POETRY Poetry and Prose. Sound Patterning. Prosody. Rhymes. Stanza Forms

POETRY

Poetry and Prose. Sound Patterning. Prosody. Rhymes. Stanza Forms

Poetry and Verse

Poetry is one of the subcategories of literature alongwith drama and fiction. In this sense by poetry lyricpoetry is meant.

Metrical poetry, i.e. verse, differs from prose inthat the former is rhythmically organized speechdown to the level of syllables, whereas the latter iseither orderless or follows ordering patterns otherthan syllabic principles.

Rhythm

Prose rhythm may use repetitions, parallels ofwords, syntactical units, grammar structures,sentence length, semantic structures.

Prose rhythm does not follow any presetpattern.

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice(1813)

from Chapter 1IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man inpossession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.However little known the feelings or views of such a man maybe on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so wellfixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he isconsidered as the rightful property of some one or other oftheir daughters.``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, ``have youheard that Netherfield Park is let at last?''

Austen cont.

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.``But it is,'' returned she; ``for Mrs. Long has just been here,and she told me all about it.''Mr. Bennet made no answer.``Do not you want to know who has taken it?'‘ cried his wifeimpatiently.``You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.''This was invitation enough.

Austen cont.

``Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says thatNetherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from thenorth of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaiseand four to see the place, and was so much delighted with itthat he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to takePossession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are tobe in the house by the end of next week.''``What is his name?''``Bingley.''``Is he married or single?''``Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune;four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!''

GenesisKing James Bible

1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness wasupon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved uponthe face of the waters. 3: And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4: And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided thelight from the darkness. 5: And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Genesis cont.

6: And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of thewaters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7: And God made the firmament, and divided the waters whichwere under the firmament from the waters which were abovethe firmament: and it was so. 8: And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening andthe morning were the second day. 9: And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gatheredtogether unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and itwas so.

Genesis cont.

10: And God called the dry land Earth; and the gatheringtogether of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it wasgood. 11: And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herbyielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit afterhis kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12: And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seedafter his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was initself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Verse Rhythm

Verse is a patterned succession of syllables: some are strongly emphasized, some are not.

Rhythms of poetry, compared with proserhythms, are stylized and artificial, they fall intopatterns that are more repetitive andpredictable.

Poetic rhythms call attention to themselves.

Poetic Rhythm

Literature – coded textPoetic rhythm – concentration and intensityPrimordial functions of poetry

namingpossessionhealing

Incantatory rhythms, verse spells, healing charms(an incantation or enchantment is a charm or spellcreated using words)

An Old English medical verse-spellagainst poison

This herb is called Stime; it grew on a stone,It resists poison, it fights pain.It is called harsh, it fights against poison.This is the herb that strove against the snake;This has strength against poison, this has strength

against infection,This has strength against the foe who fares through

the land.

(Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Sel. and trans. by R. K. Gordon, rev. ed., London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1954, 93)

Verse Rhythm

Rhythm is based on orderly repetition.

Poetic rhythm is based on the regularalternation of certain syllabic features of thetext.

SYLLABLE

A syllable commonly consists of a vocalic peak, which may be accompanied by a consonantal onset or coda. In some languages, every syllabic peak is indeed a vowel. But other sounds can also form the nucleus of a syllable. In English, this generally happens where a word ends in an unstressed syllable containing a nasal or lateral consonant.CV / CVC / VC /CCV / CCVC / etc.

Diphtongs, triphtongs – vowel sequences in which two or three components can be heard but which none the less count as a single vowel

BUTone syllable: hire, lyre, flour, coweredtwo syllables: higher, liar, flower, coward

Prosody(from Wikipedia)

In poetry, meter (metre in British English) is the basicrhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Manytraditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, ora certain set of meters alternating in a particular order.

The study of meters and forms of versification is known asprosody. (Within linguistics, "prosody" is used in a moregeneral sense that includes not only poetical meter but alsothe rhythmic aspects of prose, whether formal or informal,which vary from language to language, and sometimesbetween poetic traditions.)

Prosody

Prosodic features of speech:

tonestress / beat /accentintonation

Chief phonetic correlates:

pitchdurationloudness

Pitch

is widely regarded in English as the mostsalient determinant of prominence.

When a syllable or a word is perceived as‘stressed’ or ‘emphasized’, it is pitch height or

achange of pitch, more than length or loudness,that is likely to be mainly responsible.

