Meter
There are two types of poetry: formal and free verse, and meter
is only used in formal verse. “Meter” is the “Repetition of evenly spaced
series of beats in a poem” (Strand & Boland, 2000). At one time, all poetry
was metrical, as it was during the Renaissance. Today’s poetry is written in
different forms and meters, or without meter, known as “free form,” though Shakespeare
wrote his plays in what is called “blank verse.”
Three types of meters include stresses or accents, and syllables:
Accentual, Syllabic, and Accentual-Syllabic. Meters are composed of “poetic
feet,” defined as “patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables” (Strand &
Boland, 2000). Of the “poetic foot,” there are two main categories: the “Rising
Meter” and the “Falling Meter.” In “Rising Meter” poems, unstressed syllables
come first. There are two types of Rising Meters: “Iambic” and “Anapestic.” Of
the Falling Meters, the stressed syllables come first, and there are two types:
“Trochaic” and “Dactylic.”
To “scan” a poem is to identify its meter and the number of feet it
contains. The Greek word for the study of metrics is “prosody,” which is to
number how many poetic feet a poem has. To calculate feet in a line of poetry,
add the metric units. The meter of a poem is always determined by the rhythm of
its first line. Most English poems are Iambic and have five feet of Iambs known
as a pentameter. However, they can also be written in these metrics: Trochee,
Anapest, and Dactyl. There are two variations on these forms: Spondee and
Pyric.
Defining
Poetry and Poetics
It is difficult to differentiate “poetry” from “poetics,” as the two
are nearly interchangeable, as are the words “poet” and “poem.” If “poetry” is
a noun, then “poetics” is a verb. “Poetry” is a finished poem, whereas
“poetics” is the act of literary creation, the process. Simply put, poetics
attempts to explain how a poem is structured rather than interpret its meaning
(PEPP, 2012).
Classical
Poetics
There are two perspectives or philosophies of Poetics: Western
poetics, and Classical. Western refers to the West’s Literary Criticism of
poetry, while Classical theory is Greek in origin. In “Ion,” the philosopher
Plato described poetry as artistic inspiration that comes from outside of
oneself. He argued that poetry is written “in a state of divinely inspired
madness” (Plato, Ion, 380 BCE). In the “Republic,” Plato stated that
poetry emanates from emotion rather than rational thought, and therefore is
inferior art. Next, the Greek philosopher Aristotle, who was Plato’s student,
divided poetry into two: epics, and tragedies, although he added a third
category of comedy to his “Poetics” (Aristotle, Poetics, 4th
Century BCE).
Western
Poetics-Overview
Periods of Western history have helped to define poetry. For example,
the Romantic Era produced Medieval and Early Modern poetry, and these authors
were more concerned with teaching morals through their poems and expressing
deep feelings than with form. Western poetic Literary Criticism includes
technique, conventions, and strategies. Writing techniques have been used among
poets to varying degrees over time, such as the technique of self-disclosure.
Described as “The image of the poet within the poem, like a painter’s
self-portrait…” (PEPP, 2012), this technique creates a more intimate connection
between the reader and the poet. Free speech is another technique that has
enabled poets to contribute to the betterment of society: “The mandate to serve
as guard and witness has not lost its force.” When free speech is stifled,
dissident poets give a voice to the oppressed (PEPP, 2012).
Poetry
The term “poetry” originated in Europe and included a variety of
metrics and forms. Poetic form and utility have evolved in step with society.
During the 1800-1900s, poetry was lyrical and in short narrative form. Ballads
and folk songs were also considered poetry. In the 20th Century, “oral poetry”
became popular. Contemporarily, social activism is the foundation for poetic
criticism.
Differing definitions of poetry arose in various parts of the world.
The German philosopher Hegel defined poetry as “inner representation,” while in
the 1900s, the ideal poetry in France was musical, aesthetically pleasing, and
emotionally intense (PEPP, 2012). Yet, throughout history, poetry has been
criticized as little more than socialist propaganda.
