Humdrum and Harum-Scarum

"Humdrum and Harum-Scarum: A Lecture on Free Verse" is an essay on poetic form by the poet Robert Bridges, first published in November 1922 in both the North American Review and the London Mercury.^{[citation needed]}

In it Bridges details his views on the limitations of free verse.^[1] He argues that free verse, lacking the constraints of rhyme and metre, becomes too self-conscious.^[2] He argues instead for syllabic verse in the tradition of John Milton.^[3]

Bridges explains what he regards as the 'adverse conditions' that free verse imposes upon a poet:

1. loss of carrying power
2. self-consciousness
3. same-ness of line structure
4. indetermination of subsidiary 'accent'