Chapter 20 Closed Form

Question 1

Closed Form

Answer 1

A generic term that describes poetry written in which some preexisiting pattern of meter, rhyme, line, or stanza. This produces a prescribed structure as in the triolet, with a set rhyme scheme and line length. This includes the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, ballade, and rondeau.

Question 2

Open Form

Answer 2

Verse that has no set formal scheme - no meter, rhyme, or even set stanzaic pattern. This is always in free verse.

Question 3

Epic

Answer 3

A long narrative poem usually composed in an elevated style tracing the adventures of a legendary or mythic hero. They are usually written in a consistent form and meter throughout. Famous examples include Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneia, and Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Question 4

Blank Verse

Answer 4

The most common and well- known meter of unrhymed poetry in English. This contains five iambic feet per line and is never rhymed. (It means “unrhymed.”) Many literary works have been written in this, including Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and Frast’s “Mending Wall.” Shakespeare’s plays and written primarily in this.

Question 5

Envoy

Answer 5

A short, often summarizing stanza that appears at the end of certain poetic forms (most notably that sestina, chant royal, and the French ballade). The envoy contains the poet’s parting words. The word comes from the French envoi, meaning “sending forth.”

Question 6

Sestina

Answer 6

A complete verse form (“song of sixes”) in which six end it’s and repeated in a prescribed order through six of these. It new with an envoy or three lines in which all six words appear - for a total of thirty- nine lines. Originally used be French and Italian poets, this has become a popular modern form in English.

Question 7

Triolet

Answer 7

A short lyric form of eight rhymed lines borrowed from the French. The two opening lines are repeated according to a set pattern. These are often playful, but dark lyric poems like Robert Bridget’s “Triolet” demonstrate the form’s flexibility.

Question 8

Villanelle

Answer 8

A fixed form developed by French courtly poets of the Middle Ages in imitation of Italian folk song. This consists of six rhymed stanzas in which two lines are repeated in a prescribed pattern.

Question 9

Epigram

Answer 9

A very short poem, often comic, usually ending with some sharp turn of wit of meaning.

Question 10

Sestet

Answer 10

A poem or stanzas of six lines. This is a term usually used when speaking of sonnets, to indicate the final six- line section of the poem, as district from the octave (the first eight lines).

Question 11

Octave

Answer 11

A stanza of eight lines. This is a term usually used when speaking of sonnets to indicate the first eight- line section of the poem, as distinct from the sestet (the final six lines). Some poets also uses octaves as separate stanzas as in W. B. Yeat’s “Sailing to Byzantium,” which employs the ottava rima (“eight

Question 12

Italian/ Petrarchan Sonnet

Answer 12

A sonnet with the following rhyme latter for the first eight lines (the octave): abba, abba; the final six line (the sestet) may follow any pattern of rhymes, as long as it does not end in a couplet. The poem traditionally turns, or shifts in mood or tone, after the octave.

Question 13

English/ Shakespearean Sonnet

Answer 13

This sonnet has a rhyme scheme organs used into three quatrains with a final couplet: abab cdcd efef gg. The poem may turn, that is, shift in mood or tone, between any of the quatrains (although it usually occurs in the ninth line).

Question 14

Sonnet

Answer 14

From the Italian sonnetto: “little song.” A traditional Andy widely used verse form, especially popular for love poetry. This is a fixed form of fourteen lines, traditionally written in iambic pentameter, usually made up of an octave (the first eight lines) and a concluding sestet (six lines). There are, however, several variations, most conspicuously the Shakespearen/ English, which consisted of three quatrains and a concluding couplet. most turn, or shift in ton or focus, after the first eight lines, although the placement may vary.

Question 15

Convention

Answer 15

Any established feature or technique in literature that is commonly understood by both authors and readers. It is something generally agreed to be appropriate for its customary uses, such as the sonnet form for a love poem or the opening “Once upon a time” for a fairy tale.

Question 16

Fixed Form

Answer 16

A traditional verse form requiring certain predetermined elements of structure, for example, a stanza patten, set meter, or predetermined line length. An example like the sonnet, for instance, must have no more or less than fourteen lines, rhymed according to certain conventional patterns.

Question 17

Acrostic

Answer 17

A poem in which the initial letters of each line, when read downward, spell out a hidden word or words (often the name of a beloved person). Acrostics date back as far as the Hebrew Bible and Classical Greek poetry.

Question 18

Syllabic Verse

Answer 18

A verse form in which the poem establishes a pattern of a certain number of syllables to a line. This is the most common meter in most Romance languages such as Italian, French, and Spanish; it is less common in English because it is difficult to hear syllable count. It was used by several Modernist poets, most conspicuously Marianne Moare.

Question 19

Quatrain

Answer 19

A stanza consisting of four lines. They are the most common stanzas used in English- language poetry.

Question 20

Terza Rima

Answer 20

A verse form made up of three- line stanzas that are connected by an overlapping rhyme scheme (aba, bcb, cdc, ded, etc.). Dante employs terza rima in The Divine Comedy.

Question 21

Tercet

Answer 21

A group of three lines of verse, usually all ending in the same rhyme.

Question 22

Antithesis

Answer 22

Words, phrases, clauses, or sentences set in deliberate contrast to one another. It balances opposing ideas, tones, or structures, usually to heighten the effect of a statement.

Question 23

Parallel/ Parallelism

Answer 23

An arrangement of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences side-by-side in a similar grammatical or structural way. It organizes ideas in a way that demonstrates their coordination to the reader.

Question 24

Closed/ Heroic Couplet

Answer 24

Two rhymed liens that contain an independent and couplet thought or statement. This usually pauses lightly at the end of the first line; the second is more heavily to end- stopped or “closed.” When such couplets are written in rhymed iambic pentameter, they are called the second option.

Question 25

Couplet

Answer 25

A two- line stanza in poetry, usually rhymed, which tends to have two lines of equal length. Shakespeare’s sonnets were famous for ending with a summarizing, rhymed one of these: “Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life; / So thou preventist his scythe and crooked knife.”

Question 26

Form

Answer 26

The means by which a literary work conveys its meaning. Traditionally, this refers to the way in which an artist expresses meaning rather than the content of that meaning, but it is now commonplace to note that this and content are inextricably related. This, therefore, is more than the external framework of a literary work. It includes the totality of ways in which it unfolds and covers as a structure of meaning and expression.