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The Discipline of Meter

Young men, whose knowledge of grammar, of the minutest details of geographical and

historical facts, and above all of mathematics, is surprising, often cannot paraphrase a

plain passage of prose or poetry without totally misapprehending it, or write half a

page of composition on any subject without falling into gross blunders of taste and

expression. I cannot but think that, with a body of young men so highly instructed, too

little attention has hitherto been paid to this side of the education; the side through

which it chiefly forms the character. . . . I am sure that the study of portions of the best

English authors and composition, might with advantage be made a part of their regu-

lar course of instruction to a much greater degree than it is at present. Such a training

would elevate and humanise a number of young men, who, at present . . . are wholly

uncultivated; and it would have the great social advantage of tending to bring them

into intellectual sympathy with the educated of the upper classes.

—Matthew Arnold, General Report for 1852

Certainly the appetite for ballads and the power of getting sustenance from them in

very early life, and a love for other kinds of poetry, does not necessarily follow in later

years.

—Henry Newbolt, “British Ballads,” English Review

Woe be to him who makes a hell of this earthly paradise, who plants the fair meadows

of poesy with the thorn of grammar, the briar of etymolog y, and the prickly, unappetiz-

ing thistle of historical notation, who mars the face of Beauty herself with the mask of

learned triviality, so that the children come to think of her, their elder sister, as a hid-

eous witch, a harsh taskmistress.

—J. Dover Wilson, “Poetry and the Child,” The English Association Pamphlet

Patriotic Pedagog y

The “prosody wars” I describe in chapter 3 run parallel to a split among educa-
tional theorists and practitioners about the uses of English poetry in the state-
funded classroom. Whereas some still believed in the character building and
disciplinary aspects of teaching classical languages through the rote learning of
verse forms well into the twentieth century, around the turn of the century