The
Enlightenment/Renaissance
Poetic criticism sprung up during the Enlightenment that compared
poetry to other art forms. England’s Shakespeare, Italy’s Leonardo di Vinci,
and Germany’s Lessing (Laokoon, 1766) asserted that Horace’s (65-8 BCE) belief "that poetry should resemble
a painting” was incorrect. These arguments about the importance of poetry have
been termed “medium specificity.”
Romanticism
and New Criticism
In
the 1800s, poets, literary critics, and philosophers broke with Aristotle and
sided with the Expressionists. “In the West, people took to describing and
evaluating poetry based on its success or failure in eloquently and accurately
communicating a writer’s innermost thoughts, feelings, experiences, fantasies
and dreams…fidelity of moral purpose matter less than a given writer’s
intensity, sincerity, passion, and ingenuity” (PEPP, 2012). As for morality in
modern poetry, “Indecorous or lowly content and mannered or otherwise distorted
depictions of the external world are excusable as long as poets obey the
dictates of their imagination and conscience” (PEPP, 2012).
Emanual Kant and Hegel provided the philosophical argument that one’s
mind constructs the external world, what has been called "The Romantic
Doctrine." Kant explained that poetry was a work of art instead of moral
instruction. He felt that poetry should be judged on its aesthetics. Schiller
(1795) made a case for “art for art’s sake.” These perspectives gave poets
autonomy from the restraints of politics and history, allowing them to be
imaginative artisans. This philosophy has been called “The Expressive School of
Poetics” (PEPP, 2012).
Postmodernism
Early in the 20th Century, Russian poet formalists moved away from
Expressionism and emphasized a poem’s construction, function, language, and
prosody. Next, “New Criticism” in America sought to analyze these factors. As a
reaction to New Criticism, Structuralism developed after WW2 in
France, reversing this trend of attention to form. It focused on culture, and
poetry’s place within said culture as compared to similar poetic works.
Modern
Poetics and Poetry: Post-Structuralism and the New Historicists
Post-Structuralism
In the 1970s and 1980s,
Post-Structuralism was popularized by universities. Philosopher Martin
Heidegger suggested that “Art was the best vehicle for pondering how and why
the world exists” (Heidegger, 1927). Post-Structuralists opposed the ideas of
Structuralism by claiming that it was impossible to accurately describe an
ever-changing culture and its systems. Derrida was a Post-Structuralist who
focused on language and texts to interpret a work. Then there was a shift away from
linguistics and towards analyzing poetry according to social, cultural,
economic, and political systems. Finally, philosopher Foucault
presented all texts as a part of “networks of power and knowledge” (Foucault,
1975).
New
Historicists
Contemporary activism has become the foundation for new poetic
criticism. “The composition and interpretation of poetry are often related to contemporary
activist projects” (PEPP, 2012). Transnationalism in poetics looks at how
poetry “takes shape and operates transnationally across and despite
nation-state boundaries” (PEPP, 2012). Another modern approach to poetry is to
“incorporate those disciplines of linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and
philosophy of mind” (PEPP, 2012). This approach has been labeled “Cognitive
Poetics” and seeks to understand how cognition informs poetic structure and
response.
Public universities and the internet have profoundly revolutionized
the definition and scope of poetics. Poets can find a platform for their work
at university-sponsored “poetry readings” and at local coffee shop open mics.
They can display their work online, and give and receive critique via internet
poetry groups, and contests. Anyone can self-publish and sell their poetry if
they are willing to navigate sites such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
Poetics is no longer for the university-educated only. It is no longer a local
phenomenon, and it has more than a national reach. Modern poetics is a
worldwide pastime and a beloved online hobby for millions. For talented poets,
it can be a path to literary fame, though as ever, it seldom brings with it
fortune. As a result, career poets are a dying breed. This is expressed best
poetically:
A Fading
Light
Nina Bingham
The poetic
soul revives
when
listeners sit and stay.
