Stanzas - Couplet, Tercet And Quatrain, Poetic Techniques by Tynea Lewis more by Tynea Lewis Published on February 2014 Just like other forms of writing, poetry needs to be organized. Stanzas provide a structure for that organization. Each stanza is made up of a varying number of lines, just like paragraphs are made up of sentences. Each line can be a phrase or complete sentence, depending on the format of the poem. When put together in a stanza, these lines convey a larger idea. Many poets use one of these common formats to create stanzas. Certain types of poems also use a combination of them. Couplet A couplet is a set of two lines that usually rhyme. One More © Maranda G. Brice When the sunny skies turn from blue to gray, I can't help but wonder just what you would say? I wonder if you know how many lives you have touched, Do you know that people here love you so much? Can you even know how many dreams you made come true, Or if you can hear the voices saying I love you? Do you know how many lives you have changed, And how many lives you completely rearranged?

I wish I could have just one more year, Because I can't picture the rest of my life without you here. Just another chance to spend the night, and share a laugh, Another day of school with you is what I'd like to have. Do you know you'll be greatly missed by us all? Just one more time I want to hear you're voice when I call. Just one more laugh, one more time to see you walk through the door Another smile, another story, another hug, another day...Just one more. Examples of poems with couplets: You Were Inside Me If Only I Knew Inside Out Lost In The Past Make It Green Childhood Why Play At Being Real? All Good Things Come To An End Brothers Tercet A tercet is a set of three lines that may or may not rhyme. A Minute © Patricia A.

Gordon Every one young or old Needs someone to listen As their stories are told The difference is yours to make A minute from your busy day Is all it would take Take a minute and lend an ear Listen intently To what you hear Take a minute and you will see Just how powerful Listening can be Take a minute to offer a smile and a touch You sincerity Means so much Take a minute and simply be kind A friend for life May be what you find. Examples of poems with tercets: Remember In Time Quatrain A quatrain is a set of four lines that may or may not rhyme. The Butterfly © Andres Diaz With a symphony of colors Spread on her wings, She strolls in the garden With a light footprint. She smile to the flowers, She flew by the pond, And freshen her breath By kissing the rose. Examples of poems with quatrains: Never Stop Being You I Wish I Wasn't Alone Life Without You How Can I Forget? Love's Frist Words Mask Tercet Tercet Craft of Poetry Home Tercets are any three lines of poetry, whether as a stanza or as a poem, rhymed or unrhymed, metered or unmetered.

The haiku is a tercet poem. Haiku- a Japanese, three-line form generally about nature and the seasons or which incorporates such related imagery. It is based also on a syllable count of 5-7-5 per line, though that is not a strict rule. This is an example from Basho, one of the most famous Japanese haikuists, from "Fourteen Haiku:" I would lie down drunk on a bed of stone covored with soft pinks blooming. The Shiki Internet Haiku Salon How to Haiku: The haiku relies on image to provide everything else a poem should. Inside the image lies spirit, emotion, and idea, and these are released when the image is isolated (for lack of better word) from the rest of the world. The image itself is what is important becuase it is supposed to evoke a response in our senses that is both cerebral and physical. Whether or not this is always achievable is a good question. It seems to me that a good haiku is nothing more than a moment of Zen wherein everything is evoked, and nothing is evoked, if that makes any sense at all.

Some other common tercets are: Enclosed tercet- a triplet that rhymes "aba". If the three lines are written in iambic pentameter, then they are called a sicilian tercet. This is just a silly, normal tercet: I am a yellow dog who wishes he was a purple-spotted frog. Terza Rima- this form is created by interlocking any number of enclosed triplet stanzas, meaning the first and third lines of a stanza rhyme, and the middle line rhymes with the first and third lines of the following stanza like this "aba bcb cdc ded" and so on. I am a yellow dog who would rather be a toad. Too many frogs have ideas about the sea, foreign swamps and bayous, my own puddle makes me happy . . . Villanelle - a tough form. It uses triplets for most of the poem, and that is why it is included under Tercets, but you won't find anything about it here.

