The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rhymes and Meters, by Horatio Winslow

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Title: Rhymes and Meters
A Practical Manual for Versifiers

Author: Horatio Winslow

Release Date: December 28, 2009 [EBook #30778]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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RHYMES AND
METERS

A PRACTICAL MANUAL
FOR VERSIFIERS

BY
HORATIO WINSLOW

THE EDITOR PUBLISHING COMPANY
Deposit, N. Y.
1909

COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY
THE EDITOR PUBLISHING COMPANY

THE OUTING PRESS
DEPOSIT, N. Y.

PREFACE

Throughout the following pages "verse" stands for any kind of metrical
composition as distinguished from prose. It is not used as a synonym for
"poetry." Though most poetry is in verse form, most verse is not poetry.
The ability to write verse can be acquired; only a poet can write
poetry. At the same time, even a poet must learn to handle his verse
with some degree of skill or his work is apt to fall very flat, and the
mere verse writer who cannot rhyme correctly and fit his lines together
in meter had much better stick to prose.

This book has been compiled with one end in view: to arrange in a
convenient and inexpensive form the fundamentals of verse--enough for
the student who takes up verse as a literary exercise or for the older
verse writer who has fallen into a rut or who is a bit shaky on theory.
It is even hoped that there may be a word of help for some embryo poet.

In construction the plan has been to suggest rather than to explain in
detail and as far as possible to help the reader to help himself. No
verse has been quoted except where the illustration of a point made it
necessary. With the increasing number of libraries it ought to be an
easy matter for any one to refer to most of the lesser verse writers as
well as all the standard poets.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
VERSE MAKING IN GENERAL 9

CHAPTER II
METER 17

CHAPTER III
RHYME