“Pay the
poet’s tab,” I plead,
“since he
labored for a day.”
Not worth a
cup of coffee?
Though he
chased your cold away,
and warmed
your neighbor’s weary bones,
and made the
pretty girl say,
“I haven’t
felt this happy
since it was
the month of May.”
It is worth
a cup of coffee,
it is worth
a whole damned meal
what he
offers is a treasure
that lesser
men will surely steal.
A poet is a
fading light
whose words
are but a whisper
whose shadow
can’t escape the night
as Autumn
cold turns crisper.
Honor the
artist now, my friend
while he
thanks you for to listen
as the day
will come
when the
poet is gone
leaving an
empty cistern.
Dimly
and dimmer
still
time creeps
leading the
young astray
sweeping
aside
yesterday's
child
turning him
old and
grey.
Fortunate
you
whom the
poet spoke to
for he only
wanted to play.
His prose
will then stand
and speak
for the man
when his light
has faded away.
Caesura-The
Latin derivative means, “To cut off a caesura occurs in a verse where the
metrical flow is suspended or cut off. It altars the rhythm of a meter.
Otherwise, poetry would be monotonous. Studies have shown that English patterns
of syllabic variation of Caesura is not strictly adhered to. Contemporary
Meaning of Caesuras-Any space, break, or pause in tempo, a break in syntax.
There are many different
types of Caesuras:
- Initial Caesura-When
the metrical flow is “cut” at the beginning of a line.
- Medial Caesura-When
this cut or pause occurs in the middle of a line.
- Terminal
Caesura-When there’s a cut at the end of the verse.
- Penthemimeral-Caesura
appearing after the first long syllable of the third foot.
- Chaucer Caesura-Used
Caesuras in his iambic pentameter.
- Shakespeare
Caesura-Used Caesuras in his “blank verse.”
- Alexander Pope
Caesura-18th Century poet that used caesuras to create balance
or symmetry.
- Free Verse
Caesura-Free verse uses caesuras in unexpected places to represent a more
realistic way that people think and speak.
- Ezra Pound and E.E.
Cummings-Used unconventional patterns for verses.
- Charles Olson and
Allen Ginsberg-Felt that poetic verses and lines should be units of
natural breath, so they used caesuras between phrases.
2. Metrical Pause-Missing
syllables in accented verse.
3. Diaresis-Pause at the
end of a foot of poetry.
4. English Verse and
Caesura-Varies according to genre (dramatic, narrative, or lyric, rhymed
couplets, or blank verse).
5. Jakob
Schipper-Promoted doctrine that Caesura was essential to the structure of
iambic pentameter, and variation in Caesura placement is deliberate.
6. Masculine and Feminine
Line Endings:
1.
Masculine-A Caesura that follows a stressed syllable.
2.
Feminine-A Caesura that follows an unstressed syllable.
7. Epic Caesura-An epic
or unstressed syllable not counted as part of the metrical pattern.
8. Lyrical Caesura-An
unstressed syllable that is counted as part of the pattern.
Enjambment-The
continuation from one line to the next without pause. The opposite
of end-stopped line, usually for poetic effect. In England, enjambment was used
by Elizabethans for dramatic, narrative verse. Wordsworth, Keats, Hopkins, and
20th Century Poets W.C. Williams and E.E. Cummings used it. However,
enjambment can give readers mixed messages: The closure of the metrical pattern
at line end implies a pause, while the incompletion of the phrase says: go on.
In the 19th Century, “hard enjambment” was used that was “so
striking it cannot help but be felt.”
1.
Hexameter-Mostly end-stopped, as is
Sanskrit verse (no enjambment).
2.
Old Germanic Verse-Often used enjambment
where rhythm was unknown.
End-Stopped:
Those lines that meter, syntax, and sense conclude at line end. A single line
can be end-stopped, but it normally applies to the couplet. The opposite of
run-on or enjambment.
Accentual
Verse-Verse organized by stresses, not syllables. It
operates by two rules:
1.
The stress controls the verse.