Terzanelle- see Villanelle How To If your writing a poem that is made up entirely of tercets, then they should behave in the same manner as a poem made up of couplets, evocative and somewhat self-contained. If not (perhaps you're writing a sonnet), then the tercet becomes a cog in a wheel, necessary to the functioning of the poem. -- Damon McLaughlin Tercet - definition of tercet by The Free Dictionary Tercet - definition of tercet by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . ter·cet 1. A group of three lines of verse, often rhyming together or with another triplet. 2. Music See triplet .

[French, from Italian terzetto, from diminutive of terzo, third, from Latin tertius; see trei- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] tercet (ˈtɜːsɪt; tɜːˈsɛt) n (Poetry) a group of three lines of verse that rhyme together or are connected by rhyme with adjacent groups of three lines [C16: from French, from Italian terzetto, diminutive of terzo third, from Latin tertius] ter•cet (ˈtɜr sɪt, tɜrˈsɛt) n. a group of three lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme with the adjacent group or groups of three lines. [1590–1600; < French < Italian terzetto < Latin tertius. See -et ] tercet A group of three lines, often connected by rhyme. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Tercets: Links, References, Examples. Cuttings: Haiku and Short Poems Links, Guides, References, Index. 600K.

Author index, title index, guide to teaching haiku poetry, classical Japanese haiku masters, concrete poetry directory, quotes about poetry, tercets, and selected haiku, tercets, and short poems by Michael P. Garofalo. Dante: The Divine Comedy 80K. Victoria S. Poulakis. "Translation: What Difference Does it Make?" Dante's Inferno: Translations By Joan Taber Altieri. 53K. "Dante uses hendecasyllabic meter based on the magic number three, which represents the Trinity, and multiples of three: in particular, three-squared, which represents Beatrice, and three times ten, the symbol of perfection, or God. There are thirty-three syllables per tercet and three metrical units per line, nine per tercet.

The rhyme scheme (ABA BCB CDC, etc.) is Dante's own invention, and has the effect of bringing the action of the poem forward like a gently rolling wave folding over into itself, weaving it into a huge, complex net: transmogrify just one tercet, and the rhythm and flow are interrupted, unsettling the tercets that follow." Renga - Linked Forms, Links from DMOZ Most English language Renga verse consists of alternating tercets and couplets, by different authors, linked together by agreed upon rules. Short Verse Definitions and Guidelines By Dennis M. Garrison. Templar Phoenix Literary Review Short Verse Guidelines. 5K. "Tercets are three-line poems, rhymed or unrhymed, of various meters. An Enclosed Tercet is three lines rhymed A-B-A. A Sicilian Tercet is three lines of iambic pentameter rhymed A-B-A." Specific Line Group Types Brown University Women Writers Project. 12K. "A tercet is a group of three lines that clearly stands as a compositional unit.

Tercets can be stanzas: the villanelle, for example, is a fixed-form type of poem made up of five tercets and a concluding quatrain. They can also be sub-units of larger units such as strophes and verse paragraphs. Often, for example, tercets rhyming AAA will be interspersed throughout a poem that is primarily in couplets." Stanzas and Stanzaic Form Expansive Poetry & Music Online: Prosody. 31K. Definitions and examples. Tercet and Triad By John Hewitt. 14K. "The tercet (enclosed tercet) is a poetry form with Italian roots. One of the most famous examples of the tercet form is Dante's The Divine Comedy, which, in it's original form, was composed of three line stanzas, the first and third of which rhymed. This is the classic form of a tercet: a three- lined poem stanza in which the first and last lines rhyme while the second line is blank (unrhymed)." Tercets: Definition By Damon McLaughlin. 5K.

"If your writing a poem that is made up entirely of tercets, then they should behave in the same manner as a poem made up of couplets, evocative and somewhat self-contained. If not (perhaps you're writing a sonnet), then the tercet becomes a cog in a wheel, necessary to the functioning of the poem." (Poems featuring three line stanzas in an unrhymed free verse style.) A. R. Ammons, The City Limits A. R. Ammons, From Sphere A. R. Ammons, Motion's Holding Michael Anania, The Edge of Autumn W. H. Auden, Archaeology Terza Rima by Adrienne Rich 13 poems by Adrienne Rich. Terza Rima By Alberto R�os. 17K. "Terza Rima is a poetic rhyme scheme which involve interlocking rhymes, written in iambic tercets. The rhyme scheme is aba bcb cdc ded (and so forth) for as long as the poet wishes to continue. Although no specific line length is required, most terza rima poems in English are written in iambic pentameter.