Duration

The duration of syllables depends on bothsegment type and the surrounding phoneticcontext.

Duration is also constrained by biomechanicalfactors: part of the reason why the vowel inEnglish bat, for example, tends to be relativelylong is that the jaw has to move further than inwords like bit or bet.

Stress / Beat / Accent

Stress commonly is a conventional label for theoverall prominence of certain syllables relativeto others within a linguistic system.

In this sense, stress does not correlate simplywith loudness, but represents the total effectof factors such as pitch, loudness and duration.

Stress in English

English, sometimes described as a ‘stresstimed’ language, makes a relatively largedifference between stressed andunstressed syllables, in such a way thatstressed syllables are generally much longerthan unstressed.

Accent

The term ACCENT is sometimes used loosely tomean stress, referring to prominence in ageneral way or more specifically to theemphasis placed on certain syllables.

The term ‘accent’ is also used to refer torelative prominence within longer utterances.

Stress / Accent

The terms STRESS and ACCENT in particular arenotoriously ambiguous, and it would bemisleading to suggest that there are standarddefinitions.

Beat

Beat denote stress with metrical relevance, i.e.stressed syllables which count in metrical linesare called beats.

English VersificationEnglish poetic rhythm is based on the regular alternation ofstressed and unstressed syllables. (Duration and pitch are nometre creating features.)

Stresses are that of words stresses and marked in dictionariesby ‘ as in synecdoche /sɪ’nɛkdəkɪ/.

Scansion is the act of determining and graphically representingthe metrical character of a line of verse.

Stressed syllables are marked by the symbols / or –.Unstressed syllables /slacks are marked by the symbol X.

Scansion

When I consider how my light is spent X / X / X / X / X /

(Milton)Whose woods these are I think I know

X / X / X / X /(Frost)

When my mother died I was very youngX X / X / X X / X /

(Blake)

Scansion

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet X / X / X / X || X / X / X /

(Yeats)

‘||’ is a division marker or bar between repeated units of a line broken into sections by a caesura

Rhythm and MetreRhythmThe rhythmic structure of a poem is formed by repeating abasic rhythmical unit of stressed and unstressed syllables

MetreMetre grows out of the linguistic rhythms of the words, it is thedesign formed by the rhythms, it is an abstract pattern.

The general metre and the actual rhythm of a specific line arenot always identical.

Metrical Systems in English1 Accentual/Stressed Metre

In accentual/stressed metre the number of

accents/stressed syllables is fixed in a line.

However the number of unstressed syllables

is variable. In order to define the actual form

you have to count the number of accents per

line.

Metrical Systems in English1 Accentual/Stressed Metre

Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Alliterative Versification

The basic metrical feature of the line is four strong stresses:/ / / /

The spaces before and between the stress can be occupied byzero, one, two or three syllables, e.g. :X / X X / X X X / /, or X X / X / / X X / X, etc.

Each full line is divided into two half-lines (hemistichs) by aCaesura:X X / X X / || X X / X X /

Anglo-Saxon Alliterative Versification cont.

The distinctive feature of this metrical form is its alliteration.

Alliteration is a figure speech, meaning the repetition ofconsonant or vowel sounds at the beginning of words orstressed syllables.

It is a very old device which often help create onomatopoeiceffects, i.e. effects imitating sounds.

Alliteration is a key organizing principle in Anglo-Saxon verse.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the principal binding agent of OldEnglish poetry.

Two syllables alliterate when they begin withthe same sound; all vowels alliterate together,but the consonant clusters st-, sp- and sc- aretreated as separate sounds (so st- does notalliterate with s- or sp-).


Formal requirements:• A long-line is divided into two half-lines. Half-lines

are also known as verses or hemistichs• A heavy pause, or cæsura, separates the two half-

lines. • Each half-line has two strongly stressed syllables. • The first lift in the second half-line (i.e. the third

stress) is always alliterated with either or both stressed syllables in the first half-line.

• The second stress in the second half-line, i.e. the fourth stress does not alliterate.


Thus there are the following variants:

(‘A’ marks an alliterating syllable, ‘X’ marks a non-alliteratingsyllable)

1. A A || A X2. A X || A X3. X A || A X

Beowulf Manuscript

Beowulf is the conventional title of an Old Englishheroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative longlines.

Its composition by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet isdated between the 8th and the early 11th century.

