Throughout the 15th and early i6th centuries there began to arise the popular ballads. The introduction of the loose, elastic ballad-quatrain, with its melodious tendency to refrain, was a mat ter of great importance in the metamorphosis of British verse. The degenerate forms employed by the English i5th-century poets in attempting more regular prosody were in some measure corrected by the greater exactitude of the Scotch writers, particularly of Dunbar, who was by far the most accomplished metrist between Chaucer and Sptnser. But Wyatt (1503-42) was the great pioneer. He introduced, from France and Italy, the prosodical principles of the Renaissance—order and coherency, concentration and definition of sound—and that although his own powers in metre were far from being highly developed. He and his more gifted disciple Surrey introduced into English verse the sonnet (not of the pure Italian type, but as a quatorzain with a final couplet) as well as other short lyric forms. To Surrey, moreover, we owe the introduction from Italian of blank verse.
With the heroic couplet, with blank verse, and with a variety of short lyric stanzaic measures, the equipment of British verse might now be said to be complete. For the moment, however, towards the middle of the i6th century, all these excellent metres seemed to be abandoned in favour of an awkward couplet of feet. It was to break up this nerveless measure that the remark able reforms of the close of the century were made, and the dis coveries of Wyatt and Surrey were brought, long of ter their deaths, into general practice. In drama, the doggerel of an earlier age re tired before a blank verse, which was at first entirely pedestrian and mechanical, but struck out variety and music in the hands of Marlowe and Shakespeare. But the central magician was Spenser, in whom there arose a master of pure verse whose range and skill were greater than those of any previous writer of English, and before whom Chaucer himself must withdraw. His great work was
that of solidification and emancipation, but he also created a noble form which bears his name, that Spenserian stanza of nine lines closing with an alexandrine, which lends itself in the hands of great poets, and great poets only, to magnificent narrative effects.
It was at this moment that a final attempt was made to dises tablish the whole scheme of English metre, and to substitute for it unrhymed classic measures. In the year 1579 this heresy was powerful at Cambridge, and a vigorous attempt was made to include Spenser himself among its votaries. It failed, and with this failure it may be said that all the essential questions connected with English poetry were settled. (E. G. ; X.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-For the nature of verse see E. A. Sonnenschein, What is Rhythm? (1925). For classical verse: W. Christ, Metrik der Griechen and Romer (2nd ed. 1879) ; W. R. Hardie, Res Metrica (192o) ; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Griechische Verskunst (1921) ; W. M. Lindsay, Early Latin Verse (1922). For old Teutonic verse: E. Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik (1905) ; for the transition to modern prosody: H. G. Atkins, History of German Versification (1923). For English verse: J. Schipper, Englische Metrik (1881); J. B. Mayor, Chapters on English Metre (2nd ed. 19o1) ; T. S. Omond, A Study of Metre (1903) ; G. Saintsbury, History of English Prosody (3 vols., 1906—o9). For French: Theodor de Banville, Petit Traite de prosodie francaise (2nd ed. 1872) ; L. E. Kastner, History of French Versification (19°3) ; H. P. Thieme, Essai sur l'histoire du Vers Fran cais (1916) ; A. Dorchain, L'art des Vers (new ed. 1917). For Italian: T. Casini, Le forme metriche italiane (1900) ; F. d'Ovidio, Versifica zione ltaliana (1910). For Spanish: E. Benot, Prosodia Castellana y Versification (3 vols., 1902) .