Glossary Of Verse Forms Flashcards
In Memoriam
The stanza composed of four lines of iambic tetrameter rhyming abba.
Example: This can be found in a stanza of Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.”
Ballad
The typical stanza of the folk ballad. The length of the lines in ballad stanzas, just as in sprung rhythm poetry and Old English verse, is determined by the number of stressed syllables only. The rhyme scheme is abcb.
Example: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ottava Rime
Eight-line stanza (usually iambic pentameter) rhyming abababcc.
Example: Lord Byron’s Don Juan.
Rhyme Royal
Seven-line iambic pentameter stanza rhyming ababbcc.
Example: “They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek” by Sir Thomas Wyatt:
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember.
Spenserian
It is a nine-line stanza. The first eight lines are iambic pentameter. The final line, in iambic hexameter, is an alexandrine. The stanza’s rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.
Example: This is the stanza Spenser created for The Faerie Queene. The definitive example is, therefore, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.
Terza Rima
This form consists of three-line stanzas with interlocking rhyme scheme proceeding aba bcb cdc ded, etc.
Example: Terza Rima was invented by Dante for his Divine Comedy:
Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell
About those woods is hard—so tangled and rough…
Blank Verse
This is unrhymed iambic pentameter verse.
Example: Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses”:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Free Verse
Unrhymed verse without a strict meter.
Example: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Old English Verse
Verse characterized by the internal alliteration of lines and a strong midline pause called a caesura.
Example: Beowulf:
Protected in war; so warriors earn
Their fame, and wealth is shaped with a sword.
Sonnet Types
The sonnet, as a rule, is a 14-line form composed of rhyming iambic pentameter lines. From Spenser to the modern era, virtually every poet has attempted this form.
Italian, or Petrarchan
A 14-line poem rhyming abbaabba cdecde. The first eight lines are called the octave. The final six lines (composed of two groups of three, or tercets) are called the sestet.
Example: John Milton’s “When I Consider Hoe My Light Is Spent”:
Octave
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve there with my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
Sestet
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
English, or Shakespearean
A 14-line poem rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
Example: Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73”:
abab
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
cdcd
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
efef
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed by that which it was nourished by.
gg
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Spenserian
A 14-line poem rhyming abab bcbc cdcd ee.
Example: “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand” by Edmund Spenser:
abab
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey. (b)
bcbc
Vain man (said she), that dost in vain assay (b)
A mortal thing so to immortalise;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise. (c)
cdcd
Not so (quod I); let baser things devise (c)
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
ee
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
Quick tip for rhyme schemes…
Petrarchan
Shakespearean
Spenserian
Petrarchan - 0 final couplets
Shakespearean - 1 final couplet
Spenserian - 1 final couplet plus 2 couplets in the body
Villanelle
A 19-line form rhyming aba aba aba aba aba abaa. It’s most noticeable characteristic is the repetition of the first and third lines throughout the poem: aba ab1 ab3 ab1 ab3 ab13.
Example: Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
