The Rationale of Verse
Rationale of Verse, The,essay by Poe, published as Notes on English Verse in The Pioneer (1843), and in its final form under the present title in the Southern Literary Messenger (1848). It is the most complete expression of Poe's theories of poetic technique, although critics, indicating its inconsistencies, assert that he did not follow his own dicta.
Refuting the notion that prosody is concerned with the regular “alternation of long and short syllables,” Poe establishes a distinction between “natural” and “unnatural” metrical units. “The natural long syllables are those encumbered …with [difficult] consonants…. Accented syllables are of course always long, but, where unencumbered with consonants, must be classed among the unnaturally long.” He upholds a “principle of equality,” according to which each verse foot must be pronounced in the same time as every other foot in...
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