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The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according to cause or significance.

Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed). Schipper makes four groups: Principal Accent (Hauptaccent or Hochton), Secondary Accent (Nebenaccent or Tiefton), No Accent (Tonlosigkeit), and Disappearance of Sound (Stummheit). In illustration he gives the word ponderous, where the first syllable has the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent; while in the verse

"Most ponderous and substantial things"

the second syllable is suppressed or silent.

Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three principal classes of syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from Paradise Lost he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them, by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

With loss of Eden, till one greater man

0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2

Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top

2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1

Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire

0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed

1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2

In the beginning, how the heavens and earth

0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Rose out of chaos.[2] 2 0 0 2 0

It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew Arnold's Forsaken Merman)—

"And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"—

we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "soul, Merman" are respectively cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below.

The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W. Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says, "un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable, and Je-rusalem … are naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables, and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word, or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further illustrated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the second syllable. In the line

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit"

he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "illustrates with its four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis." The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent." (All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old English Verse,' in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse—that is, the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.

According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical scheme. In the verse

"Mary had a little lamb,"

the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons, and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical reasons.

The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict, the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In both cases exceptions are of course numerous.

The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where—as commonly read—the prose- (word-) accent triumphs.

The blessed damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of heaven.

(Rossetti: The Blessed Damozel.)

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lover's tears.

(Shakspere: Romeo and Juliet, I. i. 196 ff.)

Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,

And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes.

(Shakspere: ib. V. i. 68 ff.)

Till, at his second bidding, Darkness fled, Light shone, and order from disorder sprung. Swift to their several quarters hasted then The cumbrous elements—Earth, Flood, Air, Fire; And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven Flew upward, spirited with various forms, That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move.

(Milton: Paradise Lost, iii. 712 ff.)

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barred.

(Keats: Lamia, i. 47 ff.)

"Boys!" shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen To her false daughters in the pool; for none Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say. Back rode we to my father's camp, and found He thrice had sent a herald to the gates.

(Tennyson: The Princess, v. 318 ff.)

Sequestered nest!—this kingdom, limited

Alone by one old populous green wall; Tenanted by the ever-busy flies, Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders; Each family of the silver-threaded moss— Which, look through near, this way, and it appears A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh Of bulrush whitening in the sun: laugh now!

(Browning: Paracelsus, i. 36 ff.)

On the other hand, we find verses showing a conflict between prose and verse accent, where the verse-accent may be regarded as triumphing wholly or in part. Where this triumph is complete, the accent is said to be wrenched; as, for example, in old ballad endings like "north countree."[3] Where there is a compromise effected in reading, the accent is said to be hovering; as in one of Shakspere's songs—

"It was a lover and his lass …

That o'er the green corn-field did pass."

I sat with Love upon a woodside well,

Leaning across the water, I and he;

Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,

But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell: Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell. And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

(Rossetti: Willowwood. House of Life, Sonnet xlix.)

I wish my grave were growing green,

A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,

And I in Helen's arms lying, On fair Kirconnell lea.

(Fair Helen; old ballad.)

For the stars and the winds are unto her

As raiment, as songs of the harp-player.

(Swinburne: Chorus in Atalanta in Calydon.)

Nothing is better, I well think,

Than love; the hidden well-water Is not so delicate to drink: This was well seen of me and her.

(Swinburne: The Leper.)

These wrenched accents are characteristic of one phase of the so-called "pre-Raphaelite" poetry of the Victorian period; in part, no doubt, they are due to the influence of the old ballads. My colleague Professor Newcomer has suggested that they are partly due, also, to a dislike for the combative accent which would occur where two heavy syllables came together (accented as commonly) in a compound like "harp-player."

Of special interest are the examples of wrenched and hovering accent found in the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey—more especially in Wyatt. These mark the time when the syllable-counting principle was coming into prominence in English verse, under the new culture of the days of Henry VIII. The first conscious followers of this principle seem to have given it such prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the requisite number of syllables, whether the accents conformed to any regular system or not. In the case of Wyatt we can also compare the original forms of many of his poems, as preserved in manuscript, with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557). (See Dr. Flügel's transcriptions from the Wyatt Mss., in Anglia, vol. xviii.) The following is the octave of one of the sonnets, as found in the Ms.:

"Avysing the bright bemes of these fayer Iyes

where he is that myn oft moisteth and wassheth

the werid mynde streght from the hert departeth

for to rest in his woroldly paradise

And fynde the swete bitter under this gyse

what webbes he hath wrought well he parceveth

whereby with himselfe on love he playneth

that spurreth with fyer: and bridillith with Ise."

(Anglia, xviii. 465.)

Compare this with the revised form in Tottel's edition:

"Avisyng the bright beames of those fayre eyes,

Where he abides that mine oft moistes and washeth:

The weried mynd streight from the hart departeth,

To rest within hys worldly Paradise,

And bitter findes the swete, under this gyse.

What webbes there he hath wrought, well he preceaveth

Whereby then with him self on love he playneth,

That spurs wyth fire, and brydleth eke with yse."

(Arber Reprint, p. 40.)

It appears that this revision was the work of the editor, who had a better sense of true English rhythm than the poet himself. Alscher, however, in his work on Wyatt, contends that Wyatt doubtless revised his own verses so as to give them their finished form. (See Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine Stellung, etc., p. 49.) Other lines in Wyatt's verse where the number of syllables is counted but where the accents are faulty, are these:

"The long love that in my thought I harbour."

"And there campeth displaying his banner."

"And there him hideth and not appeareth."

"For good is the life, ending faithfully."

Another large group of hovering accents is that formed by French words with such terminations as -our, -ance, -ace, -age, -ant, -ess. In such cases the original tendency of the word was to accent the final syllable; but the general tendency of English accents being recessive, the words often passed through a transitional period when the accent was variable or "hovering." The first of the four lines just quoted shows us a word of this character.

For an interesting presentation of certain phases of the laws of stress in English verse, see Robert Bridges's Milton's Prosody (ed. 1901), Appendix J, "on the Rules of Stress Rhythms."