POETIC STYLES AND FORMS

By: Jennifer Gonzalez and Molly Manchester

Period: 8

Romantic poem

Characterized by the belief that man is inherently good, a pride in nationalism, and a focus on individuality, emotions over logic.

Examples

INTRODUCTORY POEM TO MILTONREMEMBER:

"And did those feet in ancient time,"Walk upon Englands mountains green:"And was the holy Lamb of God,"On Englands pleasant pastures seen"And did the Countenance Divine,"Shine forth upon our clouded hills?"And was Jerusalem builded here,"Among these dark Satanic Mills?

William Blake

Romantic Man is an

individual

Ballad

Ballads tell a story and are considered a form of narrative poetry. They are often used in songs and have a very musical quality to them.

The most popular ballad form is the four-line stanza in which the first and third lines are written in iambic tetrameter (four iambs) and the second and fourth are written in iambic trimeter (three iambs), with a rhyme scheme of ABAB (the third line doesn’t necessarily have to rhyme with A)

Examples

THE BALLAD OF THE CARS REMEMBER:

"Now this is the price of a stirrup-cup,"The kneeling doctor said.And syne he bade them take him up,For he saw that the man was dead.

They took him up, and they laid him down( And, oh, he did not stir ),And they had him into the nearest townTo wait the Coroner.

They drew the dead-cloth over the face,They closed the doors upon,And the cars that were parked in the market-placeMade talk of it anon.

Rudyard Kipling

Ballads tell a story just like ballerinas do.

Couplets

Couplets are any two lines working as a unit, they may comprise a single stanza or may be part of a larger stanza.

Most couplets rhyme (aa), but they do not have to.

Heroic Couplet- two lines of iambic pentameter, also the last two lines of the English sonnet.

Alexandrine Couplet- an alexandrine couplet is two rhymed lines iambic hexameter.

Examples

HEROIC O could I flow like thee, and make thy streamMy great example, as it is my theme!Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.-From Cooper’s Hill by John Denham

Remember:Couplets as couples.

Sonnet

Shakespearean Has fourteen lines

and is written in iambic pentameter

Three quatrains and a couplet

Rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg

Petrarchan Has Fourteen lines

and is written in iambic pentameter

Composed of an octave and a sestet

Rhyme scheme is abbaabba, cdecde or cdcdcd

Examples In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant

thoughtDid Nature find the model whence she drewThat delicate dazzling image where we viewHere on this earth what she in heaven wrought?What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, soughtIn groves, such golden tresses ever threwUpon the gust? What heart such virtues knew?—Though her chief virtue with my death is frought.He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, heWho never looked upon her perfect eyes,The vivid blue orbs turning brilliantly –He does not know how Love yields and denies;He only knows, who knows how sweetly sheCan talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.

- Translation of Petrarch, Sonnet 159

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shinesand often is his gold complexion dimmed;And every fair from fair sometimes declines,By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

- Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Ode

Remember:Extraodedinary

an elaborately structured poem praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally

Example

In December,unabated,the tomatoinvadesthe kitchen,it enters at lunchtime,takesits easeon countertops,among glasses,butter dishes,blue saltcellars.It shedsits own light,benign majesty.Unfortunately, we mustmurder it:

the knifesinksinto living flesh,redvisceraa coolsun,profound,inexhaustible,populates the saladsof Chile,happily, it is wedto the clear onion,and to celebrate the unionwepouroil,

- Excerpt from Ode to Tomatoes

By Pablo Neruda

Free verse

Free verse requires no meter, rhyme. Or other poetic techniques.

Free is Free!

Example

BUTTERFLY

I am a Butterfly.I am one of the most beautiful insects of the world. I eat nectar, butI don't harm the flowers.I have many enemies.I wander through the forests playing with all my butterfly friends. Their names are; Hippy, Dippy, Hopi, and Floppy.I can't forget my best friends. Poppy and Moppy.But do you know who really are my best friends?Could you try to guess?I think you might have a good idea.YOU!I like how you like to be you and not somebody who you aren't.

