English Literary Forms 2

8/13/2019 English Literary Forms 2

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English Literary Forms


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Prosody

PROSODY : Analysis of the technical elements ofpoetry

Rules for arranging patterns of sounds and beats

Meter and Rhythm: Meter ( Measure) is thatordered rhythm resulting from a regularalteration of stressed and unstressed syllables ina line

Number of feet and syllables in each feetIambic, Trochaic, Dactylic, Anapaestic,

Amphibrachic


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RHYTHM : Natural Rise and Fall

METER: A rhythmic pattern in poetry in whichstresses (accented syllables) recur at regularintervals.

FOOT--the basic unit of meter; a group ofsyllables forming a metrical unit; a unit of(usually) two or three syllables that contains onestrong stress.

IAMB(IAMBIC FOOT)--a metrical foot consistingof an unstressed syllable followed by a stressedsyllable .


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STANZA--a group of lines of verse, usually

marked by a rhyme scheme (a regular pattern

of end rhymes) and a predominant metrical

pattern.

VERSE PARAGRAPH--a group of lines of verse

(often in blank verse) which forms a unit

within a poem; especially common in longnarrative poems


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The Iambic

Each foot has two syllablesfirst isunaccented and the second accented

Five feet , ten syllables = iambic pentameter

Four feet and eight syllables = iambictetrameter

Three feet = iambic trimetre

Two feet = iambic dimetre

Eight feet= iambic octameter


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Identify

Awake / my soul / and with / the sun Day after day, day after day

To strive, to find, and not to yield

I s'posethe flatsis pretty greenup thereinIronbark.

Come with me now my son

He startsto bangthe wretched drumand make

the mostappalling noise.Its dreadful racket shakesthe very roofandwakesthe sleeping boys.


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The Trochaic ( Trokhos+Khoros)

Each foot-two syllables-but position of stresses is

reversedstressed first; unstressed second

Number of feet varies from two to eight feet

Double,/ double, /toiland /trouble;

Fire /burnand /cauldron /bubble.

Comrades / leave me / here a / little while / as

yet / it is / early morn

Not very frequent


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The Dactylic

daktulos= finger

Each foot has three syllablesfirst one

accented and the next two unaccented

Justfor a handful of silver he leftusJustfor a riband to stickin his coat

The first three feet in both lines are dactyls

Long, short, short


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The Anapaestic

Anapaistos ( Struck Back)

Each footthree syllablesfirst two are

unaccented and third alone accented

Number of feet varies from two to eight

I must fin/ ish my journ/ey alone

And the sheen/ of their spears/ was like stars/on the sea


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The Amphibrachic

amphibrakhys ( short on both sides)

Each footthree syllables

First and third unaccented; middle one

accented

And NOWcomes / an actof / Enormous / Enormance!

No former / performer's / performedthis / performance!

O hush thee/ my babe / thy sire was / a knight

( variations are possible)


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Stressed x

Unstressed /iamb--x /

trochee--/ x dactyl-- x / /

anapest-- x / / amphibrach -- / x /


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x / x / x / x / x /. . . iambic pentameter

/ x / x / x / x / x / x. . . trochaic hexameter

x / / x / / x / / x / /. . . dactylic tetrameter

/ / x / / x / / x .. . anapestic trimeter

/ X / / X / / X /. Amphibrachic tetrameter


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Iambus comes with steady pace,

Swift the Trochee takes its place,

Following Dactyl on pattering feet, The Amphibrach next with its stressed middle

beat,

But the last in the line and not least is the rareAnapaest.


