CHAPTER III

MELODY AND HARMONY

1. MELODY

Since poetry is intended to give the reader pleasure, the poet must take some pains to use words that are musical and agreeable. A passage has Melody when it is musical and pleasing in sound.

Some sounds are in their nature less pleasing than others. The explosive consonants (as d, t, b, g, k) are more abrupt than the spirants (as s, f, v), and are apt to produce a hurried, staccato, sometimes even a rather harsh effect. The spirants, and especially the liquids (l, m, n, r), are easily prolonged, and blend with the following sounds; they give the verse a smooth, flowing, legato effect. Notice the predominance of liquids and spirants in these lines from Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey:

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.

Poe, who studied sound effects carefully, says that he chose "Nevermore" as the refrain for The Raven largely because the word contains the most sonorous vowel, o, and the most "producible" consonant, r. An amusing story is told of an Italian lady who knew not a word of English,

but who, when she heard the word cellar-door, was convinced that English must be a most musical language. If the word were not in our minds hopelessly attached to a humble significance, we, too, might be charmed by its combination of spirant, liquids, and vowels.

Words which contain awkward combinations are avoided in literary prose as well as in poetry (sixthly, pledged, etc.). Authors are careful, likewise, to make pleasant combinations in adjacent words.

Drink to me only with thine eyes.

- BEN JONSON.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE.

These combinations are much more agreeable than my eyes and thy eyes would be, because n separates the vowel sounds in the adjacent words. Tennyson never ceased to regret one of his earlier verses in which the letter s was awkwardly used in three successive words.

In such great offices as suit

The full-grown energies of heaven.

The following are a few devices occasionally used by poets, some of them by writers of prose, to add to melodic effect.

Alliteration is the linking of neighboring accented syllables by the recurrence of the same initial consonant sound. The sound must be the same, though the letter may be different: cellar: said; keep: can. The words must be so near together that the sound carries over from one to the other in the mind of the reader, or no effect is produced.

Assonance means the linking of neighboring words by the recurrence of the vowel sound in their accented syllables. We need to have a keen ear for the sound recurrence, since the spelling often disguises it to the eye.

So all day long the noise of battle rolled.

- TENNYSON: The Passing of Arthur.

When the end of a line rimes with the middle, as in the quotation from Tennyson, the long line has the effect of

two short ones. A person could not tell from the sound whether such a line were written in one tetrameter or in two dimeters.

Repetition of words and phrases is often melodious, and strengthens their effect. This is especially noticeable in a refrain repeated at the end of each of a series of stanzas. Poe's Raven would not be nearly as effective a poem if it were not for the insistent and melancholy "Nevermore" at the close of each stanza. Read aloud Longfellow's Old Clock on the Stairs, and observe the return of the striking

Forever never;

Never forever.

The repetition of to-morrow in the following line emphasizes the notion, and imitates the slow, monotonous passage of time to one who has lost his pleasure in living.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and' to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

SHAKESPEARE: Macbeth, V, 5.

Both repetition and internal rime are used in:

And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.

In connection with the subject of melody, R. L. Stevenson's essay on Style in Literature is interesting, as the thought of a master of melody and style.

2. HARMONY

Under melody we have considered the musical quality of words and phrases and sentences, without regard to the thoughts they express. Under Harmony we shall consider the suitability of the sound to the thought.

Harmony, or fitness, is a higher principle than mere melody, or agreeableness. Even harsh or abrupt sounds may be effective in the description of harsh noises or strong passions. The expression is best that best helps the reader's imagination to grasp the thought of the writer, and to feel the effect intended. This principle of writing is well stated in the lines of Pope. (Essay on Criticism, Book II.)

But true expression, like th' unchanging sun,
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,
Is like a clown in regal purple dressed:
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court.

The contrasting couplets below follow excellently well the advice they give. Read them aloud, and note the alliteration of the flowing spirants and the swift movement in I and IV, and the pauses and difficult combinations that make II and III slow and heavy.

I Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
II But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like a torrent roar.