If other line lengths are used, such as tetrameter, all lines must be in that length." W. H. Auden, The Sea and the Mirror - Antonio Boccaccio, Amorosa Visione Lord Byron, Prophecy of Dante Geoffrey Chaucer, Complaint to His Lady Dante, Divine Comedy Triple�Rhyming in Dante's Inferno By Seth Zimmerman. 22K. "What we label a triple�rhyme scheme, and usually visualize as an interlocking geometric pattern, is merely a static outline� an afterimage�of a dynamic thrust which carries the poet, his guides, and us, through the poem." Villanelle By Alberto R�os. 26K. "The villanelle carries a pattern of only two rhymes, and is marked most distinctively by its alternating refrain, which appears initially in the first and third lines of the opening tercet. In all, it comprises five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Before the villanelle was made literary by the French in the late 1500s, it existed as a villanella, "an old Italian folk song with an accompanying dance." The Villanelle - Forms By Trevor Przyuski.

"The villanelle (French word meaning "rustic song") is a poetry form adopted by the French in the late 16th Century from earlier forms of Italian folk verse. The form consists of five "tercets" (three line stanzas) and a quatrain in which the first and last line of the first stanza are repeated as closing lines in each stanza that follows. The repetitious, circular movement of the form is said to represent the circles of French folk dances." Stanza Examples What would my heart do But cry, sigh and be blue If I could not write (Second Stanza) And I know it should Who could have knew Is write, write, write - Unknown Author While it is well known that poetry deals with emotions, the poem above, whose subject matter is the author’s love of writing, is just a mere visual that you can use when you are trying to decipher where the stanzas are in a poem. The above poem details a five-lined stanza, which many people may refer to as a limerick . Types of Stanzas There are many different types of stanzas.

Some of which are: Couplets (stanza with two rhyming lines) Tercets (stanzas with three lines that may or may not rhyme) Quatrains (stanzas with four lines that may or may not rhyme) Remember that in poetry you can identify a stanza by the number of lines that it has and its rhyme scheme or pattern. Stanzas in Song When trying to find the stanzas in popular songs, it is best to take a look at the verses. Remember that songs are simply poetry set to music. With this in mind you should be able to easily identify the stanzas and the length of the stanzas. Keep in mind that most songs are made up of two verses, a bridge (which may or may not repeat) and a chorus (that definitely repeats.) Star Spangled Banner If you take a look at the “ Star Spangled Banner ” you should be able to identify the stanzas. Verse 1 “Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” -Francis Scott Key “The Star Spangled Banner” has four verses , however only the first verse in sung popularly at athletic games, political events and so forth. When you take the first verse, and hum it you can begin to see how it is a stanza. Then, if you take a look at all of the verses, you begin to see how it is nothing more than a poem with four stanzas. Each stanza has eight lines and there is definitely an apparent rhyme pattern. Other Patriotic Song Stanzas While the Star Spangled Banner is perhaps the most patriotic song of all because it is our national anthem, there are several other famous patriotic songs that you can look at in order to see some stanza examples.

For instance, consider the first stanza of the following famous songs: America the Beautiful Words by Katharine Lee Bates and music by Samuel WardO beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! This Land Is Your Land Words and music by Woody Guthrie As I was walking a ribbon of highway I saw above me an endless skyway I saw below me a golden valley This land was made for you and me Children's Songs Songs for kids also contain stanzas as well. These are usually fun and funny, or else they contain simple and easy words that kids can learn. Consider the following examples: Boom, Boom, Ain't it Great to be Crazy? A horse and a flea and three blind mice Sat on a tombstone shooting dice. The horse slipped and fell on the flea- "Oops! said the flea, there's a horse on me!" This old man, he played one, He played knick knack with his thumb, With a knick, knack, paddy whack, Give the dog a bone; This old man came rolling home.