2.
The stresses must be natural-speech stresses. You measure the lines in 2,3, or 4
stresses.
There are several
different kinds of accentual verse:
1.
Folk Verse-Including nursery rhymes,
cheers, chants, slogans, jingles, ballad, hymns, popular songs, oral poetry,
“doggerel,” literary verse, German knittelvers, Russian Dolnik verse.
Stanza-History
Strand
and Boland define “stanza” as any unit of reoccurring meter and rhyme used in a
pattern in a single poem (Strand, Boland, 137). Their opinion is that there is
almost no precise formal history for the stanza. However, the PEPP (2012) gives
an elaborate history for it. The word “stanza” originated from Italian meaning
“room.” A stanza has been described as a box-like unit, or a “room.” Dante’s Divine
Comedy written in 1320 was composed in Italian, and Dante created the use
of the stanza for his narrative poem. By the end of the Middle Ages, poets were
using patterns in poetry. A Stanza was used to “maintain tension between
narrative and lyric elements (Strand, Boland, 139). During the Renaissance, it
was used to emphasize wit. And during the Romantic period, it was used for
drama.
Identifying
a Stanza
To
judge a stanza, one must evaluate it based on its form, syntax, content, and
figuration. Stanzas often contain verb forms, tenses, and moods. Poetic lines
are organized according to alliteration, syntax, lineation, meter, and arc of
thought. Stanzas are sequential and identified by intervals. They usually have
an isomorphic line before and after them. Between the stanza will be a complete
or strong rhyme, refrain, proverb, or aphorism, dialogue, lengthened,
shortened, or a “tail rhyme.” In England, there is a long tradition of end
rhyme finishing a stanza. There are several types of stanzas: the “blues stanza,”
and the “ballad stanza.” There are also “spacious stanza forms”: ballad,
pseudo-ballad, long-live alliterative stanzas, ottava rima, rhyme royal,
tail-rhyme stanzas, and Spencerian stanza.
There
was another form of stanza made popular in the 16th Century called a
“sestina.” It has seen a resurgence of popularity in 20th Century
American poetry. Another type of stanza
called the “ghazal” which is Persian became popular in the 20th and
21st Centuries, and English poetry and free verse began to be used
in China in the 20th Century, to name just a few different styles of
stanzas used in modern poetry.
Terza
Rima
Dating
to the 13th Century, the Terza Rima, which is Italian for “third
rhyme” is a classic form of poetry with three-line stanzas called “tercets”
which have a rhyming pattern. The pattern is fixed:
Aba
Bcb
Cdc
Ded
(Wikipedia, 2023).
It
ends with a single line or a couplet that repeats the rhyme of the middle line
of the previous tercet. Terza Rima can be used in combination with iambic
pentameter. Terza Rima rhymes give the effect of “echo and expectation.” As a
line is read, there is an expectation of another rhyme to complete the rhyming
scheme. It has been used since the Romantic era by poets such as Thomas Hardy,
Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and others.
Ottova
Rima
Due
to the popularity of Lord Byron’s Don Juan, Ottova Riva is Italian
prosody in a stanza with a rhyming structure of:
Ab
Ab
Ab
Cc
It
evolved as oral poetry first and was used in religious verse in the 13th
Century in Italy. It became a popular form of Italian narrative verse, and in
the 15th Century was widely used. During the Renaissance, Spain and
Portugal used it as Italy had for narrative purposes.
English
poets, notably Edmund Spenser, used this form, but it was not until Lord Byron
used it masterfully that it gained worldwide appreciation. Ottova Riva includes
various moods including serious, comic, and satiric mixed with narrative and
discourse. Yeats is known as the modern master of this form, but many other
modern English language poets have used it.
