Versus albus

E Vicipaedia
(Redirectum de Blank verse)
Pagina titularis libri Vergilii a Roberto Andrews e lingua Latina in blank verse Anglicum conversi, a Ioanne Baskerville anno 1766 impressi.

Versus albus[1] vel blancus (Francogallice vers blanc Anglice blank verse) est poesis pentametro iambico (sive iambus pentametris) sine homoeoteleutone composita.[2] Appellatus est "probabiliter communissima et potentissima poesis Anglicae forma ex saeculo sexto decimo,"[3][4] et Paulus Fussell aestimavit "circa tres partes omnis poesis Anglicae esse versum album"[5][6]

Primus versus vacui usus in lingua Anglica notus ab Henrico Howard confectus est, in suo Aeneide converso (circa 1540 composito; 1554–1557 prolato[7]). Howard fortasse a poemate Vergilii tactus est, quia versus Latinus classicus (et versus Graecus) consonantia in finibus versuum non usus est; vel fortasse a forma Italiana versi sciolti Italice appellata tactus est, quae etiam nullam consonantiam exactam contibuit. Ludus Arden of Faversham (circa 1590 ab auctore ignoto) est notabile end-stopped versus vacui exemplum.

Ludus Gorboduc fuit primus ludus Anglicus versu vacuo scriptus. Christophorus Marlowe fuit primus auctor Anglicus qui versum vacuum plene usus est. Maximae in versu vacuo Anglico confectiones a Gulielmo Shakesperio factae sunt, qui multum quod in suis ludis continetur in pentametro iambico sine consonantia composuit, et ab Ioanne Miltono, cuius Paradise Lost versu vacuo compositus est. Iacobus Thomson (in The Seasons), Gulielmus Cowper (in The Task), et poetae similies versus vacuos Miltonicos saeculo duodevicensimo late imitati sunt. Romantici poetae Anglici sicut Gulielmus Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, et Ioannes Keats versu vacuo usi sunt pro forma maiore. Mox Alfredus Tennyson versui vacuo vehementer studebat, quo usus est, exempli gratia, in "The Princess," suo poemate narrativo, atque in "Ulysses," uno ex suis poematibus latissime lectis. Inter poetas Americanos, Hart Crane et Wallace Stevens versu vacuo insigniter usi sunt in compositionibus extensis cum multi poetae alii se in versum liberum dedicarent.

Historia blank verse Anglici[recensere | fontem recensere]

Marlowe et tum Shakesperius potestatem versus albi magnopere saeculo sexto decimo exeunte evolverunt. Marlowe fuit primus qui potestatem versus albi orationis gravis et implicatae effodit, sic:

You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That when they vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.
(Doctor Faustus)

Shakespeare hanc proprietatem cum potestate versus albi orationis abruptae et inordinatae evolvit. Exempli gratia, in hoc diverbio in King John, unus versus inter duas personas frangitur:

My lord?
A grave.
He shall not live.
Enough.
Domine?
Sepulcrum.
Non vivet.
Satis.
(King John, 3.3)

Shakespeare etiam imbricatione magis atque magis in suis versibus usus est, et in suis ludis ultimis finibus femineis uti solebat (in quibus ultima syllaba cuiusque lineae vi caret, ut in versibus tertio et quinto exempli sequentis); quod omnino fecit ut suus versus albus recentem esset flexibilis, expolitus, floridissimus, sic:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war—to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt. . . .
(The Tempest, 5.1)

Aequaevi Shakespereani hanc liberissimam versus albi tractationem imitati sunt, quod ad remissionem metricam generalem a poetis minus sollertibus duxit. Versus albus autem Shakespereanus a Ioanne Webster et Thoma Middleton in eorum ludis feliciter adhibitus est. Beniaminus Jonson interdum versu albo strictiore, minore imbricatione adhibito, in Volpone et The Alchemist suis comoediis magnis, usus est.

Versus albus in poesi non dramatica saeculi septimi decimi usque ad Paradise Lost haud maxime adhibitum est, epico in quo Miltonus eo licentia et sollertia usus est. Milton quidem facilitate per quam versus albus multiplicitatem syntacticam maxime sustinere potest usus est in locis ut hic:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Into what Pit thou seest
From what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provd
He with his Thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire Arms? yet not for those
Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict do I repent or change,
Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,
That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd
In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.[8]

Milton praeterea Paradise Regained et partes Samsonis Agonistis in versu albo composuit.

Saeculo post Miltonum erant pauci versus albi dramatici aut non dramatici usus insignes; pro desiderio constantiae, plurimum versus albus illius temporis est aliquantum frigidus. Optima illius temporis exempla probabiliter sunt All for Love tragoedia Ioannis Dryden et The Seasons Iacobi Thomson. Exemplum notabile tam pro offensione publica quam pro gratia formali est The Fleece Ioannis Dyer.