Stanzas in Poetry Here are the first stanzas of some poems that are recognized and widely respected: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun by Emily Dickenson The daisy follows soft the sun, And when his golden walk is done, Sits shyly at his feet. He, waking, finds the flower near. "Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?" "Because, sir, love is sweet!" I Had a Guinea Golden by Emily Dickenson I had a guinea golden; I lost it in the sand, And though the sum was simple, And pounds were in the land, Still had it such a value Unto my frugal eye, That when I could not find it I sat me down to sigh.

Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light As time progresses you will be able to see how easy it is to identify a stanza in both poetry and song. In due time, you will become a master at writing poetry and identifying stanzas. Guide to Verse Forms - stanzas Stanzas A stanza is the "proper" name for what is more commonly known as a "verse". (Confusingly, to prosodists the word "verse" seems often to mean what you and I would, in our ignorance, call a "line".) Many standard verse forms consist of several similarly-structured stanzas. Most such forms fall within the definition of an ode . An ode imposes the further requirement that every line must rhyme with at least one other line of the same stanza. The present page covers both stanzas that qualify for use in odes, and those that don't.

Rhyming schemes will be indicated by a sequence of letters such as abcabc - this represents a 6-line stanza in which line 1 rhymes with line 4, line 2 with line 5, and line 3 with line 6. An x will be used for a line that doesn't rhyme with anything else - not even other lines denoted by x. Thus xxxxx denotes a 5-line stanza with no rhymes at all. I won't say anything here about metre unless I have to. The list which follows is by no means complete and I will add more stanza forms as I encounter them, or discover names for them. I may also add examples of some of them, in the fullness of time. Latest news: Several books of my poem, including Old Possum's Book of Practical Pigs, are now available from Amazon in Kindle editions. Please see Publications page for more information. 3-line stanzas A 3-line stanza of any kind is called a tercet . aaa is a triplet . axa is pretty common, occurring in forms such as the villanelle and terza rima (where in both cases there are also rhymes between stanzas).

The haiku is a species of tercet, and so are some varieties of englyn (though not the one featured on this site). 4-line stanzas A 4-line stanza of any kind is called a quatrain . There are four kinds of fully-rhymed (and hence odeworthy) quatrain: abab is known as cross-rhyme (French rimes croisï¿½es or rimes alternï¿½es ) and abba as envelope-rhyme (French rimes embrassï¿½es ). aabb is just a couple of couplets; the clerihew is one variety of this. aaaa is monorhymed; a particular case is the shairi, or Rustavelian quatrain . Depending on the metre, xaxa can yield a ballad , which is also sometimes regarded as a kind of ode . If xaxa is in iambic pentameter, then it is an elegiac quatrain or heroic quatrain . aaxa is the rubai , as used to such excellent effect by Omar Khayyam. Even xxxx, the unrhymed quatrain , has its champion, in the person of Frank Kuppner .

Look out for his A bad day for the Sung dynasty, and its sequel Second-Best Moments in Chinese History, each of which consists of 501 unrhymed quatrains. 5-line stanzas A 5-line stanza of any kind can be called a quintain , a quintet , or a cinquain . However, the word cinquain is also used both for a particular verse form of French origin, and for a particular syllable-counting form (of no great merit or interest, as far as I can see). It is therefore best to stick with quintain as the general word for any 5-line stanza. The best-known form of quintain in the English-speaking world is a particular heterometric form (i.e. not all the lines are the same length) called the limerick . A sequence of limericks would constitute a perfectly well-formed ode , but might lack gravitas. The tanka is a species of quintain, and so is the bina , my own miniaturised sestina form. 6-line stanzas As with 5-line stanzas, there is a potentially confusing variety of candidates for use as the general word for any 6-line stanza.

I'm going to stick with sexain . Synonyms which I shall spurn include sixain , sextet and hexastich , as well as sestet (which usually means the last 6 lines of a sonnet ) and sextain (which is sometimes used to mean sestina , a form of no fewer than 39 lines). A large number of rhyming schemes are possible, of which only a small number have names. aabaab does not have a special name, but is the shortest form of stanza to exhibit tail rhyme . ababcc in iambic pentameter is known as a Venus and Adonis stanza , after the poem by Shakespeare. The same rhyming scheme in iambic tetrameter is also common - Wordsworth used it for his Daffodils, for example - but it doesn't seem to have a name of its own. abcabc is another common sexain form that deserves a name but doesn't have one. abccba falls into the same category, though personally I call it the scupham , after the British poet Peter Scupham.