Quatrain
A
stanza of 4 lines which are usually rhymed, and it is the most common stanza
form in European poetry. It is the traditional hymn stanza. In the Middle Ages
it became standardized in the iambic tetrameter. Also, it was used in ballads
and nursery rhymes. It follows one of the following rhyme patterns: abab or
xbyb, known as “cross rhyme.” This is the rhyme scheme of the “sonnet.” In a
complete poem the quatrain is often an epigram. In a hymn, the quatrains can be
common meter or measure, long meter, and short meter.
Ballad
The
word “ballad” comes from the Italian, “ballare” meaning to dance. It has the
same root as the word “ballet.” They are found in America, Europe, Africa, and
Australia. Ballads are thought to have originated from folk songs read as oral
performance. However, some scholars argue they originated from dances and
rituals, and others say they originated with one balladeer.
The
subject matter was most often comedy or melodrama with subjects and moods
including death, murder, suicide, disgrace, mystery, bawdy, macabre, brutal,
sinister, preachy, erotic, pious, obscene, lost love, supernatural events, or
recent events. Perhaps the easiest way to describe the ballad is to say it is
ominous narrative storytelling and “accentual verse,” and the subject is
usually “tabloid” with the voice of a “drunken rogue” (Frye, 2005, Strand,
Boland, 2000). The ballad presents a story involving a protagonist and a small
cast of characters or group, usually dealing with a catastrophe. European
ballads centered on two or three characters who were melodramatic, and it used
repetition, or redundancy by repeating lines or phrases.
Format
Ballads
use simple words and short lines, vivid images and musical themes that are
common and communal (Strand, Boland, 2000). It is a closed form narrative where
the 2nd and 4th lines rhyme, and the format should be
abab, or abcd. The quatrain is customary, though sometimes a 6-line stanza is
used that rhymes in format xbxbxb. It doesn’t matter how many syllables there
are because it is the meter that matters, either 4, or 3 beats to a line.
Scholars argue about meter saying it is accentuated, while others say it is
accentual and syllabic. Still others say it is foot verse with metrical pauses.
History
There
are many different types of ballads, including ballad operas. The first
recorded ballad was, “Judas” from the 14th and 15th
Century (Frye, 2005, Strand, Boland, 2000). In the 16th Century,
Luther’s German hymnody was adopted by English Protestantism and made use of
the ballad meter. Protestant hymns still use the ballad meter, also called
“common, short, or half.” In the 18th Century, older ballad texts
were transcribed and gained popularity, and were often written as satire. In
the 19th Century, an English scholar by the name of Child produced 5
volumes of transcribed ballads. During the Romantic era the subjects were
expressionism and sensibility. The ballad became popular during the 20th
Century during Modernism, and the New Criticism. Today’s ballads are mostly
musical, slow, and sentimental.
Ballad
and Hymn Meter-Definition
Ballad
Meter is also called “Ballad Stanza,” and it is the meter of the traditional
ballad. Ballad meter is defined as quatrains that alternate iambic tetrameter
with iambic trimeter that rhyme in the 2nd and 4th lines.
This is the same as “hymn meter” also called “common meter” whose quatrains can
rhyme abab. However, the ballads can vary in quatrains and rhyme scheme.
Sometimes an iambic heptameter, couplets are used in ballads as in Thayer’s,
“Casey at the Bat” (PEPP, 2012).
Broadside
Ballad
Called
The Broadside or a Journalistic Ballad, this was a song reproduced on a sheet
of paper and sold like a newspaper on the streets and in shops. In the late
1600’s it was popular for several years.
In
the U.S., the Blues Ballad developed which was a type of Broadside ballad that
was melancholy in tone. And from the 17th to 20th
Centuries in Germany, pictorials were added to Journalistic Ballads.
The
Ode
The word “ode” means to sing or
chant. The ode is the most formal and complex of lyric poetry, usually of
considerable length that tells a story. Historically, the ode has been used on magistrate’s
birthdays, funerals, coronations, celebrations, and at dedications of monuments
at public events, and is serious in tone.
In Greek literature, the ode was used in song and dance. They
were written for performance in the Dionysiac theatre, or the Agora for
athletic victories. The tone of a Greek ode was intensely emotional, and the
subject matter included divine myths. These strophes reflected a dance pattern,
then the strophe is repeated in reverse, called an anti-strophe.