NARRATIVE

narrative poem is one that tells a story. It follows a similar structure as that for a short story or novel. There is a beginning, a middle and an end, as well as the usual literary devices such as character and plot.

usually contains a series of rhyming couplets (ABAB). It can also contain any of the usual literary devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance, repetition, and so on

Remember:Narrator tells a story

Ex. Narrative poemHere is an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The

Raven.”   Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered

weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more

LYRIC POEM

A lyric poem is a relatively short, non-narrative poem that expresses emotions or personal feelings. A lyric can be an ode or even a sonnet, but does not have to be set to music.

The lyric poet addresses the reader directly, portraying his or her own feeling, state of mind, and perceptions.

Remember : song lyrics demonstrate emotion

Example of lyric

To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman

The time you won your town the raceWe chaired you through the market-place;Man and boy stood cheering by,And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,Shoulder-high we bring you home,And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town

METAPHYSICAL POEM

Metaphysical poems are lyrical poems usually containing intense meditations, characterized by striking use of wit, irony, and play on words. Underneath the formal structure is the underlying structure of the poet's argument.

Often depicts struggle between opposites May feature short, aggressive meters

Less concerned with expressing feeling than with analyzing it, Metaphysical poetry is marked by bold and ingenious conceits

(e.g., metaphors drawing sometimes forced parallels between apparently dissimilar ideas or things), complex and subtle thought, frequent use of paradox, and a dramatic directness of language

Remember: “physical” demonstrating conflicts or arguments

EXAMPLE

THE FLEA.by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,How little that which thou deniest me is ;It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.Thou know'st that this cannot be saidA sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;    Yet this enjoys before it woo,    And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two.

LIMERICK POEM

A limerick is a silly poem with five lines. They are often funny or nonsensical.

The last words of the first, second, and fifth lines all rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is AABBA.

Example: rhythm stick

EXAMPLE

There once was a young girl named Jill. Who was scared by the sight of a drill. She brushed every day So her dentist would say, “Your teeth are so perfect; no bill.”

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

A dramatic monologue is a literary form, usually a poem, in which you have one person, speaking to an audience or "thinking aloud," who is clearly a character and not the poet.

Prologue: an introduction to a play or poem. drama: an episode that is turbulent or highly

emotional.

EXAMPLE OF DRAMATIC DIALOGUESIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967)“NIGHT ATTACK

He didn’t move; the digging still went on; Men stooped and shoveled; someone gave a grunt, And moaned and died with agony in the sludge. Then the long hiss of shells lifted and stopped.

He stared into the gloom; a rocket curved, And rifles rattled angrily on the left Down by the wood, and there was noise of bombs. Then the damned English loomed in scrambling haste Out of the dark and struggled through the wire, And there was shouts and curses; someone screamed And men began to blunder down the trench Without their rifles. It was time to go: He grabbed his coat; stood up, gulping some bread; Then clutched his head and fell. I found him there In the gray morning when the place was held. His face was in the mud; one arm flung out As when he crumpled up; his sturdy legs Were bent towards his trunk; heels to the sky.

elegy

An elegy poem is a poem that is written on the occasion of or about someone's death.

an elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure

Remember: elegy is like empty. Sorrow.

Example of elegy

Joachims Du Bellay's "Elegy on His Cat”

I have not lost my rings, my purse, My gold, my gems-my loss is worse, One that the stoutest heart must move. My pet, my joy, my little love, My tiny kitten, my Belaud, I lost, alas, three days ago

Blank verse is a verse that does not rhyme, but it still has a regular meter.

Blank Verse is Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

'Iambic pentameter' simply means that each normal line has ten syllables, five of them stressed, and that the rhythm is biased towards a pattern in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one.

Remember: It’s blank, can’t think of rhyme.

BLANK VERSE

The Ball PoembyJohn Berryman

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,What, what is he to do? I saw it goMerrily bouncing, down the street, and thenMerrily over-there it is in the water!

EXAMPLE OF BLANK VERSE