I must confess that whenever I look for examples, he turns out to have used it as a complete stanza less often than I thought - but he has written a fair number of " sonnets " based on it. aaabab can be a Burns stanza if the metre is right - the a lines each having 4 feet and the b lines 2. This is also known as the Scottish stanza , or standard Habbie . xaxaxa can be used for an extended kind of ballad stanza - as used, for example, in Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol. A Spanish form called the sextilla can rhyme aabccb or ababcc, and has 8-syllable lines - but beware! The Spanish have a somewhat eccentric way of counting syllables. And for additional confusion, they sometimes call the ababcc kind of sextilla a "sestina". (I'm beginning to think we may need an international body to impose standards on verse form nomenclature. Or perhaps that would spoil the fun...) 7-line stanzas A 7-line stanza of any kind is called a septet .

The most common such form, and apparently the only one to have a special name, is rhyme royal , which uses the scheme ababbcc, the lines having 10 syllables each i.e. (usually) iambic pentameter . Rhyme royal is also sometimes known as the Troilus stanza. 8-line stanzas An 8-line stanza of any kind is called an octave (or occasionally an octet ). The word octave is also used for the first 8 lines of a sonnet . Ottava rima rhymes abababcc, the lines being of either 10 or 11 syllables (i.e. iambic pentameter, sometimes with an extra syllable). The most famous example of ottava rima in English is Byron's Don Juan. The ballade stanza rhymes ababbcbc. A huitain uses either that same rhyming scheme or abbaacac, with either 8-syllable or 10-syllable lines, and is usually (but not always) a complete poem in its own right.

The Sicilian octave rhymes abababab, the lines being, as far as I can make out, the same length as for ottava rima . 9-line stanzas The best known is the Spenserian stanza (after Edmund Spenser of the Faerie Queene), which rhymes ababbcbcc, the first 8 lines being pentameters and the last a hexameter or alexandrine . If you have a deep-rooted desire to be obscure, there's the Balassi stanza , named after the 16th-century Hungarian Balint Balassi, which rhymes bbaccadda, with syllable counts 667667667. This is another example of tail rhyme . Stanzas: Why they matter when you're writing a picture book | RhymeWeaver.com 202. Stanzas and Beat Counts $stanzas/yr Stanzas are lines of verse or poetry grouped into single units and separated by at least one double-spaced break. Stanzas are named based on the number of lines they contain. A BEAT COUNT is a delineation of the number of STRESSED syllables per line in a stanza that is written in Meter.

Stanzas can be made up of lines with or without Meter. A poem can be made up of just one Stanza that contains only a few words or it can be made up of many Stanzas. When writing a poem or rhyming picture book, Stanzas are important because they are related to Rhyme Schemes. Rhyme Schemes are covered in 203, but remember that a Stanza is the unit upon which a Rhyme Scheme is built. BEAT COUNTS: A beat count represents the number of STRESSED syllables in each line of a given stanza. STRESSED syllables can also be referred to as Beats, or downbeats, but generally just Beats. I think this usage is stolen from music, but I don’t know that much about music so feel free to email me if I made that up. A Beat Count is written as a series of numbers separated by slashes. Like this: 4/3/4/3 or 2/4/2/4/2 While Beat Counts are useful for notating basic rhythmic structures, they do not tell you anything about the specific Meter used in a Stanza or work.

Notice that a Beat Count only represents STRESSED syllables; UNstressed syllables are not accounted for. So a Beat Count that looks like this 3/2/3 could represent either of the stanzas below. As you can see, they would be very different Stanzas, despite the fact that they have exactly the same Beat Count. Notice that there are exactly the same number of beats/boots in each box. Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is approximately 55,00 lines of Iambic verse grouped into about 6000 Stanzas. Each Stanza is nine lines. The Beat Count looks like this 5/5/5/5/5/5/5/5/6. The first eight lines of each Stanza are written in Iambic Pentameter, which has 5 STRESSED syllables, but the ninth line is Iambic Hexameter, which has 6 STRESSED syllables. This ninth line is called an Alexandrine because it has twelve syllables, but an Alexandrine can have many other specifications.

