|  Author | Topic: Fixed-Form Poems. (Read 225 times) |
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« Thread Started on Sept 20, 2006, 4:54am » | |
What is meant by Fixed-Form Poem?
A fixed-form (or closed form) poem is a type of poetry which follows a set pattern of lines, meter, rhythm, rhyme scheme, stanza form and refrain (if there is one).
A Sonnet is a fixed-form poem because it must have fourteen lines. There are many types of fixed form poems.
Poems written in a fixed form may not always fit into categories precisely, because writers sometimes vary traditional forms to create innovative effects.
What distinguishes fixed-form poems is that they develop regular patterns with regard to lines, meter, rhythm and stanza. When we discuss a poem's structure, we're observing its pattern of lines and stanzas.
The Line -- A line of poetry is characterized by its length and meter, which are created by the number of syllables and where their stresses fall.
The Stanza -- A stanza is a group of lines, visually distinguished from other groups of lines by white space. Fixed-form poems usually maintain regular stanza pattern, and there are a lot to choose from:
The Couplet -- two line stanza, rhyming aa
The Tercet -- three line stanza, rhyming varies
The Quatrain -- four line stanza, various rhyming patterns
Ballad quatrain -- rhymes abcb
Heroic quatrain -- rhymes abab
Rhyme Enclosure -- rhymes abba
Triple quatrain -- rhymes aaba
Double couplet quatrain -- rhymes aabb
The Quintain -- five line stanza
The Sextain (or sestet) -- six line stanza
Chaucerian Stanza (or Rhyme Royal) -- seven line stanza, rhyming ababbcc
The Ottava Rima (or octave) -- eight line stanza, rhyming abababcc
The Spenserian Stanza -- eight iambic pentameter lines followed by a hexameter line, rhyming ababbbcbbc
The Fourteener -- iambic heptameters, as many as it takes.
Poems which do not follow a regular patterns of lines, meter, rhythm and stanza are called open form or free-verse poems.
Some examples of the better known fixed-form types include: Ballade, Cinquain, Haiku, Limerick, Pantoum, Rondeau, Sestina, Sonnet, Terza Rima, Triolet and Villanelle.
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #1 on Sept 20, 2006, 4:59am » | |
Ballade -- A fixed-form poem consisting of three 8-line stanzas rhyming ababbcbc, followed by a 4-line envoi rhyming bcbc, the same rhymes being used throughout. The last line of the first stanza is repeated at the end of each stanza as a refrain.
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Example:
"Ballade Des Dames Du Temps Jadis"
by Francois Villon (1431 - 1485)
English translation:
"The Ballad Of Dead Ladies"
Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,-
She whose beauty was more than human?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such a dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?
White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden,-
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,-
Mother of God, where are they then?.
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Save with thus much for an overword,-
But where are the snows of yester-year?
(Translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #2 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:01am » | |
Cinquain -- A fixed-form poem consisting of five lines. Each line contains a fixed number of syllables in the order of 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. The Cinquain is a form developed by American writer Adelaide Crapsey.
A Cinquain Chain is a poem consisting of more than one stanza, with the last line of each stanza used as the first line of the following stanza.
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Example:
"Triad"
by Adelaide Crapsy
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow. . .the hour
Before the dawn. . .the mouth of one
Just dead.
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from "Fatherhood"
by Thomas D. Greer
Watching
his brother climb
the backyard's tallest tree.
His eyes follow, he tells himself:
One day.
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #3 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:06am » | |
Haiku -- A fixed-form poem, which was developed by the Japanese, but has also been found in the English language. It consist of three lines with a fixed number of syllables in the order of 5, 7, 5.
The Japanese-form of Haiku usually always make a reference to a season of the year, whether directly or indirectly, while the English-form of Haiku doesn't always mention nature, but does stick to the syllable count.
In recent years poets have taken liberty with syllable count allowing some lines to have more or less syllables.
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Example:
"Banbury"
by Jane K. Lambert
Road from Banbury
a man spilled from his crushed car
dead eyes full of rain
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #4 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:07am » | |
Limerick -- A fixed-form poem in a light, humorous style. Its usual form consists of five lines with the rhyme scheme aabba; lines 1, 2, and 5 contain three feet, while lines 3 and 4 usually contain two feet.
Limericks range in subject matter from the silly to the obscene, and were popularized by Edward Lear in the Nineteenth Century.
