Poetic Forms
Some initial terms you need:
foot: a two- or three-syllable "beat" in a line of verse
types of feet:
iamb -- two syllables, stressed weak-strong ("todáy")
trochee -- two syllables, stressed strong-weak ("néver")
dactyl -- three syllables, stressed strong-weak-weak ("yésterday")
anapest -- three syllables, stressed weak-weak-strong ("evermóre")
spondee -- two syllables, stressed strong-strong ("hígh nóon")
mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta-, hexa-, heptameter: lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 feet
(couplet,) tercet, quatrain, sestet, septet, octet: stanzas of (2,) 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 lines
Rhyme Schemes and Stanza Patterns:
rhyme schemes: shown by a string of letters, one for each line, using the same letter for
rhymes on the same sound
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" is abcb: lamb/snow/went/go;
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" begins with aabb: star/are/high/sky)
--iambic pentameter couplets (e.g. in the Canterbury Tales, rhyming aabbcc...)
--rhyme royal stanzas (e.g., in Troilus, 7 line stanzas, iambic pentameter, rhyming
ababbcc). The rhyme royal stanza continued to be used in the Renaissance, thanks to
Chaucer's prestige. For example, see Wyatt's "They flee from me" (53), Shakespeare'sRape
of Lucrece (101); Skelton's "The Rose Bothe White and Rede" (1) has rhyme royal
rhymes, but is the wrong meter (it's in iambic trimeter, with three beats per line)
Ballad meter: Quatrains, alternating tetrameter-trimeter-tetrameter-trimeter (4-3-4-3
beats), usually rhymed abcb; sometimes adorned with internal (mid-line) rhymes.
Don't let typesetting fool you--sometimes editors will write ballad meter stanzas as 2-2-3-
2-2-3 beat stanzas of 6 lines, but this is aurally equivalent to ballad meter. Ballad meter is
also called common meter, or hymn meter (exx.: "The Unquiet Grave," "Amazing Grace,"
"The Ballad of Gilligan's Island," and many more; the examples listed in the Penguin
anthology's appendix include a number of poems that are only loosely ballad meter, but
some are 'classical' common meter like "The Wanton Wife of Bath" [127]).
Sestina: Six 6-line stanzas with a 3-line envoy. Last word of each line in first stanza must
be a last word of a line in each stanza, following a regular permutation thus: 123456
615243 364125 532614 451362 246531. The envoy has three of the 6 rhyme words at the
ends of its lines; the other three should be in the middle of the lines.
Ex.: Sidney, "Ye Goatherd Gods" (64)--a double sestina; i.e., he does the permutation
twice (a virtuoso performance)
Blank Verse: 5-beat (10- or 11-syllable) lines with iambic rhythm, no rhyme.
Very flexible form, allowing for great range of effects. One of the great English poetic
forms, from the Renaissance on. Invented by Surrey, in his translation of the Aeneid (332),
but also indebted to Chaucer's pentameter line. Learn this one cold: blank verse is
unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Spenserian stanza: 9-line stanza, with first 8 in iambic pentameter and 9th in iambic
hexameter (also called an alexandrine line). Rhyme-scheme ababbcbcc.
The alexandrine creates a leisurely, sometimes solemn, sometimes meditative movement
at the end of the stanza, esp. with the continued repeating occurrence found in long works
that use the Spenserian stanza (cf. 32, 80-82, 348). Good for narrative poems.
Sonnets: 14-line poems, usually in iambic pentameter, w/ several variants in the rhyme
scheme:
1. Italian (Petrarchan) sonnets -- abbaabba for first eight lines (octet), with various
rhyme patterns for the last six lines (sestet) : cdecde/cdcdcd/cdcdee.
Note that the octet-sestet division allows a slow rise and fall, or opposition, of ideas. The
key identifying feature here is the abbaabba octet at the beginning.
2. Shakespearean sonnets (the "classic" English sonnet): abab cdcd efef gg. Can be
identify by-- three quatrains of alternating rhymes and a closing couplet briefly
sums up the situation in an epigrammatic fashion.
Perhaps the least demanding rhyme scheme among all the sonnet types. The content may
fall into three parts with a summarizing or commenting couplet at the end; or into a
"pseudo-Italian" division into 8 and 6 lines; or into an 8-4-2 or even a 12-2 split, where the
couplet at the end comments on the preceding idea(s) in the poem.2. English sonnets are
characterized by a couplet at the end, and often by division of the first twelve lines into
distinct quatrains. The quatrains are less important to Wyatt and Sidney, who usually use
the abbaabba cddc ee form (which the Italians also used at times). Depending on the
poem, this form can give rise-and-fall effect in the octet and sestet (or question-and-
answer, or idea-and-counteridea), or it can present an octet on one idea or question,
followed by a quatrain giving a conclusion, answer, or counterthought, capped by an
epigrammatic couplet to wrap up the whole thing. Or the octet may actually fall into two
distinct quatrains as far as their content goes, despite linkage by rhyme.
