Or, Comment on Spenser’s skill as a metrical artist.
Or, Write a note on Spenser’s versification and metrical art.
Or, Write a note on the Spenserian stanza and examine its suitability for the purposes of narration.
Answer: Edmund Spenser was a great metrical’ artist. He was the first conscious inventor of a distinct kind of poetic diction and prosody. He knew and studied to his best advantage three metrical systems prevailing in his time. (i) The quantitative system of the classics, (ii) the syllabic system of the French writers, and (iii) the system of Chaucer. Spenser experimented with all three and learned something from each.
The most brilliant invention of Spenser in the field of versification is the Spenserian stanza- a stanza form that has made him immortal. The Spenserian stanza is a long stanza consisting of nine lines; the first eight lines are iambic Pentametre (ten syllabic lines). The ninth line is a long one. If consists of twelve syllables, in other words, it is an Alexandrine. The rhyme scheme of Spenser’s stanza is “ab ab bc bc c”. It will be seen that one rhyme ‘b’ is repeated four times and the other ‘c’ three times. This makes the stanza a very difficult one, for the poet who uses it must find for every stanza as many as four words having the same end sound. But Spenser has shown great skill in its use.
Some critics criticize this stanza form saying that it is a mere variation of the Italian Ottava Rima as used by Ariosto and Tasso. Others think that it is simply a variation of the Rhyme Royal used by Chaucer. Prof. Skeats opines that the Spenserian stanza resulted from a judicious combination of meters employed by the most obvious models i.e. Chaucer and Surrey. From Chaucer came the octave and from Surrey the idea of combining the Alexandrine with lines of different lengths. But Prof. Saintsbury defends Spenser saying that it was Spenser’s own invention and that it is his most significant contribution to English versification.
Spenser is the master of music and melody and he knows the art of creating harmony. He uses the following devices to produce music in his verse.
First of all, he uses in quick succession a number of liquid vowels and consonants such as ‘o’ ‘u’ ‘l’ ‘m’ ‘n’ etc. Secondly, he makes judicious use of onomatopoeic words i.e. words whose sound echoes their sense. These two devices are best illustrated by the passage below;
And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever drizzling raine upon the loft.
Mixed with the murmuring winde much like the sowne
Of swarming Bees did cast him in a swowne.”
Thirdly, he makes effective use of medial rhymes and alliteration. He allures the readers with “cunning baits of alliteration.” Alliteration with him is not a mere embellishment as with lesser poets. It has a music of its own, as it continually echoes the sense. Spenser also employs rhyme and assonance to create music. For this, he frequently duplicates the effect of end rhyme through unobtrusive sound echo or medial assonance within the verse:
Lo! Now she is that stone; from whose two heads As from two weeping eyes, fresh streams do flow, Yet cold through fear and old conceived dreads And yet the stone her semblance seems to show Shapt like a maid, that such ye may her know”
To sum up, Spenser’s stanza form is suited to all the purposes of a long poem like The Faerie Queene. It is suited to a description of the landscape, to the elaborate epic simile, to a description of particular scenes, situations, and events. It is also suited to the sketches of persons and to the analysis of thoughts and feelings. The Spenserian stanza, the invention of the poet himself, is longer and more complex than that of his contemporaries, with its interlocking rhyme scheme and its long last line. The fact that Spenser wrote more than four thousand such stanzas of almost uniform perfection and made them say what he wanted them to say made them sing, declaim, lull, or grate-is in them a unique accomplishment.
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