Sonnets and more

Poetic Forms

The term poetic form indicates the way that a poem is structured by recurrent patterns of rhythms and words.

We must look at stanzas (meter, line length and rhyme) and verse (blank or free)

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Verse

Blank Verse Free Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter (5 feet/line)

Blank means that the poetry is not rhymed. Iambic pentameter refers to the fact that each line contains five iambs, or metrical feet, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Also called open form verse

Yet it still keeps line divisions deliberate which separates it from prose.

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Iambic Pentameter

Iambic Pentameter has: Ten syllables in each line Five pairs of alternating unstressed

and stressed syllables The rhythm in each line sounds like:

ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM

http://shakespeare.about.com/od/shakespeareslanguage/a/i_pentameter.htm

Iambic Pentameter ExamplesIf mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, / play

on (Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare I.i.1)

Is this / a dag- / -ger I / see be- / fore me? (Macbeth by William Shakespeare II,I, 33)

Each pair of syllables is called an iambus. You’ll notice that each iambus is made up of one unstressed and one stressed beat (ba-BUM).

http://shakespeare.about.com/od/shakespeareslanguage/a/i_pentameter.htm

This is?

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,Profaners of this neighbor-stained steel--Will they not hear? What ho, you men, you beasts,That quench the fire of your pernicious rageWith purple fountains issuing from your veins!

(Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare I.i. 84- 88)

And this is?

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loaf and invite my soul,I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

(“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman)

Couplet

A pair of rhymed lines of the same length and meter.

Rhymed pairs of lines in Iambic Pentameter are termed heroic couplets

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Tercet (Triplet)

Is a group of three lines, usually sharing the same rhyme.

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows,The liquefaction of her clothes.(“Upon Julia’s Clothes” by Robert Herrick)

The line length may be the same or it may vary

And as the smart ship grewIn stature, grace, and hue,In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.(“The Convergence of the Twain” by Thomas Hardy)

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Quatrain

Consists of four lines and is the most common stanza form in English poetry.

May use a variety of meter and rhyme schemes. The most frequent rhyme scheme is that in which the second and forth line rhyme (abcb)

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Refrain

Is a word, a phrase, or a group of lines repeated at intervals in a poem.

It is a common feature of folk ballads and of Elizabethan songs.

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Sonnet

Is a Lyric poem, written in a single stanza that usually consists of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.

Italian Sonnet (Petrarchan) Named after Petrarch, an Italian poet

who introduced the form in the early fourteenth century.

Divided into an opening octave- a group of eight lines, and a concluding sestet-a six line unit.

The rhyme scheme is usually fixed. The opening octave is abba abba, but that of the sestet may vary (ced ced, or cdc cdc, or cdc dcd.

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

•English Sonnet (Shakespearean) Nicknamed after it’s most famous

practitioner.

Features three quatrains and a final couplet.

Rhyme scheme usually goes abab cdcd efef gg.

Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms With Exercises. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

This is an example of???

When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide; "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait."

And this is an example of???Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admitimpediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.