In two critical works, Dialogues on Eloquence and Letters to the French Academy (there is an English translation of both, out of print), he emphasized the insignificant part played by versification in poetry.
If the great poets of the world had never used a patterned form, there would have been no text books welding poetry and versification together.
He believes, however, versification is necessary to all poetry.
He thought the perfection of French verse impossible, that versification loses more than it gains by rhyme, and that French poets were cramped by versification.
He said that there were many poets who were poetical without making verses, and he considered versification distinct from poetry.
In versification the great achievement of Dryden was the alteration of what may be called the balance of the line, causing it to run more quickly, and to strike its rhymes with a sharper and less prolonged sound.
The best account of the movement toward classical versification in the days of the "Areopagus" will be found in Professor Schelling's Poetic and Verse Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth (Publications of the University of Pennsylvania).
I know of no very fine versification unaccompanied with fine poetry; no poetry of a mean order accompanied with verse of the highest.
On the whole, however, the theory that versification is not an indispensable requisite of a poem seems to have become nearly obsolete in our time.
It is thus that versification itself becomes part of the sentiment of a poem, and vindicates the pains that have been taken to show its importance.
Sidney's experiments in the classical versification are perhaps the most successful, to modern taste, of all those made in the Elizabethan period.
Denham," says Mr. Gosse, "was the first writer to adopt the precise manner of versification introduced by Waller.
Aristotle ignored, and Plato slighted, the importance of versification (though Plato on one occasion admitted that he who did not know rhythm could be called neither musician nor poet).
In versification it shows great similarity to the genuine works of Virgil, but also in some respects to those of Ovid.
There was little poetry that deserved the name, though skill inversification was not uncommon.
Ovid's love poems are not expressions of his own feelings for any individual, but the means by which he exhibits his astonishing facility in versification and his lively imagination.
In the longer poems Catullus shows himself a consummate master of language and versification and a skillful imitator of the Alexandrian poetry most popular among the younger literary men of his time.
Dracontius is not unskillful in his versification and his use of language, and his poems prove that rhetorical training was still to be found in Africa.
Yet the power of invective, the clearness and vividness of description, the variety of diction, and the beauty of versification have combined to make Juvenal a much read author.
Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versificationcould scarcely be improved.
The versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem.
Sapphic Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of sound with any part besides, gives the versification an entirely different effect.
The tender mournfulness of the language and few images is exquisite, and the sweet sad monotonous melody of the versification is indescribably affecting.
Shakspeare's versification is broken and full of pauses, he is sparing of double terminations to his verses, and has a marked fondness for ending speeches or scenes with hemi-stitches.
It is unlike him in versification and in the tone of thought; and you will here particularly notice that it is unlike him in abruptness and brevity.
Its brokenversification points out Shakspeare; the quaintness of some conceits is his; and several of the phrases and images have much of his pointedness, brevity, or obscurity.
The rugged versification is his, and the force of language.
The versification is very sweet, and the romantic air of the phraseology is very much Fletcher's, especially towards the end of the following quotation.
With a few splendid and admirable exceptions, his phraseology and versification are crabbed and repulsive.
His versification on these occasions has a melody, a ripeness and variety that no other pen has reached.
The enumeration of these five feminine names, occupying two lines of the stanza, is a method of versification characteristic of the mystic.
I shall add something very briefly, touching the versification of Pastorals, though it be a mortifying consideration to the moderns.
But versification and numbers are the greatest pleasures of poetry: Virgil knew it, and practised both so happily, that, for aught I know, his greatest excellency is in his diction.
Butler's first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his gifts or tastes.
Where vowels come together, or one precedes another following an aspirate, the two melt together, as was common with the older poets who formed their versification on French or Italian models.
The demand was unreasonable, since symmetrical versification is no merit in dramatic music: one might as well stipulate that a dinner fork should be constructed so as to serve also as a tablecloth.
Yet in dramatic music, as in dramatic literature, the tradition of versification clings with the same pernicious results; and the opera, like the tragedy, is conventionally made like a wall paper.
Very touching dramatic expression can be combined with decorative symmetry of versification when the artist happens to possess both the decorative and dramatic gifts, and to have cultivated both hand in hand.
It is specially worthy of note that Mr. Parkes's skill in versification has received the warmest acknowledgment from those best qualified to appreciate the bright local coloring as well as the blending of fancy and fun.
The order of all modern versification (except in blank verse, which is never popular) depends on the echoing rhyme, which marks time like the stroke of a bell, and is waited for with keen anticipation by the sensitive listener.
Even the irregularities of Shakespeare's versification are expressive; a verse broken off, or a sudden change of rhythmus, coincides with some pause in the progress of the thought, or the entrance of another mental disposition.
Yet we must not proceed upon the principle of trying how the thought appears after it is deprived of the resemblance in sound, any more than we are to endeavor to feel the charm of rhymed versification after depriving it of its rhyme.
I have still a few observations to make on the diction and versification of our poet.
The English system of versificationis founded, not upon the periodic recurrence of similar quantities, but upon the periodic recurrence of similar accents.
The variety which arises in versification from the different degrees of the coincidence and non-coincidence between the metrical and grammatical combinations may be called rhythm.
His versification is polished, correct and various, but more harmonious than melodious; that is to say, the whole rhythmical flow of his verse is more striking than the sweetness of particular lines.
Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of that I am perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic.
The whole crime of the versificationbelongs to me.
The versification is eccentric to the ear, and the subject (the factory miseries) is scarcely an agreeable one to the fancy.
The versification of The Lusiad is extremely charming.
It is almost superfluous to mention that the appellation ‘Childe’ is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification which I have adopted.
But if notwithstanding this great Advantage, Virgil's Diction and Versificationbe preferable to Homer's; his Glory for That very Reason will be so much the greater.
The fact is, that the exquisite beauty of their versification has withdrawn the public attention from their other excellences, as the vulgar eye will rest more upon the splendour of the uniform than the quality of the troops.
But such imagery, such novelty, such delicacy, and such versification never got into an "Anthology" before.
I think there is a sweetness in the versification not unlike some rhymes in that exquisite play, and the last line but three is yours: "An eye That met the gaze, or turn'd it knew not why.
The Asperity of hisVersification must be imputed rather to the Times he liv'd in, (viz.
The Sweetness of his Versification (owning partly to his own Ingenuity, and partly to his Doric Dialect) is equall'd by none.
The Versification of Heroic Poetry is what no Body is a Stranger to, which, among the Greeks and Romans consisted of Hexameters.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "versification" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
