Elements of Criticism, Volume II.Kames, Henry Home, Lord
Philosophy
Elements of Criticism, Volume II.
Kames, Henry Home, Lord
Criticism; Literary style
What is said about placing the pause, leads to a general observation,
which I shall have occasion for afterwards. The natural order of placing
the active substantive and its verb, is more friendly to a pause than
the inverted order. But in all the other connections, inversion affords
by far a better opportunity for a pause. Upon this depends one of the
great advantages that blank verse hath over rhyme. The privilege of
inversion, in which it far excels rhyme, gives it a much greater choice
of pauses, than can be had in the natural order of arrangement.
We now proceed to the slighter connections, which shall be discussed in
one general article. Words connected by conjunctions and prepositions
freely admit a pause betwixt them, which will be clear from the
following instances.
Assume what sexes || and what shape they please
The light militia || of the lower sky
Connecting particles were invented to unite in a period two substantives
signifying things occasionally united in the thought, but which have no
natural union. And betwixt two things not only separable in idea, but
really distinct, the mind, for the sake of melody, chearfully admits by
a pause a momentary disjunction of their occasional union.
* * * * *
One capital branch of the subject is still upon hand, to which I am
directed by what is just now said. It concerns those parts of speech
which singly represent no idea, and which become not significant till
they be joined to other words. I mean conjunctions, prepositions,
articles, and such like accessories, passing under the name of
_particles_. Upon these the question occurs, Whether they can be
separated by a pause from the words that make them significant? Whether,
for example, in the following lines, the separation of the accessory
preposition from the principal substantive, be according to rule?
The goddess with || a discontented air
And heighten’d by || the diamond’s circling rays
When victims at || yon altar’s foot we lay
So take it in || the very words of Creech
An ensign of || the delegates of Jove
Two ages o’er || his native realm he reign’d
While angels, with || their silver wings o’ershade
Or separating the conjunction from the word it connects with what goes
before:
Talthybius and || Eurybates the good
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