Poetic Forms Flashcards
What is Verse form?
Verse form does not define poetic form but expresses it.
The Villanelle
- 19 Lines
- 5 Tersets, 1 Quatrain
- Rhyme Scheme: aba, repeated according to refrains.
- 1st line of 1st stanza is repeated as the last line of the 2nd and 4th stanzas.
- The 3rd line of 1st stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas
- The two refrain lines are also the 2nd to last and the last lines of the entire poem.
> Emerged as a french poetic form with pastoral themes
Example: Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”
The Sestina
- 39 lines
- 6 sestets, 1 terset
- unrhymed
- The same 6 endowrds occur in each stanza in changing order according to a set pattern.
- That pattern is called lexical repetition.
- Each stanzas endwords are in reverse order of the previous stanza, so the first endword of the second stanza is the last endword of the first stanza.
- the final stanza, the terset, or envoi, must deploy all 6 endwords
> Invented by a Troubadour, to shock, delight, and show their wit
Example: “Anthony Hecht’s “The Book of Yolek”
The Pantoum
- unspecified length
- composed of quatrains
- the Poem begins and ends with the same word
- 2nd and 4th lines of the first quatrain become the 1st and 3rd lines of the second quatrain, and this pattern repeats.
- Rhyme Scheme: abab
- final quatrain is different, it takes the unrepeated first and third lines of the very first quatrain and uses them in reverse order as the second and fourth lines.
> the Pantoum is malayan in origin, and allows for evocation of the past
Example: Donald Justice’s “Pantoum of the Great Depression”
The Sonnet
- Poem of 14 lines
- Usually Iambic
The English Sonnet:
- 14 lines
- Iambic Pentameter
- 3 quatrains, 1 couplet
- Rhyme Scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
> Also known as the Shakespearean Sonnet
Example: William Shakespears’s “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
The Italian Sonnet
- 14 lines
- Usually iambic pentameter
- 1 octave, 1 sestet
- Rhyme Scheme: abbaabba cdecde
> also called the Petrarchan Sonnet
Example: Jane Cooper’s “After the Bomb tests”
The Spenserian Sonnet
- 14 lines
- Iambic Pentameter
- 3 interlocking quatrains
- Rhyme Scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee
Heterometric Stanza
A Stanza with lines of different length
Quasi-Stanzaic
A Loose grouping of lines and paragraphs
Isometirc stanza
a stanza with lines the same length
How is the effect of the stanza gained?
By combining accumulated sense and sounds
The Ballad
- a short narrative
- usually in quatrains
- usually with a distinctive meter
- meter is usually first and third line has 4 stresses each, iambic tetrameter. and the second and fourth line has 3 stresses, iambic trimeter
- Rhyme Scheme: abab or abcb
- usually and traditionally a communal form of poetry with distinct subject matter, stories, that uses pop and local speech and dialogue
- Early balladeers were often anonymous, part of a community, while modern poets consider themselves balladeers non-anonymously.
- example: Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool”
The Ghazal
- between 5 and 15 couplets
- each couplet is structurally, thematicaly, and emotionally autonomous
- All lines are the same length
- no meter is imposed
- first couplet introduces a rhyme followed by a refrain that is repeated in the 2nd line of each couplet, that also rhymes with the first line of the first couplet.
- final couplet contains poet’s signature, usually including the poet’s name either explicitly or some derivative of it.
Blank Verse
Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter
- Often Called the poetic form closest to speech
- example: John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”
The Heroic Couplet
- A pair of rhyming lines that form a unit.
- Usually iambic pentameter
- Usually has a caesura
- Can be repeated to form a structure with a rhyme scheme of aabbcc
- it is more than simply an element of poetry, it is its own form.
The Stanza
Any unit of recurring meter and rhyme used in an established pattern of repetition and separation in a single poem
What is a Shaping Form?
if metrical forms are the architecture of poetry, then the shaping forms of the ode, the elegy, and the pastoral are its environment.
The Elegy
the elegy is a lament, it mourns for a lost one and seeks consolation. It is a shaping form, not associated with any required pattern or cadence or repetition. It is a formal link with the history and tradition of public poetry.
An example of an elegy is Mathew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”
The Pastoral
The pastoral is the mode of poetry that seeks to imitate and celebrate the virtues of rural life. It is pre-industrail revolution and actually extremely old, and is not written very much anymore. One example of a pastoral is Robert Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas”
The Ode
The Ode is a solemn, heroic, and elevated form. Historically it elevates, raises and exalts the subject, but in the 19th century it changed, it became a form that examined and exalted lyric crisis. an example of an Ode is Charles Simic’s “Miracle Glass Co.”
Open form
Open form, also called free verse, follows no traditional form. But it is not a disjunction or sever from the traditional forms but rather a dialogue with them.
Villanelle
Poem
Sestina
Poem
Sonnet
Poem
English Sonnet
Poem
Spenserian sonnet
Poem
Italian sonnet
Poem