The poem appears in what is today called the Beowulfmanuscript or Nowell Codex (British Library MSCotton Vitellius A.xv), along with other works.

The poem is known only from this single

Beowulf Manuscript

Examples from Beowulf(translated by Michael Alexander

1. It is a sorrow in spirit for me to say to any man A A || A X

2. Then spoke Beowulf, son of Edgeheow A X || A X

3. A boat with a ringed neck rode in the haven X A || A X

Further examples

Alliterative stress within polisyllabic wordIt was not remarked then if a man looked X A || A X Vowel alliterationTo encompass evil, an enemy from hell X A || A XThe ample eaves adorned with gold A A || A X

Twentieth century example - Ezra Pound: Canto I(A free translation of the opening of Odyssey 11)

We set up mast and sail on that swart ship, A A || A XBore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also A A || A XHeavy with weeping, so winds from sternward X A || A XBore us out onward with bellying canvas, A X || A XCirce's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. A (?) A || A X

Ezra Pound(1885-1972)

Significance of Sound Patterning

Cohesive and mnemonic function

Primordial and bardic poetry was transmittedorally, repetitive formal components bound wordstogether and thus enhanced memorability.

The metrical frame creates a musical body for thepoem; it may also contribute to a level of soundsymbolism, onomatopoeia, onomatopoeic words.

Stress-VerseNative Metre / Folk Metre

Sing a song of sixpence,A pocket full of rye;Four and twenty blackbirdsBaked in a pie.When the pie was opened,They all began to sing.Now, wasn't that a dainty dishTo set before the King?

Sixpence cont.

Sing a song of sixpence,

/ /

A pocket full of rye;

/ /

Four and twenty blackbirds

/ /

Baked in a pie.

/ /

Or:

Sixpence cont.

Sing a song of sixpence, / / / A pocket full of rye; / / (p)Four and twenty blackbirds / / /Baked in a pie. / / (p)

(p) = pause

Stress-VerseBallad Metre

Ballad metre is a form of poetry thatalternates lines of four and three beats, often inquatrains, rhymed abab.

The anonymous poem Sir Patrick Spensdemonstrates this well.

The alternating sequence of four and threestresses is called common measure when usedfor hymns.

Sir Patrick Spens

The king sits in Dumfermline town. / / / /

Drinking the blude-red wine: O / / /'O whare will I get a skeely skipper, / / / /

To sail this new ship of mine?' / / /

Dunfermline Palace RuinDunfermline was Scotland’s capital in the 11th century

Foot-VerseSyllable-Stress Verse / Accentual-Syllabic Metre

After the Norman Conquest, from the 12th century on

accentual-syllabic versification started to appear.

It went hand in hand with strophic construction and

rhyming line endings.

Out of stressed and unstressed syllables metrical feet

were created after the pattern of ancient Greek and

Latin poetry.

In accentual syllabic foot-verse both the number of

stressed and unstressed syllables are fixed, and also

their respective positions in the poetic line.

Foot VerseStressed / Accentual-Syllabic Metre

Ancient Greek and Latin prosody is quantitative, i.e.

the regular alternation of syllables is based on their

duration. Quantitative versification makes distinction

between long and short syllables.

A syllable is long if the vowel sound in it is long or if it

Is short but followed by more two or more consonants.

A syllable is short if the vowel sound in it is short and

Is followed by zero or one consonant sound.

Accentual-Syllabic Metre / Quantitative Versification

English accentual-syllabic foot-verse is sometimescalled quantitative. It is, however, is inaccurate.

But quantitative versification is based on the‘quantity’, i.e. the duration of a syllable.Apart from a few technical experiments, duration ofsyllables is not a metre constitutive principle in Englishverse.

Quantitative versification makes metrical feet usingshort and long syllables.

Quantitative VersificationMetrical Feet

The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a lineof verse in quantitative versification.The foot is a purely metrical unit; there is no inherentrelation to a word or phrase as a unit of meaning orsyntax.A foot is composed of syllables, the number of whichis limited.The feet are classified first by the number of syllablesin the foot (disyllabic feet have two, trisyllabic three,And tetrasyllabic four syllables), and by the pattern ofvowel lengths.