A Stanza with nine lines isn’t always called a Spenserian, in honor of Edmnd Spenser, but it’s a pretty famous type of Stanza with a very specific Rhyme Scheme and Beat Count. The Faerie Queene is the longest poem ever written in the English language, and Spenser died when it was only half finished. He died broke. Share this: Poetry08 And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again; While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope [...] (From: Wordsworth , Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey) Couplet is the name for two rhyming lines of verse following immediately after each other. The heroic couplet, popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consists of two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. An octosyllabic couplet is also sometimes called a short couplet.

The regular metre and the rhyme pattern of the couplet, usually with end-stopped lines, provides comparatively small units (two lines in fact) in which to make a point. Especially eighteenth-century poets used the form to create satirical contrasts within the couplet. In the following example from Pope ’s Imitations of Horace especially the lines “To prove, that Luxury could never hold; / And place, on good security, his Gold” present a blatant contradiction between words and action in a completely harmonious (regular metre, noticeable rhyme) poetic form. In consequence the reader notices the contradiction somewhat belatedly, almost as an afterthought. The effect is that of thinly disguised satire. Time was, a sober Englishman wou’d knock His servants up, and rise by five a clock, Instruct his Family in ev’ry rule, And send his Wife to Church, his Son to school. To worship like his Fathers was his care; To teach their frugal Virtues to his Heir; To prove, that Luxury could never hold; And place, on good Security, his Gold. (From: Pope, Imitations of Horace, Ep.

II.i) A tercet, sometimes also called a triplet, is a stanza with three lines of the same rhyme (aaa or two rhyming lines embracing a line without rhyme (axa). Released from the noise of the butcher and baker, Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her, And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker; From chiding the footmen, and watching the lasses, From Nell that burned milk too, and Tom that broke glasses (Sad mischiefs through which a good housekeeper passes!); From some real care, but more fancied vexation, From a life parti-coloured, half reason, half passion, Here lies after all the best wench in the nation. (From: Prior , Jinny the Just) The terza rima is a variant of the tercet famously used by Dante in his Divine Comedy. The terza rima uses a chain rhyme, the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and the third line of the next stanza (aba bcb cdc etc.) The snow came down last night like moths Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn, Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on What shellbursts scattered and deranged, Entangled railings, crevassed lawn. As if it did not know they’d changed, Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged (From: Wilbur , First Snow in Alsace) The quatrain is one of the most common and popular stanza forms in English poetry. It is a stanza comprising four lines of verse with various rhyme patterns. When written in iambic pentameter and rhyming abab it is called heroic quatrain: The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. (From: Gray , Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard) Tennyson used a quatrain rhyming abba for his famous poem In Memoriam A.H.H.

and the stanza form has since derived its name from this poem – the Memoriam stanza: O, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; The ballad stanza is a variant of the quatrain. Most commonly, lines of iambic tetrameter alternate with iambic trimeter (also called chevy-chase stanza after one of the oldest poems written in this form). The rhyme scheme is usually abcb, sometimes also abab. Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down, ‘Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. (From: Coleridge , The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) The rhyme royal is a seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter which rhymes ababbcc.

It is called rhyme royal because King James I of Scotland used it, though he was not the first to do so; Chaucer employed the stanza in Troilus and Criseyde much earlier. A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighbourhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, Yet congregated on its blankness, stood An unintelligible multitude, A million eyes, a million boots in line Without expression, waiting for a sign. (From: Auden , The Shield of Achilles) The ottava rima derives from Italian models like the terza rima and the sonnet do; it is a stanza with eight lines rhyming abababcc. The most famous use of the stanza form in English poetry was made by Byron in Don Juan, who skillfully employs the stanza form for comic effect; in the following example the last line renders the slightly pompous lovesickness of the first seven lines quite ridiculous. “And oh! if e’er I should forget, I swear – But that’s impossible, and cannot be – Sooner shall this blue ocean melt to air, Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea, Than I resign thine image, Oh, my fair!

