"Pentameter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charm is that it has the various freedom of talk.[92] In verse, he had a pomp which, excellent in itself, became pompousness in his imitators. But he had nothing of Milton's ear for various rhythm and interwoven harmony. He knew how to give new modulation, sweetness, and force to the pentameter; but in what used to be called pindarics, I am heretic enough to think he generally failed. His so much praised "Alexander's Feast" (in parts of it, at least) has no excuse for its slovenly metre and awkward expression, but that it was written for music. He ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... in tracing its pedigree, the reader is led to exaggerate the pretensions of the little poem; these are inconsiderable: and there is a conspicuous fault, which it is worth while noticing, because it is one peculiarly besetting those who write modern verses with the help of a gradus, viz. that the Pentameter is often a mere reverberation of the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... title to rightfully, And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning Would flame in for a second and give you fright'ning. He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, But many admire it, the English pentameter, And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse, With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, Nor e'er achieved aught in 't so worthy of praise As the tribute of Holmes to the grand Marseillaise. You went crazy last year over Bulwer's ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various |
