Scribd
Upload
26 views

The Language of Poetic Structure

Uploaded by

Cj Bartlett
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
26 views

The Language of Poetic Structure

Uploaded by

Cj Bartlett
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

The Language of Poetic Structure

• Form, in poetry, can be understood as the physical structure of the poem: the length of the
lines, their rhythms, their system of rhymes and repetition. In this sense, it is normally
reserved for the type of poem where these features have been shaped into a pattern,
especially a familiar pattern.

• CLERIHEW - Named after its inventor, this is a four-line poem rhymed aabb; its first
line is the name of the subject of the poem, it often breaks into two sentences at the
end of the second line, and the rhythm tends to be entertainingly irregular.

• SONNET - a poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, that has one of
two regular rhyme schemes

• BALLAD - a form of poetry that alternates lines of four and three beats, often in
quatrains, rhymed abab, and often telling a story

• ODE - a lyric poem, usually addressing a particular person or thing. It was based on a
pattern of three stanzas called the strophe, antistrophe and epode.

• ELEGY is a poem of mourning

• HAIKU - a brief Japanese form that has been adapted into English in various ways. Its
usual definition is that it is a three-line poem, consisting of seventeen syllables split
5-7–5

• LIMERICK - a five-line poem, almost always humorous, and frequently rude. Its
rhyme scheme is aabba, with the first, second and last lines having three stresses
and the third and fourth lines having two.

• VILLANELLE - one of the more complex forms. It is written in five tercets, in which
the first and last lines of the first stanza alternately appear as the last lines of the
subsequent stanzas, with a final quatrain repeating both lines together as the last
two lines. There are only two rhymes through the whole poem, the tercets rhymed
aba and the quatrain abaa, and the lines usually in iambic pentameter.

• Stanza length:

• 2 lines = couplet

• 3 lines = tercet

• 4 lines = quatrain

• 5 lines = quintain

• 6 lines = sestet

• Refrains – lines repeated in their entirety

• Caesura = causes the reader to pause or stop in the middle of a line

• Enjambment – encourages the reader to read on and avoids the sing-song style of rhymed
poetry (like a nursery rhyme or limerick)
• Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words

• Consonance - the repetition of consonant sounds

• Assonance - the repetition of similar vowel sounds

• Elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of


poetry
Example:  “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”

• Anaphora - This means the same word is repeated at the beginning of several consecutive
lines

• Scansion - the process of marking the stresses in a poem, and working out the metre from
the distribution of stresses.

• Rhythm – in poetry, rhythm is the combination of different metres or foots

• Metre/Foot - is a unit of rhythm in poetry, the pattern of the beats. It is also called a foot.
Each foot has a certain number of syllables in it, usually two or three syllables. The
difference in types of meter is which syllables are accented and which are not.

• Iambic/Iamb meter has the first syllable unaccented and the second accented – it
tends to have the rhythm of a heartbeat (da-DUM) –

Shall I l com pare l thee to l a sum l mer's day?

• Trochaic /Trochee meter has the first syllable accented and the second unaccented
(DUM-da)

Tell me | not in l mournful l numbers

• Dactyl meter has the first syllable accented and the second and third unaccented
(DUM-da-da)

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them

• Anapest meter has the first two syllables unaccented and the third syllable accented
(da-da-DUM)

Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done, You're killing off students, you think
it's good fun.

Rhyme Schemes:

Types of Rhyme Scheme


There are a number of rhyme schemes used in poetry; some of the most
popular of which include:

 Alternate rhyme: It is also known as ABAB rhyme scheme, it rhymes


as “ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH.”
 Ballade: It contains three stanzas with the rhyme scheme of
“ABABBCBC” followed by “BCBC.”
 Monorhyme: It is a poem in which every line uses the same rhyme
scheme.
 Couplet: It contains two-line stanzas with the “AA” rhyme scheme,
which often appears as “AA BB CC and DD…”
 Triplet: It often repeats like a couplet, uses rhyme scheme of “AAA.”
 Enclosed rhyme: It uses rhyme scheme of “ABBA”
 Terza rima rhyme scheme: It uses tercets, three lines stanzas. Its
interlocking pattern on end words follows: ABA BCB CDC DED and
so on.
 Keats Odes rhyme scheme: In his famous odes, Keats has used a
specific rhyme scheme, which is “ABABCDECDE.”
 Limerick: A poem uses five lines with a rhyme scheme of “AABBA.”
 Villanelle: A nineteen-line poem consisting of five tercets and a
final quatrain. It uses a rhyme scheme of “A1bA2, abA1, abA2, abA1,
abA2, abA1A2.”

You might also like