Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

P.S. for the curious. This afternoon I was looking up something else in the
Spenser Concordance and noticed that in FQ 4.2.32, Spenser says the deeds
of Sir Cambell and Sir Triamond were "compyled" by Chaucer "With warlike
numbers and Heroicke sound." He's referring to the missing section (ending?
bulk?) of the Squire's Tale. "Heroicke sound" = rhyming couplets? I'm
guessing no, but since Spenser is describing a section of the poem that
doesn't exist, it's rather difficult to decide.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 07:17 PM 8/11/2004 +0100, Leofranc Holford-Strevens wrote:
>There was another possibility: blank verse, with its capacity for 
>constructing paragraphs in the Vergilian manner, as demonstrated by 
>Milton, again citing Italian precedent. But Dryden rejected this: how 
>far was this due to the new French aesthetic (which not only privileged 
>the couplet, but required clear demarcation of line-ends) and how far 
>(without admission) to Milton's outdated and undesirable views on 
>religion and politics?

I think you have already cited all the reasons that I can think of. The
preference for clear line-endings is one that lasted for a very long time:
in spite of his work with Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson was still
complaining, in his life of Milton, that it's very hard to _hear_ the
line-breaks in Paradise Lost.

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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Leofranc Holford-Strevens]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David 
Wilson-Okamura <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
At 05:30 PM 8/11/2004 +0100, you wrote:
There are some reasonably convincing remarks about the rise of the form, if
not as I recall the name, in heroic literature in Ruth C Wallerstein, 'The
Development of the Rhetoric and Metre of the Heroic Couplet 1625-45' PML 50
(1935), 160ish
It was actually Wallerstein that put me onto this. Wallerstein was Piper's
teacher, and she argued that the heroic couplet so-called was originally
devised as an equivalent for the Latin elegiac couplet -- not heroic at
all. Piper confirmed this. But you see where my question is going: when did
something that was originally used for translating elegies and epigrams
become the de facto meter for epic?
There was another possibility: blank verse, with its capacity for 
constructing paragraphs in the Vergilian manner, as demonstrated by 
Milton, again citing Italian precedent. But Dryden rejected this: how 
far was this due to the new French aesthetic (which not only privileged 
the couplet, but required clear demarcation of line-ends) and how far 
(without admission) to Milton's outdated and undesirable views on 
religion and politics?

Leofranc Holford-Strevens
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Oxford   scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
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RE: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 05:30 PM 8/11/2004 +0100, you wrote:
>There are some reasonably convincing remarks about the rise of the form, if
>not as I recall the name, in heroic literature in Ruth C Wallerstein, 'The
>Development of the Rhetoric and Metre of the Heroic Couplet 1625-45' PML 50
>(1935), 160ish

It was actually Wallerstein that put me onto this. Wallerstein was Piper's
teacher, and she argued that the heroic couplet so-called was originally
devised as an equivalent for the Latin elegiac couplet -- not heroic at
all. Piper confirmed this. But you see where my question is going: when did
something that was originally used for translating elegies and epigrams
become the de facto meter for epic?

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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RE: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 04:03 PM 8/11/2004 +0100, Patrick Roper wrote:
>Though it does not answer your specific question,you will probably have seen
>William Bowman Piper's entry on the heroic couplet in 'The New Princeton
>Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics' (1993).

Thanks, Patrick. I didn't mean to dismiss Piper in my first set of remarks
-- his book is excellent. Looked at Brogan's bibliography last summer, but
will try again and see if there was anything I missed.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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RE: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Colin Burrow]

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this question, though I'm sure I
should. I suspect that it is indeed the case that the term 'heroic couplet'
is surprisingly late, and that that has something to do with the history of
the word 'couplet'. So if you do a free text search in the OED on 'couplet'
many of the usages before 1800 suggest that the word connoted triviality,
'posies' or the like. For that reason I suspect 'heroic verse' and so on
were preferred.

There are some reasonably convincing remarks about the rise of the form, if
not as I recall the name, in heroic literature in Ruth C Wallerstein, 'The
Development of the Rhetoric and Metre of the Heroic Couplet 1625-45' PML 50
(1935), 160ish

Colin Burrow
Reader in Renaissance and Comparative Literature and Director of Studies in
English,
Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge
CB2 1TA
01223 332483
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
www.english.cam.ac.uk/faculty/cburrow/index.htm


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of David
Wilson-Okamura
Sent: 09 August 2004 16:35
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: VIRGIL: heroic verse


The virus-catchers seem to have caught up with [EMAIL PROTECTED] and we are
back online. Thank you for being patient.

A question, then. For the last few years, I have been reading and writing
about epic style in the Renaissance. For someone who was trying to imitate
Virgil's epic style in a vernacular language, the first question was which
meter to use: dactylic hexameter, blank verse, couplets, or stanzas? This
also applied to translations.