Or think of anything, excepting thee; A mind diseased no remedy can physic” – (Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew seasick.) The Spenserian stanza, famously used by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene, has nine lines rhyming ababbcbcc, the first eight lines are iambic pentameter, the last line is an alexandrine, which breaks the slight monotony of the pentameters and is often employed to emphasise a point. Here is Spenser’s description of the Redcross Knight; the last line emphasises the knight’s valour (he feared nothing but everyone feared him): But on his brest a bloudie Crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead as living ever him ador’d: Upon his shield the like was also scor’d, For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had: Right faithfull true he was in deede and word, But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad; Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

(From: Spenser, The Faerie Queene) The sonnet is a lyric poem of (usually) fourteen lines in iambic pentameter which became popular in England in the sixteenth century (see Types of Poetry ). Later sonnet writers sometimes varied the number of lines between ten and sixteen lines, but still called the poem a sonnet ( George Meredith for instance in his sonnet sequence Modern Love used sixteen lines, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote sonnets that had ten-and-a-half lines). One distinguishes between two main rhyme patterns in the sonnet: The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is divided into an octave or octet (eight lines) rhyming abbaabba and a sestet rhyming cdecde or some variation (for example cdccdc). Very often this type of sonnet develops two sides of a question or a problem and a solution, one in the octave and, after a turn often introduced by ‘but’, ‘yet’ or a similar conjunction that indicates a change of argument, another in the sestet.

In the following sonnet the speaker laments his inability to serve God on account of his blindness in the octave, but in the sestet takes courage again from the thought that God will not expect more of him than he can do and that his best servitude is to bear his lot in patience. Milton varies the form slightly by placing the turn (“but”) in the last line of the octave. When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my day, 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.” (Milton, On My Blindness) The English or Shakespearean sonnet usually falls into three quatrains and one final couplet. The rhyme pattern is most commonly abab cdcd efef gg. In the English sonnet the turn often occurs in the concluding couplet, which operates rather like a punch line, as in the following example. The first twelve lines lament the all-powerful and destructive influence of time, but the couplet ventures to express some hope that writing poetry might in fact overcome this and preserve the poet’s love forever. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea But sad mortality o’er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays? O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid? Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? O, none, unless, this miracle have might That in black ink my love may still shine bright. ( Shakespeare , Sonnet 65) An important variant of the English sonnet is the Spenserian sonnet which links the quatrains with rhymes: abab bcbc cdcd ee. Unrighteous Lord of love, what law is this, That me thou makest thus tormented be: The whiles she lordeth in licentious blisse Of her freewill, scorning both thee and me. See how the Tyranesse doth joy to see The huge massácres which her eyes do make: And humbled harts brings captives unto thee, That thou of them mayst mightie vengeance take. But her proud hart doe thou a little shake And that high look, with which she doth comptroll All this worlds pride, bow to a baser make, And al her faults in thy black booke enroll. That I may laugh at her in equall sort, As she doth laugh at me and makes my pain her sport. ( Spenser , Amoretti, Sonnet 10) The limerick is used mainly for nonsense verse.

It consists of five lines, two longer ones (trimeter, one trochaic foot, two anapaests), two shorter ones (anapaestic dimeter) and another trimeter (one trochee, two anapaests). Edward Lear , one of the most famous limerick- and nonsense verse writers, insisted that the first and the fifth line of the limerick should end with the same word, usually a place name. There was an old person of Dutton Whose head was as small as a button. So, to make it look big, He purchased a wig Poetry Types Poetry Types by Cella Bella Let me start off by saying I think all poetry is beautiful, no matter how simple or complex. I wanted to post this to share the many types of poetry and to give some insight on some of the many types of poetry you may see on P&Q. I must say, free verse is always wonderful but, you might be surprised how challenging and unique formed poetry can be. Happy writing. Types: 1. Villanelle The villanelle, in my opinion, is one of the more difficult styles of poetry.

A villanelle consists of 19 lines, including five tercets and a quatrain at the end. Each tercet is made up of three lines. The rhyme scheme for each tercet is aba. (the first and last have the same end rhyme, which just means the last word in each line rhymes) The concluding quatrain consists of four lines. The rhyme scheme is abab. Now, this is where it gets tricky. Two lines are repeated throughout the entire poem. -The first line of the last stanza is repeated as the last line in the second and fourth stanzas and also as the second-to-last line of the ending quatrain. -The third line of the first stanza is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth stanza and as the last line in the ending quatrain. 2.Diamante A diamante is a seven line poem, shaped like a diamond. Line 1 consists of one word, a noun. Line 2 consists of two words, both adjectives, describing the first word. Line 3 consists of three words, all action verbs.

