American Division Literature . [ 6 ]

American Division Literature . [ 6 ] 

Forms of Verse .

Poetry  has a regular rhythm that can be measured and a rhyme scheme .

A poem is written in lines and stanzas . When the subdivision is irregular and unrhymed they may call it not as a stanza but a “ strophe” .

 Prose poetry .  The prose poem would seem to be an oxymoron . Poetry written in paragraphs [ with left and right margin justification ] , without the line breaks of regular verse , the prose poem relies on its compact intensity and repetition of rhyme and figurative elements .

Ex . ‘ Bell-Tones” by L . E . Myers .

                                            Bell-Tones .

Bells have been ringing and marking time in my life Bells to

Come for and bells to go by . Bells to ring and bells to hear .

Easy bell-tones turn to clattering bells , ringing , finally

becoming muted into man soft death knells .

Although visually made to look like prose , this prose poem contains such major poetic elements as personification , onomatopoeia and alliteration and the intensity of meaning [ symbolism ] etc. 

 Free Verse .  Free verse is just that – free of a regular meter . Also called   “ open form” or “ verse libre” , free verse is characterized by short , irregular lines , no rhyme pattern and a dependence on the effective and more intense use of pauses – words selected not only for meaning but for how that meaning is intensified by their position in the poem .

Notice the use of free verse in “ Know Yourself “ by L. E. Myers .

There is a

truth

with us

and in us

Is this the truth ?

There is a

lie

with us

but not in us .

Is this the truth ?

 Blank Verse : It is written in iambic pentameter , but with no rhyme pattern . It is the major verse form used by Shakespeare in his plays . In blank verse , divisions are referred to as verse , paragraphs [ although the verse paragraph can also be in free verse ] . Blank verse made its appearance in English literature first in drama , then epics and since has been used frequently in a wide variety of long poems .

An example is William Wordsworth’s lengthy poem “ Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During A Tour, July 13 , 1798 .”

                            Five years have passed , five summers , with the length

              Of five long winters ! and again I hear

              These waters rolling from their mountain-springs

               With a soft inland murmur , Once again

               Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs ,

               That on a mild secluded scene impress

               Thoughts of more deep seckusion ; and connect

                The landscape with the quiet of the sky .

 Qualitative Verse :  This verse has a measurable rhythm with an identifiable rhyme scheme . The poem is presented in a known stanza . The verse is accentual-syllabic : it depends on [1] how many syllables are in each line and [2] the accented and unaccented syllables forming patterns . [ Do not confuse this with quantitive verse that imitates Greek and Latin versification , depending on the duration od sound ] .

A significant aspect of form in poetry is the form of stanza .

 

Stanza	No. of Lines	Meter	Rhyme Scheme
Ballad	four lines	Lines 1 and 3 iambic tetrameter  Lines 2 and 4 iambic trimeter	a b c b
Elegiac	four lines	iambic pentameter	a b a b
Terza Rima	three lines	iambic pentameter	a b a , b c b / c d c , e d
Rhyme Royal	seven lines	iambic pentameter	a b a b b c c
Ottava Rima	eight lines	iambic pentameter	a b a b a b c c
Spenserian	nine lines	lines 1 -8 iambic pentameter line 9 iambic hexameter [ an Alexandrine ]	a b a b b c b c c

 

Other terms referring to the number of lines in a stanza include :

Tristich [ triplet ] = three lines

Quatrain = four lines

Quintain [ quintet ] = five lines

Sextain [ sestet ] = six lines