Saeculo duodevicensimo exeunte, Gulielmus Cowper redintegrationem versus blanci coepit in "The Task" ('Opus'), volumine meditationum efferatiorum, anno 1784 prolatum. Post Shakesperium et Miltonum, Cowper maxime valuit apud proximam aetatem maiorum poetarum qui versu albo usi fuerint, iuvenes cum Cowper suum magnum opus edidit. Qui Poetae Lacuum appellati sunt, praecipue Gulielmus Wordsworth et Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth genus usus est in multis ex Lyrical Ballads (1798 et 1800), atque in The Prelude et The Excursion, suis conatibus longissimis. Versus Wordsworthianus aliquantulum libertatis Miltoni recuperavit, sed multo iustior generatim est:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! And again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs...
(Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, versus 1–5)

Versus albus Coleridgeanus elegantior est quam versus albus Wordsworthianus, sed paululum composuit:

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile. . . .
(This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, lines 1–5)

Sua opera poemata sermonis appellata, sicut "The Aeolian Harp" et "Frost at Midnight" sunt optime nota ex suis operibus in versu blanco conceptis. Ioannis Keats versus albus in Hyperion praecipue ex eo Miltoni adumbratur, sed minus liber se in pentametrum gerit et pulchritudines proprias ipsius Keats ostendit. Versus albus Shelleyanus in The Cenci et Prometheus Unbound similius est usus Elizabethani quam Miltoniani.

Ex numero scriptorum Victorianorum qui versu albo uti solebant, notissimi sunt Alfredus Tennyson et Robertus Browning. Versus albusTennysonianus in poematibus sicut "Ulysses" et "The Princess" est musicum et strictum; carmen "Tears, Idle Tears" dicitur primum exemplum magnum poematis stanzaici versu albo scripti. Usus Browningianus in "Fra Lippo Lippi" et poematibus similibus est abruptior, quasi in colloquio usitatus. Princess Ida, opera Gilbert et Sullivan anno 1884 ducta, in The Princess Tennysoniano conditur. Diverbium Gilbertianum omnino in versu albo est (quamquam aliae tredecim operae Sabaudienses diverbium in prosa habent). Infra scriptum est locus a Principissa Ida dicta postquam ea "Oh, goddess wise" ('O sapiens dea') ariam intrantem cantat.

Women of Adamant, fair neophytes—
Who thirst for such instruction as we give,
Attend, while I unfold a parable.
The elephant is mightier than Man,
Yet Man subdues him. Why? The elephant
Is elephantine everywhere but here (tapping her forehead)
And Man, whose brain is to the elephant’s
As Woman’s brain to Man’s—(that’s rule of three),—
Conquers the foolish giant of the woods,
As Woman, in her turn, shall conquer Man.
In Mathematics, Woman leads the way:
The narrow-minded pedant still believes
That two and two make four! Why, we can prove,
We women—household drudges as we are—
That two and two make five—or three—or seven;
Or five-and-twenty, if the case demands!

Versus albus, per varios constantiae gradus, saepissime saeculo vicensimo in poesi originali et in poematibus narrativis conversis adhibitus est. Multa poemata narrativa et conloquia usitata Roberti Frost in versu albo concepta sunt; similiter alia poemata magna, sicut Wallace Stevens "The Idea of Order at Key West" et "The Comedian as the Letter C," Gulielmi Butler Yeats "The Second Coming," W. H. Auden "The Watershed," et Ioannis Betjeman Summoned by Bells. Praeterea, Glory for Me, novella a MacKinlay Kantor anno 1945 prolata, quae certamina veteranorum Belli Orbis Terrarum II redientium versu albo conscripta enarrat, fundamenta est pelliculae The Best Years of Our Lives. Index plenus fieri non potest, quia versus albus laxus unus ex fundamentis poesis lyrici factus est, sed versus albus hodiernus tam praestans quam in prioribus trecentis annis profecto est.

Nexus interni

Adnotationes[recensere | fontem recensere]

  1. Haec appellatio a Vicipaediano e lingua indigena in sermonem Latinum conversa est. Extra Vicipaediam huius locutionis testificatio vix inveniri potest.
  2. Robert Burns Shaw, Blank Verse: A Guide to its History and Use (Ohio University Press, 2007), 1.
  3. Anglice: "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century."
  4. Jay Parini, The Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry (Cengage Learning, 2005), 655.
  5. Anglice: "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."
  6. Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, ed. retractata (McGraw-Hill, 1979), 63.
  7. Robert Burns Shaw, Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use (Athenae Ohii: Ohio University Press, 2007, ISBN 0821417584).
  8. Ioannes Miltonus, Paradise Lost, liber 1, ed. Merritt Hughes (Novi Eboraci: 1985).

Bibliographia[recensere | fontem recensere]

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