H. P. Lovecraft

Name: Metrical Regularity
Author: H. P. Lovecraft

Metrical Regularity

Summary

“Metrical Regularity”, is a work by H. P. Lovecraft. It explores elements such as metre, poetry and verse.

Quotes from Metrical Regularity (H. P. Lovecraft)

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ The steady recurrence of the seasons and of the moonlight, the coming and going of the day, the ebb and flow of the tides, the beating of the heart and pulses, the tread of the feet in walking, the countless other phenomena of like regularity, have all combined to inculcate in the human brain a rhythmic sense which is as manifest in the most uncultivated, as in the most polished of peoples. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ Like other instincts, the metric sense has taken on different aspects among different races. Savages show it in its simplest form while dancing to the sound of primitive drums; barbarians display it in their religious and other chantings; civilized peoples utilize it for their formal poetry, either as measured quantity, like that of Greek and Roman verse, or as measured accentual stress, like that of our own English verse. Precision of metre is thus no mere display of meretricious ornament, but a logical evolution from eminently natural sources. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ As old a critic as Dionysius of Halicarnassus and as modern an philosopher as Hegel have each affirmed that versification in poetry is not alone a necessary attribute, but the very foundation as well; Hegel, indeed, placing metre above metaphorical imagination as the essence of all poetic creation.
Science can likewise trace the metrical instinct from the very infancy of mankind, or even beyond, to the pre-human age of the apes. Nature is in itself an unending succession of regular impulses. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ What the radicals so wantonly disregard in their eccentric performances is unity of thought. Amidst their wildly repeated leaps from one rough metre to another, they ignore the underlying uniformity of each of their poems. Scene may change; atmosphere may vary; yet one poem cannot carry but one definite message, and to suit this ultimate and fundamental message but one metre must be selected and sustained. To accommodate the minor inequalities of tone in a poem, one regular metre will amply lend itself to diversity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ When proper consideration shall be taken of the perfect naturalness of polished metre, a wholesome reaction against the present chaos must inevitably occur; so that the few remaining disciples of conservatism and good taste may justly entertain one last, lingering hope of hearing from modern lyres the stately heroics of Pope, the majestic blank verse of Thomson, the terse octosyllabics of Swift, the sonorous quatrains of Gray, and the lively anapests of Sheridan and Moore. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ Metre, therefore, is no such false artifice as most exponents of radicalism would have us believe, but is instead a natural and inevitable embellishment to poesy, which succeeding ages should develop and refine, rather than maim or destroy. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ Of the various forms of decadence manifest in the poetical art of the present age, none strikes more harshly on our sensibilities than the alarming decline in that harmonious regularity of metre which adorned the poetry of our immediate ancestors. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ While it is perfectly obvious that the hour of rare inspiration must be improved without the hindrance of grammars or rhyming dictionaries, it is no less obvious that the succeeding hour of calmer contemplation may very profitably be devoted to amendment and polishing. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ This contention is of course founded upon the assumption that poetry is super-intellectual; the expression of a "soul" which outranks the mind and its precepts. Now while avoiding the impeachment of this dubious theory, we must needs remark that the laws of Nature cannot so easily be outdistanced. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ If natural laws of metrical construction be willfully set aside, the reader's attention will be distracted from the soul of the poem to its uncouth and ill-fitting dress. The more nearly perfect the metre, the less conspicuous its presence ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ However much true poesy may overtop the produce of the brain, it must still be affected by natural laws, which are universal and inevitable. Wherefore it is the various clearly defined natural forms through which the emotions seek expression. Indeed, we feel even unconsciously the fitness of certain types of metre for certain types of thought, and in perusing a crude or irregular poem are often abruptly repelled by the unwarranted variations made by the bard, either through his ignorance or his perverted taste. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. P. Lovecraft, Metrical Regularity

“ Our chief but now annoyingly neglected measure, the heroic couplet, is capable of taking on the infinite shades of expression by the right selection of sequence of words, and by the proper placing of the caesura or pause in each line. ”

H. P. Lovecraft

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Quotes from Metrical Regularity (H. P. Lovecraft)

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