Definition of Blank VerseBlank Verse is Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is often unobtrusive and the

iambic pentameter form often resembles the rhythms of ordinary speech. William Shakespeare wrote

most of his plays in blank verse.

Example of Blank VerseExcerpt from Macbeth

byWilliam Shakespeare

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Shakespearean Sonnet

A Shakespearean Sonnet is a poem expressive of thought, emotion or idea. It is usually 14 lines which are formed by three quatrains with a

rhyming couplet for the last two lines.

Sonnet 130

(a) My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;(b) Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

(a) If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; (b) If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

(c) I have seen roses damasked, red and white,(d) But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

(c) And in some perfumes is there more delight (d) There in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

(e) I love to hear her speak; yet well I know (f) That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

(e) I grant I never saw a goddess go; (f) My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground

(g) Any yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare(g) As any she belied with false compare.

ballads

A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Traditional ballads are

typically of unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one

generation to the next as part of the folk culture.

The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds.

The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:a b b a a b b a

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c dc d d c d cc d e c d ec d e c e dc d c e d c

The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections by the two differing rhyme groups. In

accordance with the principle a change from one rhyme group to another signifies a change in subject

matter.

This change occurs at the beginning of L9 in the Italian sonnet and is called the volta, or "turn"; the turn is an

essential element of the sonnet form, perhaps the essential element.

It is at the volta that the second idea is introduced, as in this sonnet by Wordsworth:

"London, 1802"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fenOf stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,Have forfeited their ancient English dowerOf inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heartThe lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Epistle

An epistle is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter.

Oration

a formal speech, especially one given on a ceremonial occasion.

There are three types of internal rhymes:

Two or more rhyming words occur within the same line

Two or more rhyming words will appear in the middle of two separate lines or sometimes in

more

A word at the end of a line rhymes with one or more in the middle of the following line

Rhyme in the Same Line

I went to town to buy a gown. / I took the car and it wasn’t far.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary

- Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven).

Rhyme in Separate Lines

I see a red boat that has a red flag. / Just like my red coat and my little red pail.

I wore a shiny new bow upon my head. / I began to grow and it fit me no more.

I'd like to jump into the ocean. / But don't dump me in instead.

Word at the End and Word in the Middle

The snowflakes are dancing, floating, and falling. / The church bells are calling, but I will

not go.

The sky was a clear, rich shiny blue. / I knew it was true but I stayed inside.

It is fallible men who make the law. / This may be a flaw, but there's no other way.

A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. Couplets usually consist of two lines that rhyme

and have the same meter.

A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of

the two lines is end-stopped, meaning that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line

of verse.

Rhythm and Meter in English PoetryEnglish poetry employs five basic rhythms of

varying stressed (/) and unstressed (x) syllables.

The meters are iambs, trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls.

In this document the stressed syllables are marked in boldface type rather than the

traditional "/" and "x."

Each unit of rhythm is called a "foot" of poetry.

The meters with two-syllable feet are

IAMBIC (x /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold

TROCHAIC (/ x): Tell me not in mournful numbers

SPONDAIC (/ /): Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

Meters with three-syllable feet are

ANAPESTIC (x x /): And the sound of a voice that is still

DACTYLIC (/ x x): This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock (a trochee replaces the

final dactyl)

Each line of a poem contains a certain number of feet of iambs, trochees, spondees,

dactyls or anapests.

A line of one foot is a monometer, 2 feet is a dimeter, and so on--trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7), and

octameter (8). The number of syllables in a line varies therefore according to

the meter.

So…iambic pentameter means

a stressed and unstressed foot with five feet per line.

iambic pentameter (5 iambs, 10 syllables)

That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold

feminine rhyme

a rhyme either of two syllables of which the second is unstressed (double

rhyme) as in motion, notion, or of three syllables of which the second and third are unstressed (triple rhyme) as

in fortunate, importunate.

A masculine rhyme is a rhyme on a single stressed syllable at the end of a line of poetry.

Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, love, in Love's philosophy.

These three hours that we have spent Walking here, two shadows went

Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a

poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts.

