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Poetic Forms - Coggle Diagram
Poetic Forms
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THE SONNET
2 different types of sonnet:
- Shakespearean (ABBA / CDCD / EFEF / GG)
- Petrarchan (ABBA CDCD / CDE CDE)
One of the most popular forms.
Love, nature, politics, God.
Compactness.
Octave (2 quatrains) + Sestet (2 tercets)
ABBA / ABBA / CDE / CDE
Movement from octave to sestet is marked by a Volta : turn in subject matter, point of view etc. Adverstaive conjunctions = but / yet
William Wordsworth : crossed the ballad with a more lyrical form to create the lyrical ballad. Poetic diction based on the rhythm of actual speech (1790s).
Sonnet is not a series of syntactical building blocks --> Wordsworth thinks of it as more unified and harmonious, like an organic sphere.
THE BALLAD
- Short narrative
- 4 line stanzas
- ABAB / ABCB
- Love, the supernatural, contemporary political events
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FOCUS POEMS
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Milton: Lycidas
Paragraphs are not the same length, lines are uneven. Sombre mood. Nature and human life share the same rhythm. Destruction of the young and beautiful. Use of mythology.
Fragility of human existence = "thin-spun life"
Pastoral elegy = shepherds, idyllic
"Yet once more" = inserts poem in the tradition of pastoral elegy, echo apocalyptic warnings from the Bible.
ELEGY
Poetic lamentation to the dead. Origins in the pastoral laments of classical literature
Strong emphasis on fertility rites - renewal of life in the face of death. Question of mortality in the voice of the poem
Consolation and relief of loss by idealisation of the dead
Freud - psychological significance
Paradoxical: expression of death & grief but also celebration & renewal of life
Loss & absence prompt new forms of expression
Conventions:
- Ceremonial procession
- Ritual laying of wreaths and flowers
- Appeal to deities
- Cathartic outbreak of anger
- Light and water = renewal & return
- Use of English pastoral images
Modern poets make the elegy more harshly satirical & darkly cynical. Lamentations for an exemplary figure (e.g. 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats) or a larger group or aspect of life (metaphors for things larger than the poet)
Biographical directness and intimacy of voice
THE ODE
From the Greek: 'to sing' - ceremonious, organised form of lyric poetry, considerable length. State occasions.
Milton / Shelley / Keats
Greek: Pindaric Ode = song and dance, energetic, strophes
Latin: Horation Ode = stately, reserved, regular in form
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OPEN FORMS
Counterpoint = folk song vs passionate prose
Tension, contradiction and stress.
Poets who can make form out of chaos and formless experience e.g. The Idea of Order at Key West - Wallace Stevens
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