1 68 LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



the chief pause, and usually the pause between lines is longer 

 than the pause between sections ; but these common character- 

 istics are not laws, and any departure from the practice is in 

 itself neither good nor bad, but is good or bad as it serves to 

 produce or mar the musical and dramatic effect at which the 

 poet aimed : 



Dl're was the tos'smg dee'p the groa'ns : Des'pair 

 Ten'ded the sick' : bus'iest frOm cou'ch t6 cou'ch : 

 And oVer them trium'phant dea'th : his dar't 

 Shook' : but delay 'ed t6 strl'ke th6' oft invo'ked. 





In these lines the scanning is normal. The phrasing (as division 

 into sections may be named) divides each line into four normal 

 groups, but the relative length of the pauses is abnormal except 

 in the second line. The departure from ordinary custom is one 

 means employed to produce the effect, and we are sorry for the 

 critic who would condemn the enjambement at the end of the 



third line. 



On examining our sample hundred lines we find that in 

 Pope all but two have four sections one of the exceptions has 

 three and the other five sections and only three of Pope's sec- 

 tions have five syllables ; Milton has four lines of three sections, 

 but two of these contain a compound word which might very 

 well be divided in pronunciation, as 



BeeTzebub : to whom' the Arch' en'emy. 



Milton uses sections of five syllables sixteen times, and the 

 rhythm of these is characteristic of his style. ' In adamantine.' 

 ' The Omnipotent ' (there are people who would say i thomni- 

 potent '). Shakespeare allows himself great freedom in phrasing 

 as in everything else. In the hundred lines we find no fewer 

 than fifteen with only three sections, and the deviation from the 

 normal path is not accidental ; the change is employed to vary 

 the character of the verse : 



Within' this wood'en 0' : the ver'y cas'ques : 

 That did affrl'ght the ai'r : at Ag'mcourt. 



We have here a rapid, almost bounding, effect, very different 

 from the normal stately march resulting from the fourfold 

 division in such lines as these : 