(words ending with "ing") Line 4 consists of four words, nouns, first two words relate to line 1 and the last two words relate to line 7. Line 5 consists of three words, action verbs. (words ending with "ing") Line 6 consists of two words, adjectives, describing the last word. Line 7 consists of one word, a noun, which is a synonym or antonym to line 1. 3.Acrostic An acrostic poem uses the letters in a word to begin each line of the poem. [usually the title] All lines of the poem relate to or describe the main topic word or title. Acrostic poems do not need to rhyme but, they can if you want it to. Ex: "Poem" M 4.Sestina A sestina poem consists of six, six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas. This kind of recurrent pattern is called lexical repetition. 1 2 3 4 5 6 - end words of lines in first sestet.

6 1 5 2 4 3 - end words of lines in second sestet. 3 6 4 1 2 5 - end words of lines in third sestet. 5 3 2 6 1 4 - end words of lines in fourth sestet. 4 5 1 3 6 2 - end words of lines in fifth sestet. 2 4 6 5 3 1 - end words of lines in sixth sestet. 6,2-1,4-5,3 - middle and end words of lines in tercet This type of poetry is also rather difficult. 5.Sonnet A sonnet is a 14 lined poem in *iambic pentameter. A sonnet usually is a poem about love or religion. *Iambic Pentameter Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. It has an unrhymed line with 5 iambs or feet. Iambic means the stress is on the second syllable. Pentameter shows us that a line has five feet or clusters of two syllables adding up to ten syllables in each line. Ex.

pillow/pillow/pillow/pillow/pillow When iambic pentameter is read aloud i would follow a beat like, Da-dum Da-dum. This may still be confusing, so if anyone knows of a better way to explain it, please comment. The two types of sonnets, I know of, are: The Italian Sonnet An Italian sonnet is divided into two sections. First, an *octave, whith a rhyme scheme of abab,abab followed by a *sestet, with a rhyme scheme of cde,cde which is an Italian sestet or a rhyme scheme of cdc,dcd, a Sicilian sestet . *Octave An octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter. The most common rhyme scheme for an octave is abba,abba. *Sestet A sestet is the name given to the second part of a sonnet, which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, followed by a sestet, of six lines. With a rhyme scheme of abc,cba The English Sonnet or Shakespearian has three quatrains with a concluding *couplet.

Couplets are two lines that work together, either as a single stanza or as part of one larger stanza. Couplets usaully have a rhyme scheme of a,a. Although there are many variations and they do not have to. 6.Triquatrain A triquatrain is a poem consisting of three *quatrains. *A quatrain is a stanza of four lines, rhymed or metered. There are many variation of the quatrain, just like the couplet. -Alternating Quatrain Four lines with a rhyme scheme of abab -Envelope Stanza A Quatrain with the rhyme scheme, abba. Lines two and three would be enclosed (eveloped) within the rhyme of lines one and four. -Recondilla A spanish form written in terameter with any of the following rhyme schemes. abba,abab or aabb There are many others as well, you can look them up if you'd like. 7.Pantoum The pantoum is made with any number of alternating quatrains with lines of any length and meter. Lines two and four of each stanza become lines one and three of the following stanza. They are to be repeated in their entirety.

Each stanza becomes interlocked with the stanza above and below it by rhyme and line, giving the poem a unique feel a lot like that of a Villanelle. The pantoum's last stanza takes lines one and three of the first stanza and uses them as either lines one and two, or two and four, but in reversed order. 8. Haiku and Senryu A haiku is a three lined verse, unrhymed, and is about nature. A senryu is very similar to a haiku, a three lined verse, unrhymed. The difference is, it is about human nature usually, rather than nature itself. 9.Rictameter A rictameter consists of 9 lines. The first and last lines are the same. line 1: two syllables

Question: In poetry, a tercet is a stanza in a poem made up of how many lines?
Answer: Three