The Strict Metrical Tradition: Variations in the Literary Iambic Pentameter from Sidney and Spenser to Matthew Arnold

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

I approach this book not as an expert metrist, but as a devotee of the
English poetic tradition and as a practising poet interested in
variations on the basic iambic-pentameter line.

Keppel-Jones’s “strict metrical tradition” is a system of writing
decasyllabic verse that, he believes, was perfected by Sidney and
Spenser, and continued into mid-Victorian times. It is “strict”
because it evolved a series of permissible variations in combinations of
stressed and unstressed syllables to provide pleasurable variety without
endangering the metrical norm. He gives exhaustive examples of the
phenomenon in nondramatic verse drawn from representative examples by
major poets.

Unlike some metrists, Keppel-Jones allows for alternative ways of
interpreting the stress patterns in verse. He acknowledges, sensibly,
that context can affect stress. At the same time, his system involves
problems. Thus I have difficulty in recognizing the “minor ionic”
(UU//), as distinct from a pyrrhic foot (UU) followed by a spondee (//).
More seriously, his metrical units (choriamb, minor ionic, third
epirite) are essentially artificial because independent of grammatical
or syntactical considerations. For myself, I just cannot accept (to take
an especially blatant example) that in Thomson’s line “And from the
bosom of yon dropping cloud” the syllables in bold type constitute a
legitimate, isolatable unit.

I am frankly skeptical about a “strict” metrical tradition. As
Robert Graves once remarked, the natural response to a straitjacket is
to try to get out of it. I have an obstinate suspicion that what
Keppel-Jones calls “flagrant irregularities” have to be explained
(preferably explained away) in the interests of the system rather than
those of the poet. Often, they present no difficulties if one follows
the words rather than the purported metrical scheme, or suggest
deliberate awkwardness as part of the poetic effect.

In short, then, I am unconvinced by Keppel-Jones’s thesis, which I
consider wrongheaded. (Interested readers should consult D.W.
Harding’s Words Into Rhythm, a radical account that Keppel-Jones
ignores.) But I admire the exhaustiveness of his research and the
clarity of his argument.