Poetry Forms (Couplet, Tercet, Quatrain, Sonnet, Ballade)
The most popular poetry patterns are rhyming schemes. We have already discussed the COUPLET, but before we go on let's first define a STANZA. A stanza is a poetic paragraph. Often, when using a rhyming pattern, it is a set of lines whose rhyming scheme is repeated through out the poem. Here's an example of a few couplet stanzas:
"She is dead!" they said to him; "come away; Stanza #1
Kiss her and leave her-thy love is clay!"
They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair; Stanza #2
On her forehead of stone they laid it fair;
With a tender touch they closed up well Stanza #3
The sweet thin lips that had secrets to tell;
("He and She" by Sir Edwin Arnold)
The TERCET is an Italian rhyming form. In a tercet, the first and third lines rhyme, while the second is 'blank'. In rhyming notation it is represented as A-B-A. Dante's Divine Comedy was written in this pattern. Though most of it is lost in translation, there are still a few stanzas in which it is still present in English. The following stanza is from the second canto of Inferno:
And I have come to you just as she wished,
and I have freed you from the beast that stood
blocking the quick way up the mount of bliss.
Probably the most popular rhyming form used, is the QUATRAIN, or the four lined stanza. The quatrain uses a variety of rhyming schemes. Anywhere from simply putting two couplets together (A-A-B-B) to the A-B-B-A pattern which gave the Swedish singing group Abba its name. Have a look at some other types of quatrain patterns:
A-B-A-B
Where the apple reddens
Never pry-
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.
("A Woman's Last Word" by Robert Browning)
A-B-C-B
She stood at the bar of justice,
A creature wan and wild,
In form too small for a woman,
In feature too old for a child.
("Gulity or Not Guilty?" - Author Unknown)
A-A-A-B
If I have craved for joys that are not mine,
If I have let my wayward heart repined,
Dwelling on things of earth, not things devine-
Good Lord, forgive!
("My Evening Prayer" by Charles H. Gabriel)
One of the most famous of poetry forms is the SONNET. Sonnets have two parts: the OCTAVE or setup and the SESTET or conclusion. They are using about a love interest. There are actually more than one type of sonnets, but we will focus on the popular Shakespearian sonnet. Here is a diagram of its rhyming scheme:
Octave - A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D (introduces situation or problem)
Sestet - E-F-E-F-G-G (suggests a conclusion or solution)
Sonnet #147 by William Shakespeare
My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:
My reason the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
At random fron the truth vainly expressed.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
The BALLADE (pronounced "bah-LAYD" not "BAH-led") is a French poetry form (literally "a dancing song"). It is a four stanza poem in which the last line of all is the same. The first three stanzas have the following rhyming scheme:
a-b-a-b-b-c-b-C
The last stanza is shorter:
b-c-b-C
(sorry, I couldn't find an example of this one, maybe I'll write one later. - Fuzzy Martian)
For practice: write a poem with a definite rhyming pattern and tell what pattern is being used.
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