My question is this: when did critics and poets start using the term
"heroic couplet"? The online OED, which lets you search quotations, does
not have an example of this phrase until 1857! As early as 1693, Dryden is
using the phrase "heroic verse," but this is still very late, and he
doesn't write as if the term were a new one.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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RE: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Patrick Roper]

> Maybe I should start over and say I'm looking for early occurrences of the
> phrase "heroic couplet." If Randi Eldevik is right and it doesn't come in
> before Pope, that would be interesting.

Though it does not answer your specific question,you will probably have seen
William Bowman Piper's entry on the heroic couplet in 'The New Princeton
Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics' (1993).

This makes many of the points in other replies to your original query and
gives a list of references which might have the information you want.

There is also a good heroic couplet bibliography here (which, again, you
have probably seen):

http://depts.washington.edu/versif/resources/pdf/E6.PDF

Patrick Roper


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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 08:53 PM 8/10/2004 +0100, Leofranc Holford-Strevens wrote:
>Perhaps couplets (associated with the older Elizabethan drama) could not 
>come into their own until Italian, with its stanzaic epics, had been 
>displaced at the Restoration by French as the standard of modern 
>culture. But is there anything to the point in Dryden?

Dryden, in his preface to the Aeneid, says that stanzas are "all too
lirical" for epic poetry.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Leofranc Holford-Strevens]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David 
Wilson-Okamura <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
At 02:28 PM 8/10/2004 +1200, Simon Cauchi wrote:
Not always. Puttenham commends Phaer for translating Virgil into "English
verse Heroicall", and Phaer wrote in couplets -- but they were fourteeners,
not what Puttenham calls "the meeter of ten sillables" (which he also
considered to be heroical).
I would make a distinction between Puttenham's history of poetry (book one,
in which he tries to be generous) and his theory of poetry (books two and
three, in which he is often critical). The praise of Phaer occurs in book
one. In book two, though, which deals with prosody, Puttenham lays down a
couple of rules that Phaer does not adhere to. First, fourteen syllables is
too long: ten, as you say, is stately and heroical, and twelve is
tolerable, but not more than twelve. Second, Puttenham is disdainful of
rhyming couplets and associates them with a vulgar audience.
Perhaps couplets (associated with the older Elizabethan drama) could not 
come into their own until Italian, with its stanzaic epics, had been 
displaced at the Restoration by French as the standard of modern 
culture. But is there anything to the point in Dryden?
What are we to make then, of that phrase "English verse Heroicall"?
Puttenham's book was published in 1589: by that time, not only had Phaer
and Twyne translated the Aeneid into rhyming fourteeners, but Golding had
done Ovid in the same meter. This may have established a precedent for
"heroic poetry." But it's not one that the critics approved of, at least in
the abstract.
And the critics would prevail: contrast the fourteeners of Chapman's 
Homer with the decasyllables of his Odyssey, when the longer line seemed 
just too clumsy and archaic.

Leofranc Holford-Strevens
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Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone
Oxford   scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
OX2 6EJ
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 02:28 PM 8/10/2004 +1200, Simon Cauchi wrote:
>Not always. Puttenham commends Phaer for translating Virgil into "English
>verse Heroicall", and Phaer wrote in couplets -- but they were fourteeners,
>not what Puttenham calls "the meeter of ten sillables" (which he also
>considered to be heroical).

I would make a distinction between Puttenham's history of poetry (book one,
in which he tries to be generous) and his theory of poetry (books two and
three, in which he is often critical). The praise of Phaer occurs in book
one. In book two, though, which deals with prosody, Puttenham lays down a
couple of rules that Phaer does not adhere to. First, fourteen syllables is
too long: ten, as you say, is stately and heroical, and twelve is
tolerable, but not more than twelve. Second, Puttenham is disdainful of
rhyming couplets and associates them with a vulgar audience.

What are we to make then, of that phrase "English verse Heroicall"?
Puttenham's book was published in 1589: by that time, not only had Phaer
and Twyne translated the Aeneid into rhyming fourteeners, but Golding had
done Ovid in the same meter. This may have established a precedent for
"heroic poetry." But it's not one that the critics approved of, at least in
the abstract. 

>In short, I suspect there's a certain difficulty in the way your question
>is phrased, and I think the difficulty probably lies in that tricky word
>"synonym".

Maybe I should start over and say I'm looking for early occurrences of the
phrase "heroic couplet." If Randi Eldevik is right and it doesn't come in
before Pope, that would be interesting.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Simon Cauchi]

>For the Elizabethans that Simon Cauchi mentions, the heroic meter
>is always a stanza of some kind . . .