In literature, juxtaposition is a useful device for writers to portray their characters in great detail to create suspense and achieve a rhetorical

effect. It is a human quality to comprehend one thing easily by comparing it to another. Therefore, a writer can make readers sense

“goodness” in a particular character by placing him or her side by side to a character that is predominantly “evil”. Consequently, goodness in one character is highlighted by evil in the other character. Juxtaposition in

this case is useful in the development of characters.

Beauty and uglinessBelief and denial

Bigotry and toleranceCalm and chaos

Civilization and wildernessDark and light

Despair and hope

When Should You Use Affect?

Affect with an a means "to influence," as in, "The arrows affected Aardvark," or "The rain affected Amy's hairdo.“

Affect can also mean, roughly, "to act

in a way that you don't feel," as in, "She affected an air of superiority."

When Should You Use Effect?

Effect with an e has a lot of subtle meanings as a noun, but to me the meaning "a result" seems to

be at the core of all the definitions.

For example, you can say, "The effect was eye-popping," or "The sound effects were amazing,"

or "The rain had no effect on Amy's hairdo."

Most of the time, affect is a verb and

effect is a noun.

Rhetorical question

a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point.[1] The question, a

rhetorical device, is posed not to elicit a specific answer, but rather to encourage the listener to consider a

message or viewpoint.

"Can't you do anything right?"

Antithesis, literal meaning opposite, is a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in

a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect.

Antithesis emphasizes the idea of contrast by parallel structures of the

contrasted phrases or clauses, i.e. the structures of phrases and clauses are similar in order to draw the attention

of the listeners or readers.

“Setting foot on the moon may be a small step for a man but a giant step for mankind.”

The use of contrasting ideas, “a small step” and “a giant step”, in the sentence above

emphasizes the significance of one of the biggest landmarks of human history.

Contrary to Fact Construction

Going counter to the facts (usually as a hypothesis).

If you took that course on CD player repair right out of high school, you would be doing well and gainfully employed right now.

Apostrophe

An exclamatory figure of speech.

It occurs when a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g. in a play) and directs speech to an absent

third party. Often it is a personified abstract quality or inanimate object.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

Come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee

still."

Paradox

a statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true.

If someone says to you "I'm a compulsive liar," do you believe them

or not?

That statement in itself is a paradox, because it is self contradictory, which is

precisely what a paradox is.

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event

characterized by an incongruity, or contrast, between what the

expectations of a situation are and what is really the case.

(see website)

An ad hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or

argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim

or argument.

(Latin for "to the man" or "to the person“)

Verbs carry the idea of being or action in the sentence.

I am a student.

The students passed all their courses.

First, some verbs require an object to complete their meaning:

"She gave _____ ?" Gave what?

She gave money to the church.

These verbs are called transitive.

Verbs that are intransitive do not require objects:

"The building collapsed."

In English, you cannot tell the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb by its form; you have to see how the verb

is functioning within the sentence.

In fact, a verb can be both transitive and intransitive:

"The monster collapsed the building by sitting on it."

Verbs are also classified as either finite or non-finite.

A finite verb makes an assertion or expresses a state of being and can stand by itself as the main verb of a sentence.

The truck demolished the restaurant.The leaves were yellow and sickly.

Non-finite verbs (think "unfinished") cannot, by themselves, be main verbs:

The broken window . . .

The wheezing gentleman . . .

Participle: a verb form acting as an adjective.

The running dog chased the fluttering moth. A present participle (like running or fluttering) describes a present condition; a past participle

describes something that has happened:

"The completely rotted tooth finally fell out of his mouth."

Infinitive: the root of a verb plus the word to.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

A present infinitive describes a present condition: "I like to sleep."

The perfect infinitive describes a time earlier than that of the verb:

"I would like to have won that game."

The Split Infinitive

An infinitive is said to be "split" when a word (often an adverb) or phrase sneaks between the to of the infinitive and the root of the verb: "to boldly go,"

being the most famous of its kind.

Gerund: a verb form, ending in -ing, which acts as a noun.

Running in the park after dark can be dangerous.

Gerunds are frequently accompanied by other associated words making up a

gerund phrase ("running in the park after dark").

Because gerunds and gerund phrases are nouns, they can be used in any way that a noun can be used:

as subject: Being king can be dangerous for your health.

as object of the verb: He didn't particularly like being king.

as object of a preposition: He wrote a book about

being king.