Qualitative vs. quantitative metre(from the Wikipedia entry on ‘Prosody’)

The meter of much poetry of the Western world andelsewhere is based on particular patterns of syllables ofparticular types. The familiar type of meter in Englishlanguage poetry is called qualitative meter, with stressedsyllables coming at regular intervals (e.g. in iambicpentameter, typically every even-numbered syllable). ManyRomance languages use a scheme that is somewhatsimilar but where the position of only one particularstressed syllable (e.g. the last) needs to be fixed. Themeter of the old Germanic poetry of languages such as OldNorse and Old English was radically different, but still wasbased on stress patterns.

Qualitative vs. quantitative metre(from the Wikipedia entry on ‘Prosody’)

Many classical languages, however, use a different scheme known as quantitative metre, where patterns arebased on syllable weight rather than stress. In dactylichexameter of Classical Latin and Classical Greek, forexample, each of the six feet making up the line was eithera dactyl (long-short-short) or spondee (long-long), where along syllable was literally one that took longer to pronouncethan a short syllable: specifically, a syllable consisting of along vowel or diphthong or followed by two consonants.The stress pattern of the words made no difference to themeter. A number of other ancient languages also usedquantitative meter, such as Sanskrit and Classical Arabic(but not Biblical Hebrew).

Quantitative VersificationMost common feet

(symbols: ¯ = long syllable, ˘ = short syllable)

iamb or iambic foot: ˘ ¯trochee or trochaic foot: ¯ ˘anapaest or anapaestic foot: ˘ ˘ ¯dactyl of dactylic foot: ¯ ˘ ˘spondee or spondaic foot: ¯ ¯pyrrhic or pyrrhic foot: ˘ ˘ tribrach: ˘ ˘ ˘molossus: ¯ ¯ ¯minor ionic: ˘ ˘ ¯ ¯choriamb: ¯ ˘˘ ¯

English Accentual-Syllabic Metre

English prosody is based on the regularalternation of stressed and unstressedsyllables.

Consequently classical Greek and Latinquantitative metrical feet are translated intosyllable stresses: 'long' becomes 'stressed' (or'accented'), and 'short' becomes 'unstressed‘(or 'unaccented').


For example, an iamb, which is short-long in classicalmeter, becomes unstressed-stressed, as in the Englishword “today”; a trochee is constituted of a stressedand unstressed syllable, as in “never”; a dactyl isconstituted of a stressed syllable followed by twounstressed ones, as in “yesterday”; while an anapaestis constituted of two unstressed syllables followed bya stressed one, as in “interrupt”. A spondee is made oftwo successive stressed syllables, as in “heartbreak”;a pyrrhic is made of two successive unstressedsyllables and the phrase “of the”.

English metrical feet

iamb or iambic foot: X /trochee or trochaic foot: / Xanapaest or anapaestic foot: X X /dactyl of dactylic foot: / X Xspondee or spondaic foot: / /pyrrhic or pyrrhic foot: X X tribrach: X X Xmolossus: / / /minor ionic: X X / /choriamb: / X X /


For the scansion of an English poem the standard

Symbols are used (the symbol ‘|’ marks foot boundary)

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet X / | X / | X / | X ||X / | X / |X /

Whose woods these are I think I know. X / | X / | X / |X /


Metrical feet add up to poetic lines, which consequently aredefined in terms of the number and type of poetic feet theycontain:

Monometer: one footDimeter: two feetTrimeter: three feetTetrameter: four feetPentameter: five feetHexameter: six feet


Thus we can discernIambic monometers (i.e. one-stress iambic lines)

Thus IPass by

And dieAs oneUnknown

An gone

(Robert Herrick: Upon His Departure Hence, 1648)


Or anapaestic tetrameters (four-stress anapestic lines)

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,X / X X / | X X / | X X /

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said, X / | X X / | X X / | X X /"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, X / | X X / | X X / | X X /You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. X / | X X / | X X / | X X /(William Blake: The Chimney Sweeper)


Or iambic pentameters (five-stress iambic lines)

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night; X / |X / |X / | X / | X / XThe rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

(from William Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence)

William Wordsworth(1770-1850)

(from the National Portrait Gallery)


Iambic pentameter has a distinguished role in the history ofEnglish poetry.

If unrhymed, it is called blank verse (e.g. Shakespeare’s plays)

Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

(Shakespeare: Richard III)


If pair-rhymed, it is called heroic couplet (e.g. Alexander Pope’sEssay on Criticism)

Of all the Causes which conspire to blindMan's erring Judgment, and misguide the Mind,What the weak Head with strongest Byass rules,Is Pride, the never-failing Vice of Fools.

