Poetic Forms

Penny’s presentation

Poetic Form

• A poetic form indicates the way that a poem is structures by recurrent patterns of rhythms and words.

• There are three main types of structures: (1) Stanzas, which have a recurrent pattern of meter, line length, and rhyme; (2) Blank verse, which has a recurrent pattern of meter and line length but without rhyme; and (3) Free verse, which lacks both recurrent meter and rhyme but is structured by a variety of rhythmic and rhetorical patterns.

• Example: Couplet.  

Stanzas

• Stanzas: is a group of lines in a poem that share a common pattern of meter, line length, and rhyme. some of the most common types of stanzas are discussed below.

• Example;     I was angry with my friend:     I told my wrath, my wrath did end.     I was angry with my foe:     I told it not, my wrath did grow.At the end of this poem every line shares a common pattern of rhyme.         

Couplet

• Couplet: is a pair of rhymed lines of the same length and meter.

• Example;   My summer vacation was so much fun.   I love to skip and run.    I love to play and lay in the sun. 

Heroic Couplet

Heroic Couplet: are rhymed pairs of lines in Iambic Pentameters. Heroic Couplets are used in epics,heroic plays, and genres that depict the deeds of heroes.

Closed Couplet

• Closed Couplet: is a pair of lines in which the end of the rhyme coincides with the end of the clause or sentence. In order to maintain the closed form, poets made extensive use of end-stopped lines and masculine line endings to put emphasis on the rhyming word.

• Example:In the Pope's "The Rape of the Lock":     Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,     And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.     Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,     Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide:

Open Couplet

• Open Couplet: are fluent, with the rhyme not insistent but subtly underlying the meter.

• Example: An excerpt from Robert Browning's dramatic monologue "My Last Duchess"

Her husband's presence only called that spotOf joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhapsFra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle lapsOver my lady's wrist too much," or "PaintMust never hope to reproduce the faintHalf-flush that dies along her throat": such stuff.In this poem the open couplet gives the poem an off-handed, conversational tone.

Tercet (Triplet)

A tercet, or triplet, is a group of three lines, usually sharing the same rhyme. The lines of a tercet may be the same length, or their length may vary.Example: Thomas Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain"And as the smart ship grewIn stature, grace, and hue,In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

-Here the third line of each stanza, in Iambic Hexameter, is twice the length of the first two.

Terza rima

In terza rima: the tercets are linked by a pattern of shared rhymes: the first and last lines of each stanza rhyme, and the middle line rhymes with the first and third lines.Example:O wild West Wind, thou breath of autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Quatrain

The quatrain, consisting of four lines, is the most common stanza in English poetry. A quatrain may use a variety of meters and rhyme schemes.Example: In William Blake's "The Garden of Love"I went to the Garden of Love,ANd saw what I never had seen:A chapel was built in the midst,Where I used to play on the green.

_The second and fourth lines rhyme (abcb).

In Memoriam stanza

In Memoriam Stanza: is written in four-line ABBA stanzas of iambic tetrameter, and such stanzas are now called In Memoriam Stanzas. Though not metrically unusual, given the length of the work, the meter creates a tonal effect which often divides reader.Example: Alfred Tennyson's "In Memoriam"Thy voice is on the rolloing air;I hear thee where the waters run;Thou standest in the rising sun,ANd in the setting thou art fair.

Ballad Meter

Ballad meter: is one of the most commonly used quatrains in English poetry, it alternates iambic tetrameter and Iambic Trimeter.Example:Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner":All in a hot and copper sky,The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon.

Refrain

Refrain: is a word, a phrase, a line, or a group of lines repeated at intervals in a poem. It is a common feature of folk ballads and of Elizabethan songs.Example: The Elizabethan song, such as the clown Feste's refrain in the song that concludes Shakespeare's twelfth Night: "For the rain it rained every day."The refrain comes at the end of the stanza.

Sonnet

• Lyric poem written in a single stanza consists of 14 lines of iambic pentameter.

Italian Sonnet

• rhymes divided into a group of 8 lines (the octave) followed by 6 lines (the sestet)

• Rhyme scheme: abba abba cde cde or cdc cdc, or cdc dcd.

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet

• 3 quatrains and a final couplet, which rhyme abab cdcd efef gg

• It gives more leeway to English writers, and fewer rhyming words than Italian sonnets.

Volta (turn)

• Comes at the start of the sestet. The turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.

Sonnet Sequence

• A series of poems on the same topic

Example: Sir Phillip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare’s own sonnets, Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti

Curtal sonnet

• A sonnet of 11 lines rhyming abcabc dcbdc or abcabc dbcdc with the last line a tail or a half line.

Example: Modern Love by George Meredith.

Blank Verse

• Unrhymed iambic pentameter; contains 5 feet per line, each foot consisting of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.

Example: Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Free Verse

• Poetry organized to the cadences and image patterns rather than to a regular metrical scheme. Lacks rhyme. Its rhythms are based on patterned elements such as sounds, words and phrases…