Another form of Greek ode were Homer’s Hymas, where we
get the word “hymns” from. These were used to invoke a deity, followed by a
narrative genealogy establishing lineage, a petition for a favor from the Gods,
and it concluded with a vow to serve that God. John Ket’s “Ode to Psyche” is
structured in this way.
In
Latin literature, the odes were associated with Horace who took his lyrical
style from Alcaeus and Sappho. The tone was peaceful and thoughtful instead of intense
and was intended for private reading rather than in the theatre. Horace wrote
an ode for Augustus though Horace is more noted for writing the epigram.
The
anacreontic ode was discovered in the 16th Century and credited to
Anacreon who wrote 600 poems. However, the original poems span 1,000 years.
These lines were short and the subjects were simple, about love and drinking.
Around
the globe, the ode was alive and well. Italian and French odes were written in
the 15th and 16th Centuries. In the 17th
Century, Boileau in France and in the 18th Century, Victor Hugo
wrote more personal odes. In the 20th Century, Catholic devotion was
explored through the ode. In Spain in the 20th Century, the odes
were popular. In Germany, Weckerlin wrote odes in the 16th Century,
and in the mid-18th Century, Klopstock used Lutheran psalms as
models for his odes. In the 19th Century, Holderlin wrote mystical
odes that were non-rhyming.
In
England, Edmund Spenser wrote poetry based on the odes, and Milton wrote “On
The Morning of Christ’s Nativity” in stanzaic form. In 1656, Cowley wrote odes
that became popular favorites, titling them Pindarique Odes. Only Mark Akenside
wrote odes in the style of Horacio, and in the 17th Century, Marvall
wrote his Cromwell ode. In the 18th Century, John Dryden wrote,
“Song for St. Cecelia’s Day” and “Alexander’s Feast.” In the mid 1800’s, Thomas
Gray and William Collins used personification and allegory to write odes.
Wordsworth wrote English odes, as well as Keats, and Lord Tennyson.
Villanelle
The word “villanelle” means, “a
rustic song,” or “a peasant.” It is a 19-line poem that follows a strict form
consisting of five tercets (3-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (4-line
stanza). The rhyme scheme is ABA for the tercets, and ABAA for one quatrain.
The first and third lines of the first tercet are repeating refrains that
alternate as the last line of every tercet and are repeated as the final two
lines of the last quatrain. Villanelles do use a meter, but one can use any
type.
Its use began in the 16th Century when the
only rule was to use the repeating refrains. There was also the villanella,
which was popular in Italy that imitated oral folk-dance tunes of the region.
In the 17th Century, in Italy, the villanellas were musicals and not
poetry. The villanella was known as “a peasant song.” In 1751, a rhyming
dictionary of prosody was published so that by the 19th Century, the
villanelle was agreed upon as a poem having a set schema.
In the 19th Century, French poets believed the
villanelle to be as antique as the triolet, rondeau, and the ballade. In 1878, Joseph
Bolmier published a volume of 19-line villanellas. Poets including Oscar Wilde,
Andrew Long, and E.A. Robinson wrote 19-line villanellas that cemented the
19-line rule.
This form became popular in England, although the English
thought of it as a French form of poetry. Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gently into
that good night” became a worldwide sensation and is a villanelle. In 1976,
Elizabeth Bishop wrote, “One Art,” that was hailed as a post-modern villanelle.
New Formalism had established itself as a literary movement at this time, and
writers challenged the villanelle’s traditional rules, and thus, other hybrid
forms of the villanelle were created.
Sestina
The
most complex of the verse forms used by the troubadours. Composed of six
stanzas of six verses, followed by an envoi of three lines, all rhymed and all
decasyllabic (10 syllables per line). The same six end words occur in each
stanza, but in an order that fits a shifting pattern. The final stanza, the
envoi, is composed of three verses with two repeating words per line.