(from Alexander Pope: Essay on Criticism)


It is important to notice that the alternation of stressed andunstressed syllable in accentual-syllabic metre is not entirelyrigid.

In iambic forms, e.g. a poet may use substitute feet. Thetwo syllabic spondee and pyrrhic are proper substitute feet foriambs.

Sometimes poets add an extra unstressed syllable, thussubstituting an anapest for an iamb.

Substitution

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still X / | X / | X / | / / | X /Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed X / | X / | X X / | X / | X /By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, X X | / / | X / | / X| X /He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers pushThe feathered glory from her loosening thighs? X / | X / |X X | X / |X X /And how can body, laid in that white rush,But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

Substitution cont.

A shudder in the loins engenders thereThe broken wall, the burning roof and towerAnd Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,So mastered by the brute blood of the air,Did she put on his knowledge with his powerBefore the indifferent beak could let her drop?

(William Butler Yeats: Leda and the Swan)

Leda and the Swan16th century copy after lost painting by Michelangelo


A metrical line has three levels:Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one (Donne) (iambic pentameter)1. Abstract metrical pattern

X / | X / | X / | X / | X /2. Actual rhythm of the particular line

X X | / X | / X | X / | X / 3. Speech rhythm

X X / X / X X \ X \ (where ‘\’ marks secondary stress)

Rough and Smooth Rhythms

If the three levels fall apart, as in the above excerpt of Donne’spoem, the rhythm is ‘rough’. If they tend to coalesce, as in thisline by Donne’s contemporary, Edmund Spenser, the rhythm is‘smooth’:

One day I wrote her name upon the strand

(Edmund Spenser: Amoretti, Sonnet 75)

Edmund Spenser John Donne(1552-1599) (1572-1631)


English accentual-syllabic poems may rhyme. Rhyme is theidentity of sound between words. Rhyme is not necessarilybased on identity of spelling. Pronunciation is the essence.

great rhymes with matewhereas

bough does not rhyme with though

great and meat look alike, but pronounced differently, they are called eyes-rhymes

Sound Parallelism

Rhyme is only one aspect of sound-parallelism. Based on theconcept of the linguistic formula of a syllable, i.e. a cluster ofup to three consonants followed by a vowel nucleus followedby a cluster of up to four consonants (C⁰⁻³–V–C⁰⁻⁴), GeoffreyLeech set up the following chart of sound patterns:

Sound Parallelism

from Geoffrey N. Leech: A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry.London: Longman, 1969, 89

a CVC great/grow send/sit alliterationb CVC great/fail send/bell assonance

c CVC great/meat send/hand consonanced CVC great/grazed send/sell reverse rhymee CVC great/groat send/sound pararhymef CVC great/bait send/end rhyme

Rhyme

Consonance is often called half-rhyme

I have net them at close of dayComing with vivid facesFrom counter or desk among greyEighteenth-century houses.

(from W. B. Yeats: Easter 1916)

Easter Rising, Dublin 1916

Internal Rhymes

By rhymes generally terminal rhymes are meant. However,poets use internal rhymes within a line, usually followed by abreak (caesura):

And through the drifts the snowy cliftsDid send a dismal sheen:Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken – The ice was all between.

(from S. T. Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Poetic Forms

The disposition of lines into groups falls into two categories:

Stichic poetry, in which verse line follows verse line, as inMilton’s Paradise Lost. Stichic poetry is often segmented intoverse paragraphs, i.e. passages of irregular length divided by aspace-line.

Strophic poetry, in which groups of lines (stanza) are formed,as in Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Rhyme Schemes and Poetic Forms

Strophic or stanzaic forms are often bound together by rhymes.Stanza forms are determined by numbers of lines:

Couplet – two-line stanzaTercet – three line stanzaQuatrain – four-line stanza

Stanza (Italian ‘station, stopping place’)

A structural unit in verse composition, a sequence of linesarranged in a definite pattern of meter and rhyme schemewhich is repeated throughout the whole work. Stanzas rangefrom such simple patterns as the couplet or the quatrain tosuch complex stanza forms as the Spenserian or those used byKeats in his odes.

(Alex Preminger, ed.: Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Enlarged edition.London: Macmillan, 1975)

Stanzas may consist of metrically identical or different lines.