3. Spenserian sonnets: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
Spenserian sonnets have less of a clear internal break in them than either Italian or
Shakespearean sonnets. Like the Shakespearean sonnet, Spenserian sonnets contain three
quatrains and a concluding couplet, but the quatrains are linked by their rhymes, so the
only definite break in the rhyme comes just before the couplet. Thus, Spenserian sonnets
often have a more flowing aural effect in their rhyme scheme; if the content of a
Spenserian sonnet includes contrary arguments or ideas, then the conflict of those ideas
contrasts with the smooth development of the rhyme, and a poet can exploit this contrast
to make some subtle comments on either the form or content or both. Compare the rhyme-
scheme of the Spenserian stanza above.
Some rarer forms, but still worth being aware of:
Fourteener: A line with 14 syllables, and thus 7 feet when written in iambs or trochees.
Couplets of fourteeners are equivalent to ballad meter; hexameter lines alternating with
fourteeners yield Poulter's measure (below). Also called heptameters. Cf. 253, 334,
344.
Poulter's measure: Rhymed couplets alternating hexameter and heptameter (fourteener)
lines--i.e., 6 and 7 beats, or 12 and 14 syllables.
Named for "poulterer's" (poultryman's) measure, roughly a dozen or so for each line. Ex.:
Elizabeth I, "The Doubt of Future Foes" (13); Surrey, "In Winter's Just Return." These
lines tend to fall in halves, giving a 3-3-3-4 effect which can (but doesn't always! -- cf.
Greville's elegy for Sidney) become sing-song. Cf. 17, 179.
Ottava rima: 8-line stanza, usually iambic pentameter, abababcc.
Ex.: Wyatt's Epigrams, or the stanzas of narrative following Wyatt's Ps. 130.
Terza Rima: Usually iambic pentameter (in English at least), with rhyme aba bcb cdc
ded... and usually ending in a couplet.
Often type-set in separate tercets (the 3-line groups). Classic case is Dante's Divine
Comedy, whence later Italian poets take it; English poets then borrow from the Italians,
including Dante. Ex.: Wyatt, "Mine Own John Poins" (223); Wyatt's paraphrase of Ps.
130. Useful for long, non-stanzaic poetry; smooth-flowing because drawn along by
"unfinished" new rhyme brought into every tercet.
In all these forms, a poet's distinct ideas are often expressed within a distinct group of
lines connected with each other by the rhyme scheme. A shift to a new set of rhymes--a
new stanza, or a new quatrain, or even a couplet--allows new ideas to be introduced, like a
new paragraph in prose. However, the poet always has the option of running ideas across
breaks in rhyme, making the poem less neatly ordered and thus a little less predictable.
The orderly approach has the advantage of reinforcing content with form, while the
"disorderly" approach has the potential for surprises that force a careful reader to stop and
think.
N.B. For other poetic forms, of the Renaissance or later, see any of the standard literary
handbooks (e.g., Appendix 2 in the Penguin anthology, or M. H. Abrams'sGlossary of
Literary Terms).
https://www.msu.edu/course/eng/310a/snapshot.afs/tavrmina/SS97/310h6.htm
Types of rhymes--
Perfect rhymes
masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable (rhyme, sublime)
femenine: the stress is on the second from last syllable (picky, tricky)
dactylic: the stress is on third from last syllable (cacophonies, Aristophanes)
General rhymes
In the general sense, rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between
words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this
general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:
syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not
necessarily contain vowels. (cleaver, silver, orpitter, patter)
imperfect: a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
oblique (or slant/forced): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound.
(green, fiend; one, thumb)
assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes used to refer to slant
rhymes.
consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
half rhyme (or sprung rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)
alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (short,ship)
It has already been remarked that in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all
following sounds are identical in both words. If this identity of sound extends further to
the left, the rhyme becomes more than perfect. An example of such a "super-rhyme" is the
"identical rhyme", in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming
syllables are identical, as in gun and begun. Punning rhymes such are "bare" and "bear"
are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may of course extend even further to the left than the
last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that we have
two lines that sound identical, then it is called "holorhyme" ("For I scream/For ice
cream"). Note that "identical rhymes" are sometimes considered worse-rhyming than
perfect rhymes, although they match on more letters.
Eye rhyme
Though not strictly rhymes, eye rhymes or sight rhymes refer to similarity in spelling but
not in sound, as with cough, bough, or love, move. These are not rhymes in the strict sense,
but often were in earlier language periods. For example, "sea" and "grey" rhymed in the
early eighteenth century, though now they would make at best an eye rhyme.