Not always. Puttenham commends Phaer for translating Virgil into "English
verse Heroicall", and Phaer wrote in couplets -- but they were fourteeners,
not what Puttenham calls "the meeter of ten sillables" (which he also
considered to be heroical).

>My goal is to date the switch: when did "heroic verse" or "heroic meter"
>become a synonym for "rhyming couplet"?

Before such a phrase became synonymous with "rhyming couplet", must there
not have been a time when the rhyming couplet was one of the verse-forms it
could refer to, but not the only one? Trying to date the time when
reference to other verse-forms became a negligible possibility is indeed
rather a tall order.

Moreover, by the time the terms had become synonyms (of a sort), the
so-called "heroic couplet" was being used not only for epic verse but also
for satire, elegy, epistle, and various other kinds of poetry.

In short, I suspect there's a certain difficulty in the way your question
is phrased, and I think the difficulty probably lies in that tricky word
"synonym".

Simon Cauchi
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[David Wilson-Okamura]

At 07:21 AM 8/10/2004 +1200, Simon Cauchi wrote:
>I haven't got a copy of Puttenham handy, but I'd be very surprised if he
>didn't use the word "heroic" or "heroical" in connection with some such
>noun as "verse", "metre", "poesy", or perhaps even "couplet".

Leofranc H-F is (of course) correct: the notion of a heroical meter is old
indeed. For the Elizabethans that Simon Cauchi mentions, the heroic meter
is always a stanza of some kind (ababbcc for Puttenham and Gascoigne,
aabaabbab for James VI of Scotland -- before he was James I of England,
abababcc for Harington). Rhyming couplets, such as Chaucer used in the
Canterbury Tales, are disparaged as "riding rhyme." This much is fairly
well known.

My goal is to date the switch: when did "heroic verse" or "heroic meter"
become a synonym for "rhyming couplet"? I have some ideas about why it
happened, but when it happened is still something that eludes me (though
I'm guessing it's not later than 1640). Had been hoping that the full text
of the OED quotation database would contain the answer, and when I got news
last week that my university had finally purchased a subscription, this was
my first query. But I think 1693 is too late. One might hope to find an
answer in places like Saintsbury's 3-volume history of English prosody,
Suzanne Woods' Natural Emphasis, William Piper's Heroic Couplet, or the
articles that he cites in his footnotes. But no.

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East Carolina UniversityVirgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Simon Cauchi]

>My question is this: when did critics and poets start using the term
>"heroic couplet"? The online OED, which lets you search quotations, does
>not have an example of this phrase until 1857! As early as 1693, Dryden is
>using the phrase "heroic verse," but this is still very late, and he
>doesn't write as if the term were a new one.

The title of Harington's translation of Ariosto, first published in 1591,
was "Orlando Furioso in English Heroical Verse" -- which, by the way, for
him meant _ottava rima_.

I haven't got a copy of Puttenham handy, but I'd be very surprised if he
didn't use the word "heroic" or "heroical" in connection with some such
noun as "verse", "metre", "poesy", or perhaps even "couplet".

Simon Cauchi
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[Randi C Eldevik]

Just off the top of my head, I thought the term "heroic couplets" originated after Pope wrote his translations of Homer in rhyming iambic pentameter couplets.  But I can't offer any proof for this.  I may be wrong.

Randi Eldevik
Oklahoma State University







David Wilson-Okamura <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
08/09/04 10:35 AM
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        Subject:        VIRGIL: heroic verse


The virus-catchers seem to have caught up with [EMAIL PROTECTED] and we are
back online. Thank you for being patient.

A question, then. For the last few years, I have been reading and writing
about epic style in the Renaissance. For someone who was trying to imitate
Virgil's epic style in a vernacular language, the first question was which
meter to use: dactylic hexameter, blank verse, couplets, or stanzas? This
also applied to translations.

My question is this: when did critics and poets start using the term
"heroic couplet"? The online OED, which lets you search quotations, does
not have an example of this phrase until 1857! As early as 1693, Dryden is
using the phrase "heroic verse," but this is still very late, and he
doesn't write as if the term were a new one.

---
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East Carolina University    Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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Re: VIRGIL: heroic verse

[aulus]

> My question is this: when did critics and poets start using the term
> "heroic couplet"? The online OED, which lets you search quotations, does
> not have an example of this phrase until 1857! As early as 1693, Dryden is
> using the phrase "heroic verse," but this is still very late, and he
> doesn't write as if the term were a new one.
> 
It wasn't: see Plato, _Laws_ 12. 958 E: and not to make gravestones larger than will 
accomodate praises of the deceased's life not exceeding four heroic verses (tettarwn 
hrwikiwn stichwn).

Leofranc Holford-Strevebs

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