Rhyme Scheme

Patterns of rhyme within larger units of poetrymarked by letters : A or a: first line and every following line rhymingwith it

B or b: next new rhyme and every following linerhyming with it

Rhyme SchemesCouplets

Couplet: aa bb cc, etc.

Had we but world enough, and time,This coyness, lady, were no crime.We would sit down and think which wayTo walk, and pass our long love's day.

(from Andrew Marvell: To his Coy Mistress)

Rhymes SchemesAlternate Rhymes

Alternating / alternate / cross rhymes: abab cdcd, etc.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

(from Thomas Gray: Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard)

Rhyme SchemesEnvelope Rhymes

Envelope / enclosed: abba cddc, etc.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:Little we see in nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

(William Wordsworth: The world is too much with us;late and soon)

Rhyme SchemesTerza Rima

Terca rima: aba bcb cdc, etc. (It is a type interlocking rhymepatterns: word unrhymed in 1st stanza is linked with wordsrhymed in 2nd stanza.)

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,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

Rhyme SchemesTerza Rima cont.

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)With living hues and odors plain and hill:

(from P. B. Shelley: Ode to the West Wind)

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

by Alfred Clint (1807–1883)

Rhyme SchemesOttava Rima

of Italian originrhyme scheme: ABABABCCThree alternate rhymes plus a closing coupletconsists of iambic lines, usually pentametersByron’s Don Juan is a well known example

Ottava Rima

That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another's arms, birds in the trees- Those dying generations - at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten, born, and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unageing intellect.

(from W. B. Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium)

Rhymes SchemesRhyme Royal

rhyme scheme: ABABBCCusually iambic pentameterGeoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is a well-know example

Rhyme Royal

Here at right of the entrance this bronze head,Human, superhuman, a bird's round eye,Everything else withered and mummy-dead.What great tomb-haunter sweeps the distant sky(Something may linger there though all else die;)And finds there nothing to make its tetror lessHysterica passio of its own emptiness?

(from W. B. Yeats: A Bronze Head)

Rhyme SchemesSpenserian Stanza

Rhyme scheme: ABABBCBCC

The Spenserian stanza was invented by Edmund Spenser andused it for his epic poem The Faerie Queene.

Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambicpentameter followed by an iambic hexameter (alexandrine).

Spenserian Stanza

The wicked witch now seeing all this whileThe doubtfull ballaunce equally to sway,What not by right, she cast to win by guile,And by her hellish science raisd streightwayA foggy mist, that overcast the day,And a dull blast, that breathing on her face,Dimmed her former beauties shining ray,And with foule ugly forme did her disgrace:

Then was she faire alone, when none was faire in place.(from Edmund Spenser: Faerie Queene)

Edmund SpenserThe Faerie Queene

The Sonnet

Consists of fourteen lines divided into stanzas.

Iambic pentameters (or iambic hexameters, alsocalled alexandrines, sometimes iambic tetrameters).

The rhyme schemes is fixed.

There are three main types.

The Petrarchan / Italian SonnetsJohn Donne: Holy Sonnet 19

Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one: AInconstancy unnaturally hath begott BA constant habit; that when I would not BI change in vowes, and in devotione. AAs humorous is my contritione AAs my prophane Love, and as soone forgott: BAs ridlingly distemper'd, cold and hott, BAs praying, as mute; as infinite, as none. AI durst not view heaven yesterday; and to day CIn prayers, and flattering speaches I court God: DTo morrow I quake with true feare of his rod. DSo my devout fitts come and go away CLike a fantistique Ague: save that here EThose are my best dayes, when I shake with feare. E

According to the stanzaic pattern, you can print like thie (actually many sonnets are printed this way:

Oh, to vex me, contraryes meet in one: A 1st quatrainInconstancy unnaturally hath begott BA constant habit; that when I would not BI change in vowes, and in devotione. A

As humorous is my contritione A 2nd quatrainAs my prophane Love, and as soone forgott: BAs ridlingly distemper'd, cold and hott, BAs praying, as mute; as infinite, as none. A

I durst not view heaven yesterday; and to day C 1st tercetIn prayers, and flattering speaches I court God: DTo morrow I quake with true feare of his rod. D

So my devout fitts come and go away C 2nd tercetLike a fantistique Ague: save that here EThose are my best dayes, when I shake with feare. E

