Below,
I will discuss five traditional forms:
the sonnet, the ballade,
the terza rima, the villanelle,
and the Spenserian stanza. While
there are many other traditional forms,
these four will serve as a good starting
point for your introduction to forms.
Sonnet
Shakespeare is
probably the most famous writer of sonnets
in the English language. Petrarch, however,
had written in this form long before Shakespeare.
The Petrarchan
sonnet (like almost all sonnets) is fourteen
lines long, traditionally written in iambic
pentameter, but unlike the Shakespearian
sonnet, it is made up of two parts: an
eight-line section (octave), followed
by a six-line section (sestet). Often,
these two sections are divided by a space.
In the first section, the octave sets
forth a situation, question, or an argument;
the second section, the sestet, answers,
solves, or resolves the topic rendered
in the first section. The rhyme scheme
is the Petrarchan is exact: the octave
pattern is abba abba, and the sestet
pattern is cde cde, or cdc dcd.
The English, or
Shakesperearean sonnet is a little less
rigorous. Again, we have fourteen lines,
usually written in iambic pentameter,
but the English sonnet is typically composed
in three quatrains and a final couplet.
Thus, with an occasional variation in
the third quatrain, the pattern is abab
cdcd efef gg (allowing for a bit more
variation and freedom in the rhymes).
Although the sonnet
is a strict form, so much can be said
in those fourteen lines: the imagery,
the progression of thought, the turn and
answer between octave and sestet, the
wholeness and feeling of completeness
that comes at the end.
Contemporary poets
have variously shunned, and embraced the
sonnet form (some with a playful sense
of experimentation). Charles Martin, uses
the sonnet form to bring us a vision of
modern life that somehow encapsulates
both the form and the subject in
"Sharks At The New York Aquarium".
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Sharks
At The New York Aquarium
Suddenly
drawn in through the thick glass
plate
And swimming among them, I imagine
Myself as, briefly, part of the
pattern
Traced in the water as they circulate
In sullen obedience to the few laws
That thread the needle of their
simple lives:
One moment in a window of serrated
knives,
Old-fashioned razors and electric
saws.
And then the sudden, steep, sidewinding
pass:
No sound at all. The waters turning
pink,
Then rose, then red, after a long
while clear.
And here I am again outside the
tank,
Uneasily wrapped in our atmosphere.
Children almost never tap the glass.
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Notice the ryhthm
of the lines, each line lifting, then falling
as we make our way through the first octave,
then move into the turn, and the final exhilirating,
and horrific knowledge of the final images.
Ballade
The ballade, or
ballad, is an old, traditional popular
form of song, often written in four line
stanzas, with line lengths alternating
between tetrameter (lines 1 and 3) and
trimeter (lines 2 and 4). A ballad, however,
is less rigid than other formal poems,
and therefore, the line lengths and meters
can vary a bit. Sometimes the stanza will
have one pair of rhymes, sometimes two.
Often, an additional line, called a refrain
(also called the burden), is attached
to the end of each stanza.
Traditionally,
a ballad was orally remembered and transmitted
from one listener to another, and often
in association with music, which accounts
for slightly different versions of the
same ballad a listener may sometimes hear.
Ballads also make use of dialect, obsolete
words, and vernacular pronunciation (which
is not suggested for other forms of poetry
since it takes a deft hand to use dialect
without drawing attention to itself).
Musician rarely
use the ballad form today, but some poets
still use, and enjoy, using the literary
ballad. Poets (and songwriters), often
use the ballad form as a story-telling
device. Robert Penn Warren's "The
Ballad of Billy Potts" for instance,
tells the dark history of a young man,
raised by a couple of misfit/outlaw parents
in the 19th century, who leaves home to
make his way in the world, and after becoming
a success (lawfully), is murdered by his
parents on his return home.
Another comtemporary
ballad, written by Gwendolyn Brooks, is
called, "the ballad of chocolate
Mabbie."
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It was Mabbie
without the grammar school gates.
And Mabbie was all of seven.
And Mabbie was cut from a chocolate
bar.
And Mabbie thought life was heaven.
The grammar
school gates were the pearly gates,
For Willie Boone went to school.
When she sat by him in history class
Was only her eyes were cool.
It was Mabbie
without the gramar school gates
Waiting for Willie Boone.
Half hour after the closing bell!
He would surely be coming soon.
Oh, warm
is the waiting for joys, my dears!
And it cannot be too long.
Oh, pity the little poor chocolate
lips
That carry the bubble of song!
O came the
saucily bold Willie Boone.
It was woe for our Mabbie now.
He wore like a jewel a lemon-hued
lynx
With sand-waves loving her brow.
It was Mabbie
alone by the grammar school gates
Yet chocolate companions had she:
Mabbie on Mabbie with hush in the
heart.
Mabbie on Mabbie to be.
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The repeated refrain,
"It was Mabbie without the grammar
school gates" and the lilting, songlike
rhythm of the poem lulls us into a false
impression of happiness—for the content
tells us a much darker story. By using
the tension between the form and content,
Brooks is able to give us a powerful lesson
about the dangers of innocence in love.
Terza
rima
You
may remember that two rhyming lines are
called couplets. Now we're going to talk
briefly about the tercet, which
is three rhyming lines.
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He ran along
the empty halls
Where oaken panels lined the walls
Before he came back to his mother's
call.
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The same word,
tercet, is used for a three-line
stanza that does not rhyme, or rhymes
only partially. A terza rima utilizes
such a three line stanza. It is traditionally
a poem in iambic pentamenter, with a rhyming
pattern a,b,a - b,c,b -
c,d,c, - etc. with no pause
or sense of completion in either statement
of grammer between tercets. In Shelly's
"Ode to the West Wend," four
tercets are followed by a single couplet,
the arrangement of lines making up a single
self-contained portion of his ode.
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. . .
Drive my dead thoughts over the
universe
Like withered leaves to quicken
a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this
verse,
Scatter,
as from an unextenguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among
mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened
earth
The trumpet
of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far
behind?
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Villanelle
The
villanelle, a French form, is a poem of
nineteen lines (five tercets and a final
quatrain). The poem works on only two
rhymes; the first line and the third line
of the initial stanza are repeated, exactly
or almost exactly, throughout the rest
of the stanzas, as follows: aba
- aba - aba - aba
- aba - abaa. Here is a
good example from Tom Disch.
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Entropic
Villanelle
Things break
down in different ways.
The odds say croupiers
will win.
We can't for that, omit their praise.
I have had
heartburn several days,
And it's ten years since
I've been thin.
Things break down in different ways.
Green is
the lea and smooth as baize
Where witless sheep
crop jessamine
(We can't, for that, omit their
praise),
And meanwhile
melanomas graze
Upon the meadows of
the skin
(Things break down in different
ways),
Though apples
spoil, and meat decays,
And teeth erode like
aspirin,
We can't, for that, omit thier praise.
The odds
still favor croupiers,
But give the wheel and
another spin.
Things break down in different ways:
We can't, for that, omit their praise.
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