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”