History
of the Sestina
Arnaut Daniel is said to
have created the Sestina (1180-95). It became popular in Italy with Danta and
his contemporaries, in Spain, and in Portugal. In the 17th Century,
it became popular in Germany where poets experimented with it. In the 19th
Century it became popular again. In the 20th and 21st
Centuries it has become popularized by American poets, too. This is because the
Sestina allows aspiring poets to practice their skill with a challenging poetic
form. It is still being used in universities in America.
The
Rondeau-History
Originally
a 15th Century French poetic form, the Rondeau was a term for all
rounds that could be danced to with a singer. A lead singer would sing the
verses, and a chorus of dancers would sing the repeating chorus. By the 16th
Century, the Rondeau had replaced all other poetic forms, then disappeared, but
resurfaced again in the 17th Century. In the 19th Century
it was revived when poet Banville experimented with its form, as did poets in
the 19th and 20th Centuries. In England, the Rondeau was
not popular until the 19th Century due to Banville’s poetry. German
poets took to the form in the 19th Century as well. Canadian poet
McCrae’s “In Flanders’s Fields” (1915) was the most popular Rondeau which
commemorated the first world war.
The
poem is composed of two rhymes, with 8 or 10 syllables, and the first word or
phrase of that first line is used as a repeating line called the “rentrenment”
which is a word derived from the Middle Ages. It usually did not rhyme. If the
repeating line is curtailed in any poetry, the term “rentrenment” can be
applied. Traditional length was 12 or 15 versus, though if the rentrenments
were not considered to be a verse then 10 or 13 versus in 2 or 3 stanzas. The
construction would be:
The
12 line in 2 stanza Rondeau is: abbaabR, abbaR
The
12 lines in 3 stanzas Rondeau is: abba, abR, abbaR.
The
15 lines in 2 stanzas Rondeau is: aabbaaabR, aabbaR.
The
15-line Rondeau in 3 stanzas is: aabba, aabR, aabbaR.
The
Rondeau Redouble
The
Rondeau Redouble is a poetic form originating in the 1500’s, but it was not
until the 19th Century that it was used in the form of 24 lines in
six quatrains, plus the rentrenment, and built as follows:
ABAB, babA, abaB, babA, abab, babaR.
The
Rondel
Like
the term Rondeau, the Rondel originated from a round song with a refrain. A 13th
Century poet gave five schemes for the Rondel, and one of them was later
renamed the triolet. 15th Century poet’s Rondels were rigidly held
to form. In the 19th Century, Banville used a 13-line scheme, while
the English preferred the more sonnet-like 14-line scheme. It is formulated as
two rhymes, three stanzas, and a two-line refrain that repeats either two and a
half or three times:
Abba,
abAB, abbaA (B).
The
Triolet
A
French fixed form with eight lines, two rhymes, and two refrain lines patterned
thus:
ABaAabAB.
It
may be split into two quatrains, or written in stanzas, although typically one
strophe. The line length and meter are not fixed. In the 13th
Century it was not considered a form but a variant of the Rondel.
Triolet-History
In
the 16th Century the Triolet went out of fashion. In the 17th
Century it was used in political advertisements in “attack triolets” which were
sung to popular tunes. A Frenchman produced a collection of “Noble Triolets”
that became popular. An English poet, Carey, used used the form for religious
poems. In the 19th Century, French poets used it in stanza form.
Thomas Hardy achieved success with this form in England. Even Americans were
having success with it. By the 20th Century the triolet was used in
The Saturday Evening Post, and among popular poets such as S. Plath, and D.
Thomas. When New Formalism became popular, The Triolet became popular again
with McPherson, Cope, and A.E. Stallings, and Marilyn Nelson authored an 8-poem
Triolet sequence that was epic in nature.
Cento
The
definition of “cento” is “patchwork” in Latin, which is an apt description of
this ancient poetic form. Centos were written of Homer’s lines from the Iliad
and the Odyssey, and Virgil’s writings in later Roman periods. During the
Renaissance, Cicero’s treatise on government was compiled into a Cento in 1608.