The Petrarchan Sonnet4 + 4 + 3 + 3 = 8 + 6

ABBA 1st quatrain

A octaveBBA 2nd quatrain

turnCDC 1st tercet

D sestetCD 2nd tercet

The English SonnetWilliam Shakespeare: Sonnet 75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, AOr as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground; BAnd for the peace of you I hold such strife AAs 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. BNow proud as an enjoyer, and anon CDoubting the filching age will steal his treasure, DNow counting best to be with you alone, CThen bettered that the world may see my pleasure, DSometime all full with feasting on your sight, EAnd by and by clean starved for a look, FPossessing or pursuing no delight ESave what is had, or must from you be took. FThus do I pine and surfeit day by day, GOr gluttoning on all, or all away. G

The English Sonnet4 + 4 + 4 + 2 = 8 + 4 + 2 = 12 + 2

ABAB 1st quatrain

CDCD 2nd quatrain

turnEFEF 3rd quatrain

GG closing couplet

The Spenserian SonnetEdmund Spenser: Amoretti 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, ABut came the waves and washed it away: BAgain I wrote it with a second hand, ABut came the tide, and made my pains his prey. BVain man, said she, that doest in vain assay BA mortal thing so to immortalize, CFor I myself shall like to this decay, BAnd eek my name be wiped out likewise. CNot so (quoth I), let baser things devise CTo die in dust, but you shall live by fame: DMy verse your virtues rare shall eternize, CAnd in the heavens write your glorious name. DWhere whenas Death shall all the world subdue, EOut love shall live, and later life renew. E

The SonnetPetrarchan / Italian

Rhyme schemea b b a | a b b a | | c d c | d c da b b a | c d d c | | e f g | e f g / e e f | g g f

quatrains - envelope rhymes repeatedturn after line 8 (turn markers: but, though, yet, etc.)tercetsquatrains versus tercetsbased on opposition, thesis – antithesis, static quality

The SonnetEnglish / Shakespearean

Rhyme schemea b a b | c d c d || e f e f || g g

alternate rhymestwo turns: the first one after line 8 the second one after line 12quatrains versus closing couplet (summary, conclusion)dramatic quality, tripartite structure:thesis – antithesis – synthesis

The SonnetSpenserian

Rhyme schemea b a b | b c b c || c d c d || e e

A mixture of the two, the overlapping rhymes create a similaracoustic effect to that of the Italian sonnet, yet displays twoturn, thus represents a more dramatic quality. However, theoverlapping rhymes blur the tripartite division.

Semi-strict forms, loosely metrical poems

Poets often use loosely metrical patterns.It either means the employment of metrical substitutions orvariations, as in S. T. Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner,with subtle irregularities in the ballad measure, e.g.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,We could nor laugh nor wail;Through utter drought all dumb we stood!I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,And cried, A sail! a sail!

Semi-strict forms, loosely metrical poems

or the use of metricallines of irregular length, as T. S. Eliot’s Preludes,Or it may take other, moreradical forms of only hintingat the vague memory of strictmetrical patterns.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)Preludes

IThe winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimneypots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps.

PreludesII

The morning comes to consciousness Of faint stale smells of beer From the sawdust-trampled street With all its muddy feet that press To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades That times resumes, One thinks of all the hands That are raising dingy shades In a thousand furnished rooms.

II

PreludesIII

You tossed a blanket from the bed You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands;

Preludes III cont.

Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands.

PreludesIV

His soul stretched tight across the skiesThat fade behind a city block,Or trampled by insistent feetAt four and five and six o'clock;And short square fingers stuffing pipes,And evening newspapers, and eyesAssured of certain certainties,The conscience of a blackened streetImpatient to assume the world.

Preludes IV cont.

I am moved by fancies that are curled Around these images, and cling: The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh; The worlds revolve like ancient women Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Bibliography

Attridge, Derek: Poetic Rhythm. An Introduction. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995Brooks, Cleanth and Warren, Robert Penn: Understanding Poetry. 4thedition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976Fry, Stephen: The Ode Less Travelled. Unlocking the Poet Within. London:Hutchinson, 2005Hobsbaum, Philip: Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form. London: Routledge, 1996Leech, Geoffrey N.: A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman,1969Scannel, Vernon: How to Enjoy Poetry. London: Piatkus, 1983Preminger, Alex, ed.: Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Enlargededition. London: Macmillan, 1975

Documents

POETRY Poetry and Prose. Sound Patterning. Prosody. Rhymes. Stanza Forms