POETIC FORMS

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  Also called open form
pentameter (5 feet/line) verse
Yet it still keeps line divisions
Blank means that the poetry deliberate which separates
is not rhymed. Iambic it from prose.
pentameter refers to the
fact that each line contains
five iambs, or metrical feet,
consisting of a stressed
syllable followed by an
unstressed syllable.
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 Examples

If 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 rage
With 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 grew

In 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 Admit
impediments.
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 cheeks
Within 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.