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Rhymed Verse and Blank Verse

Rhyme : similarity between words or syllablesWe think our fathers fools, as wise we grow,

Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

One syllable rhyme= masculine rhyme

Two syllables rhyme= feminine/ double rhymeThree syllables rhyme = triple rhyme

ring, sing; ringing, singing; pollution, solution;

Word in middle rhymes with word in the end= medial

rhyme / internal rhymeAnd he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea


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Blank Verse

16thCentury

Henry Howard ( Earl of Surrey & Sir ThomasWyatt)

Unrhymed iambic pentameter Rhyme is not an essential part of poetry but has

advantages

Large part of English poetry is without rhyme

Shakespearean tragedies Miltons Paradise Lost

Today blank verse is generally preferred


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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 stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing. But suddenly with flesh filldup and heald:

The Rib he formd and fashoned with his hands.


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The Elegy

Emotion of sorrow, woe, despair

Is a lament ; a lyric of mourning, or an utterance

of personal bereavement and sorrow

Absolute sincerity of emotion and expression is

essential

Common use : lament over the dead

Lament over places, lost love, past, individuals

misery or failure, departed pet animals, etc.


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The Elegy

Greek and Roman literature : any poem composed in aspecial elegiac meter ( alternating hexameter andpentameter lines)

England : till 17thcenturyany poem of solemn

meditation Now it

S the theme and not meter that matters now

Subject matter and not the form

Less spontaneous than a lyric ; elaborate in style likeThe Ode

Dignity and solemnity; no strain or artificiality


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The Elegy

Dirge

Requiem

LamentSpontaneity of its sorrow ; simplicity, brevity,

sincerity ( distinguishing features)

Over elaboration and delay in the expression ofgrief ( Fatal to its sincerity)


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Thomas Grays

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Close friend Richard West

Expresses his grief at the sorry fate of the rusticforefathers of the village who die in obscurity,unknown, unsung

invokes the classical idea of memento mori, a Latinphrase which states plainly to all mankind, "Rememberthat you must die."

It has the ordered, balanced phrasing and rationalsentiments of Neoclassical poetry + the emotionalismand individualism of the Romantic poetry

Most importantly, it idealizes and elevates the commonman.


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Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,The short and simple annals of the poor.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode(There they alike in trembling hope repose)The bosom of his Father and his God.


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Miltons Lyciads Edward Kingdrowningschoolmate

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his watery bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear

At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue

Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.


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Tennysons In Memorium

Unique elegy

Collection of over a hundred poignant lyrics,

united into a single whole

Death of his friend Arthur Hallam

Also theology, philosophyproblems of

human life and human destiny

Epitome of the philosophical and religious

thought of the Age


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I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.


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The Pastoral Eloegy

Special kind of elegy

Pastor ( Greek) = to graze

Poet represents himself as a shepherdmourning the death of a fellow shepherd

Used by Greek and Latin Poets ( Virgil )

Renaissance to present day Spensers Astrophel, Miltons Lyciads, Shelleys

Adonis and Arnolds Thyrsis, Scholar Gipsy


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Mathew Arnold

Rugby Chapel

Death of his father

Sincerity and intensity of emotion

Passes on to reflectsorry fate of humanity; triviality

& futility of human life

Not merely the melancholy of the poet ; also despair

and pessimism of the Age


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What is the course of the life

Of mortal men on the earth?

Most men eddy aboutHere and thereeat and drink,

Chatter and love and hate,

Gather and squander, are raised

Aloft, are hurl'd in the dust,

Striving blindly, achieving

Nothing; and then they die

Perish;and no one asks

Who or what they have been,

More than he asks what waves,In the moonlit solitudes mild

Of the midmost Ocean, have swell'd,

Foam'd for a moment, and gone.


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Mathew Arnold

Thyrsis

Arthur Hugh Clough

It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest.He loved each simple joy the country yields,He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep,

For that a shadow lour'd on the fields,Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep.Some life of men unblestHe knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head.

He went; his piping took a troubled soundOf storms that rage outside our happy ground;He could not wait their passing, he is dead.


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Shelleys Adonis

( Greek=Fertility; Hebrew = Lord)I weep for Adonais - he is dead!

O, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,

And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me

Died Adonais; till the Future daresForget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!

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English Literary Forms 2