Studies in literary modes

Abstract

THE eight essays in this book are all discussions either of literary kinds or of literary mechanisms. Of the first three essays I need say only that they are each self -contained and independent. The other five, though each is likewise complete in itself, together form a group. They are among the products of a study of the origin, justification, and use of rhyme, its varieties, its cognates (assonance, alliteration, parallelism, the refrain, and the like), the part played by these various devices on the formal side of poetry, their bearing on poetic diction and style, and their relation to the ultimate nature of poetry and its kinds and to the artistic impulse generally.In the fifth, the sixth, and to some extent the eighth of the essays published here the pursuit of the ramifying subject of rhyme has carried me out of English which is my province into the literature of other languages in which I make no pretence to move with the same freedom. Accordingly I offer my opinions on these languages and literatures with hesitation and all the diffidence becoming to a student of English who has gone where his research has led him, no doubt far afield but perhaps not too far astray.I. THE HISTORICAL NOVEL || 2. THE ART OF SATIRE AND THE SATIRIC SPECTRUM || 3. A DEFENCE OF RHETORIC, OR PLATO, PASCAL, AND PERSUASION || 4. POETRY AND VERSE || 5. MILTON AND THE RENAISSANCE REVOLT AGAINST RHYME || 6. THE RHYMING ANCIENTS || 7. THE DIFFICULTY OF RHYMING || 8. RHYME AND NO RHYME