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Example:
from "A Hell Of A Birthday"
by Joel D. Ash
The devil relaxing in hell,
His wife suddenly drops a bombshell;
"Junior's birthday is Monday,
He wants ice cream sundae,
Vanilla should taste really swell."
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #5 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:09am » | |
Pantoum -- A fixed-form poem, which was developed by the Malaysians. The Pantoum was later adapted by the French and the form which has entered the English language, has mostly been translations of French poets.
In the Pantoum the stanzas rhyme abab. The second and fourth line of each stanza is repeated in full as the first and third line of the following stanza. There is no set number of stanzas, but to complete the poem a loop is created with the second and fourth line of the last stanza being the same as the first and third line of the first stanza.
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Example:
"Pantoum Of The Great Depression"
by Donald Justice
Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.
We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.
But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.
And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.
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poetryinacup
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« Reply #6 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:11am » | |
Rondeau -- A fixed-form poem, which comes from the French. A Rondeau (sometimes spelled Rondo) consists of three stanzas of uneven length, usually 15 lines.
The Rondeau contains a refrain or rentrement (the re-entry of the poems opening words as a refrain), which occurs at the beginning of the first line and is repeated at the end of the second and third stanza. The refrain does not rhyme with anything else, but the poem contains a rhyme scheme of aabba, aabR, aabbaR (R being the refrain).
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Example:
"In Flanders Fields"
by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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« Reply #7 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:14am » | |
Sestina -- A fixed-form poem consisting of 39 lines of any length divided into six stanzas of 6 lines and a three-line concluding stanza called an envoy.
The six words at the end of the first stanza's lines must also appear at the ends of the other five stanzas, in varying order. These six words must also appear in the envoy, where they often resonate important themes.
The end words in stanza 1, must appear at the end of each consecutive stanza in the following order:
stanza 1: 123456
stanza 2: 615243
stanza 3: 364125
stanza 4: 532614
stanza 5: 451362
stanza 6: 246531
envoy: 142356
(No deviation from this order is tolerated).
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Example:
"Sestina"
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew not as men waking, of delight.
This was the measure of my soul's delight;
It had no power of joy to fly by day,
Nor part in the large lordship of the light;
But in a secret moon-beholden way
Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,
And all the love and life that sleepers may.
But such life's triumph as men waking may
It might not have to feed its faint delight
Between the stars by night and sun by day,
Shut up with green leaves and a little light;
Because its way was as a lost star's way,
A world's not wholly known of day or night.
All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night
Made it all music that such minstrels may,
And all they had they gave it of delight;
But in the full face of the fire of day
What place shall be for any starry light,
What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way?
Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,
Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,
And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,
Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,
Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,
Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.
For who sleeps once and sees the secret light
Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way
Between the rise and rest of day and night,
Shall care no more to fare as all men may,
But be his place of pain or of delight,
There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.
Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light
Before the night be fallen across thy way;
Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.
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« Reply #8 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:18am » | |
Sonnet -- A fixed-form poem that consists of fourteen lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. There are two basic types of sonnets, the Italian (or Petrarchan) and the English (or Shakespearean).
The Italian sonnet is divided into an octave (8 lines), which typically rhymes abbaabba, and a sestet (6 lines), which may have varying rhyme schemes. Common rhyme patterns in the sestet are cdecde, cdcdcd, and cdccdc. Very often the octave presents a situation, attitude, or problem that the sestet comments upon or resolves, as in John Keats' "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer."
The English sonnet is organized into three quatrains (4 lines) and a couplet (2 lines), which typically rhyme abab cdcd efef gg. This rhyme scheme is more suited to English poetry because English has fewer rhyming words than Italian. English sonnets, because of their four-part organization, also have more flexibility with respect to where thematic breaks can occur. Frequently, however, the most pronounced break or turn comes with the concluding couplet, as in Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?"
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Example:
"Sonnet 18"
by William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
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poetryinacup
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Karma: 0 | | Terza Rima.
« Reply #9 on Sept 20, 2006, 5:35am » | |
Terza Rima -- A fixed-form poem developed by the writer Dante and used for his entire poem, "The Devine Comedy."
A chained form with three-line stanzas. In each stanza the first and third lines rhyme, while the second line rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza. To end the Terza Rima a final pair of lines, both of which rhyme with the middle line of the previous stanza.
Terza Rima vary in length, but the most common length of the Terza Rima is 14 lines, and is sometimes known as a Terza Rima Sonnet.
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Example:
"Ode To The West Wind"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintery bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
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