Centos are occasionally still published, as in the case of Bandeira’s
“Antologia” of versus from his writing. In summary, a Centro is a collage made
from other verses of poetry. Usually different lines from the same poet.
Clerihew
A
clerihew is one stanza of light verse consisting of two couplets offering
humorous biographic information that turns eulogies into bawdy or comical commentary
on the subject, with a rhyme scheme of aabb.
Limerick
In
England, the limerick was the most popular form of light verse because it was
bawdy or nonsense. It got its name in the 19th Century, although it
was used before that. The earliest examples are from the 13th
century. It wasn’t until Edward Lear’s “A Book of Nonsense” in 1846 that the
term became associated with the form recognized today. Famous authors including
Lord Tennyson, and Rudyard Kipling used it.
The
limerick’s form is five lines rhyming aabba. The 1, 2, and 5th lines
have 3 stresses. The 3 and 4 lines have 2 stresses. The last line historically
provides the punchline. It is conjectured that French veterans brought the form
to Ireland to the town of Limerick in the 1700s after the French war, and that
these limericks were originally nursery rhymes published as, Mother Goose’s
Melodies in 1791.
Shakespearean
Sonnet
In
Italian, the word “sonnet” means, “a little song or sound” which describes the
14-line poem aptly. Usually, it is written in Iambic Pentameter and has the
rhyme scheme of: ababcdcd ef. The final two verses are called the “volta” or
“turn,” wherein the couplet states the meaning of the poem or turns it on its
head. It is also divided into three quatrains followed by the couplet.
The
current form of the Shakespearean Sonnet originated in the Italian court in
1205. In 1230, d ‘Arezza invented the rhyme scheme of abbaabba, which became
the standard, and Dante and Petrarch popularized its usage. In the 15th
and 16th Centuries, the sonnet was exported to France, Spain,
Portugal, Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, and England. The
sonnet arrived in England from Italy in 1503.
In
18th Century England, multiple poets revived the sonnet, such as Thomas
Grey, and Thomas Warton. In the 19th Century, Wordsworth wrote 500
sonnets. Anna Seward and John Keats also employed the sonnet by using the
Shakespearean format, as did other poets including D.G. Rosetti, Christina
Rosetti, Elizabeth Barret Browning who utilized the sonnet during the Romantic
period. In the 20th Century, Yeat’s “Leda and the Swan” was a sonnet
that was popular.
In
America, the sonnet was not used until the 18th Century when Col.
David Humphreys introduced it, and then Longfellow used the Italian form to
popularize it. Other famous poets such as Robert Frost and e.e. Cummings wrote
sonnets. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, sonnets have been
written on diverse subject matter, including free verse renditions.
Petrarchan
The
term “Petrarchan” means “an imitation” of Italian poet Francesco Petrarch’s
writings (1304-74). He wrote a form of troubadour poetry, and Dante followed
him. Features of the classic Petrarchan sonnet include descriptions of the
beloved’s physical beauty, wordplay, paradoxes, and oxymorons. The theme was
unrequited love, and alternations between desire and abstinence. Both amateur writers
and professional poets popularized this form of the sonnet, but professionals
also used it to enlist support for their literary projects.
In
the 14th and 15th Centuries, poets began borrowing
Petrarch’s style (such as Chaucer), and by the 16th Century it was
the dominant style in Italy, and most of Europe. It was even used during the
Romantic period. Petrarchism stepped on the stage in England first in the 1520’s
during the court of Henry V111 with knightly sonnets. In 1595, Sir Edmund
Spenser published Petrarchal sonnets about marriage. Fifteen years later,
Shakespeare published his “Sonnets” in 1609. Because of its wide acceptance and
usage, Petrarch’s style of sonnet is one of the more important forms in early
modern poetry.
Works
Cited
The
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Greene,
Roland, et al., 4th edition. Princeton University Press, 2012.
