"Spenserian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all his powers in the office of poet. The first two years, during which he lived with his self-sacrificing sister at Racedown, in Dorset, were spent in half-hearted and very imperfectly successful experiments—satires in imitation of Juvenal, the tragedy of "The Borderers," and a poem in the Spenserian stanza, the poem now entitled "Guilt and Sorrow." How much longer this time of doubtful, self-distrustful endeavor might have continued is a subject for curious speculation; an end was put to it by a fortunate incident, a visit from Coleridge, who had read his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... ear. The principal English measure is a line of ten syllables, and the Alexandrine is used only occasionally to give it variety and weight. In ordinary English heroic verse it is but rarely introduced; but in the favourite narrative metre, known as the Spenserian, it comes in regularly as the concluding line of each stanza. In English usage, moreover, it is to be observed that there is no fixed rule as to the position of the pause, though it is true that most commonly the pause occurs at the end of the sixth syllable. Spenser is very free in shifting ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia |
