is however perfect in itself, that is to say, of which every foot is regularly formed after the above mentioned laws.

For instance:

«Since Cassius did whet me against Caesar, I have not slept. 6) Wholly differing from these are such verses, as are wanting a syllable in the middle. For instance: »Than the soft myrtle.(—) But man, proud man.

This defect cannot be a pause, as it is held to be, for a pause nowhere may be

substituted for a syllable. Craik is of opinion that in any case, where a corruption of the

text is not to be maintained, the respective line must be divided into two distinct lines or. hemistichs. Thus: Than the soft myrtle.

But man, proud man) etc. The chief character of the English decasyllabic verse consists in being poised on the

tenth syllable, in this mainly differing from the dodecasyllabic verse or Alexandrine, which is poised on the sixth and the twelfth.