The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet, Exams of Poetry

Download The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet and more Exams Poetry in PDF only on Docsity! The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 1 — THE ENGLISH MAJOR’S PROSODY CHEAT SHEET A Note from the Author/Collator/Editor/Fellow Cheater: It’s obvious in poetry, more than in any other genre, that language carries meaning. Poetry, with its crystallized language, its beautiful vocality, foregrounds words and the way they strike your ear. But poetry is a give-and-take between structure and sound. All that beauty is constructed on and in a scaffold of rhyme, rhythm, and meter. The study of this scaffolding is called prosody. The usual definition of prosody is the study of the laws that govern the ways in which the regular patterns of sound and beats in poetry are arranged. And prosody has its own kind of beauty and intelligence. Yes, it’s a sometimes difficult discipline, sometimes puzzling, and sometimes just confusing. But it’s essential to your understanding of the genre. The more I learn about it, the more I am amazed at poets who can manipulate the formal trappings of the genre to make the form itself carry, support, and comment on various meanings. While I have stolen/borrowed/co-opted much of this material, I attempt to acknowledge the various sources at the conclusion of the document. Poetry, Reading, and Intimidation Yes, poetry requires concentration and attention to every single word. It can be intimidating Areas Covered: Rhyme 2 Rhythm 4 Meter 5 Stanzas and Rhyme Schemes 8 Poetic Forms 10 Scansion 13 Quoting Poetry 15 Sources 16 The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 2 — Rhyme Rhyme is the correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse. In English use, rhyme is the repetition of the terminal syllables of two lines of verse, where those syllables have the same medial vowel(s) and final consonant(s), but different initial consonant(s). Rhymes are classified into different types according to where they fall in a line or stanza or according to the degree of similarity they exhibit in their spellings and sounds. Rhymes based on number: Masculine Rhyme (also “single rhyme”): Rhyme that occurs in a single accented syllable: moon / June bait / hate cat / sat feet / neat Feminine Rhyme (also “double rhyme): Rhyme that occurs in two syllables, one accented and one unaccented: hairy / scary fitting / sitting faker / make her trundle / bundle Triple Rhyme (also “compound rhyme”): Rhyme that occurs in three syllables, one accented and two unaccented: vanity / humanity liable / pliable flourishing / nourishing scornfully / mournfully Rhymes based on placement: End Rhyme (also “full rhyme,” “true rhyme,” “perfect rhyme”): Rhyme that occurs between the vowels in different lines of verse: Tyger, tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night, (William Blake, “The Tyger”) Internal Rhyme: Rhyme that occurs within a line of verse, or within several lines, but is not limited to the terminal words: The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother (Dylan Thomas, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London”) The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 5 — Meter Meter is an arrangement of sound elements into strong and weak beats or accents. Types of meter are classified according to the number of feet (see above) in a line. The number of feet in a given line is marked as a form of the word “-meter.” These are the standard English lines: Name Number of Feet Monometer one foot Dimeter two feet Trimeter three feet Tetrameter four feet Pentameter five feet Hexameter (also the “Alexandrine”) six feet Heptameter (also the “Fourteener” when the feet are iambic) seven feet Here’s a set of examples from John Hollander (whose Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse is the fundamental tool for this kind of work, and it’s actually funny as well): If she should write Some verse tonight This dimeter Would limit her. BUT: Iambic trimeter Is rather easier. AND: Tetrameter allows more space For thoughts to seat themselves with grace. NOW: Here is pentameter, the line of five That English poetry still keeps alive. In other centuries it was official Now, different kinds of verse make it seem special.  The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 6 — Six downbeats in a line that has twelve syllables Make up the alexandrine, which, as you can hear, Tends to fall into halves—one question, one reply. Fourteeners, cut from ballad stanzas, don’t seem right for song Their measure rumbles on like this, for just a bit too long. Classifying and counting the number of feet in a line allows us to describe the line. The most common English meter is iambic pentameter, in which each line contains ten syllables, or five iambic feet: Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”) Types of Lines End-stopped: a line of poetry which ends with a period or other punctuation. Enjambed: a line of poetry which carries over syntactically to the next line. The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 7 — Common Rhymed Groups of Lines Couplet: A sequence of two rhymed lines, usually rhythmically identical and often forming a complete unit of thought: This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long. (Shakespeare, “Sonnet 73”) Heroic Couplet: a pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (the traditional heroic epic form). Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies. (Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”) Triplet: A group of three lines with the same rhyme: Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows The liquefaction of her clothes. (Robert Herrick, “Upon Julia’s Clothes”) Common Unrhymed Groups of Lines Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall. That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; (Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”) Free Verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure. The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. (Carl Sandburg, “Fog”) The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 10 — Poetic Forms Ars Poetica: This isn’t really a structured form; it’s a term meaning “the art of poetry.” An ars poetica poem expresses that poet's aims for poetry and/or that poet’s theories about poetry. See “Adam’s Curse” by W.B. Yeats, or “Ars Poetica” by Archibald Macleish. Aubade: A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn. See “The Sunne Rising” by John Donne or “Leave-Taking” by Louise Bogan. Ballad: In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines. Folk (or traditional) ballads are anonymous and recount tragic, comic, or heroic stories. A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. The night John Henry is born an ax of lightning splits the sky, and a hammer of thunder pounds the earth, and the eagles and panthers cry! (Melvin B. Tolson, “The Birth of John Henry”) Blank Verse (also “heroic verse”): Unrhyming iambic pentameter. Common Measure: A quatrain that rhymes abab and alternates four-stress and three-stress iambic lines. It is the meter of the hymn and the ballad (but not necessarily the rhyme scheme). Concrete Poetry (also “pattern poetry”): Verse that emphasizes nonlinguistic elements in its meaning, such as a typeface or layout that creates a visual image of the topic. See “Easter Wings” by George Herbert or “Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree” by George Starbuck. Confessional Poetry: Self-revelatory verse associated with a number of American poets writing in the 1950s and 1960s, including Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman. See “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath or “Memories of West Street and Lepke” by Robert Lowell. Dramatic Monologue (also “persona poem”): This form shares many characteristics with a theatrical monologue: an audience is implied; there is no dialogue; and the poet speaks through an assumed voice—a character, a fictional identity, or a persona. Because a dramatic monologue is by definition one person’s speech, it is offered without overt analysis or commentary, placing emphasis on subjective qualities that are left to the audience to interpret. See “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning or “Gunga Din” by Rudyard Kipling. Epistle: A letter in verse, usually addressed to a person close to the writer. See “8 Count” by Charles Bukowski or “Hotel” by Lorna Dee Cervantes. Elegy: Peter Sacks gives the most succinct definition: “a poem of mortal loss and consolation.” The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical form and is traditionally written in response to the death of a person or group. Though similar in function, the elegy is distinct from the epitaph, ode, and eulogy: the epitaph is very brief; the ode solely exalts; and the eulogy is most often written in formal prose. See “Clearances” by Seamus Heaney or “Lycidas” by John Milton. The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 11 — Epic: An epic is a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons. Elements that typically distinguish epics include superhuman deeds, fabulous adventures, highly stylized language, and a blending of lyrical and dramatic traditions. See The Aeneid by Virgil or Omeros by Derek Walcott. Epigram: A short, pithy saying, usually in verse, which is often (but not necessarily) ironic, satirical, humorous or clever, with a quick, satirical twist at the end. The subject is usually a single thought or event. The word “epigram” comes from the Greek epigraphein, meaning “to write on, inscribe,” and originally referred to the inscriptions written on stone monuments in ancient Greece. See “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound or “Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost. Ode: A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. “Ode” comes from the Greek aeidein, meaning to sing or chant, and belongs to the long and varied tradition of lyric poetry. Originally accompanied by music and dance, and later reserved by the Romantic poets to convey their strongest sentiments, the ode can be generalized as a formal address to an event, a person, or a thing not present. See “To Autumn” by John Keats or “In Celebration of My Uterus” by Anne Sexton. Pastoral: A poem that deals with shepherds and rustic life. Pastoral poetry is highly conventionalized; it presents an idealized rather than realistic view of rustic life. Common topics of pastoral poetry include love and seduction; the value of poetry; death and mourning; the corruption of the city or court vs. the “purity” of idealized country life; and politics (generally treated satirically: the “shepherds” critique society or easily identifiable political figures). See “Damon the Mower” by Andrew Marvell or “Vespers” by Louise Glück. Prose Poem: A prose composition that, while not broken into verse lines, demonstrates other traits such as symbols, metaphors, and other figures of speech common to poetry. See “Grace” by Joy Harjo or “Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson” by Gertrude Stein. Sestina: A complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a three-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas; the closing envoi contains all six words, two per line, placed in the middle and at the end of the three lines. In place of a rhyme scheme, the sestina relies on end-word repetition to effect a sort of rhyme. The patterns of word repetition are as follows, with each number representing the final word of a line, and each row of numbers representing a stanza: 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 1 5 2 4 3 3 6 4 1 2 5 5 3 2 6 1 4 4 5 1 3 6 2 2 4 6 5 3 1 (6 2) (1 4) (5 3) See “Homes” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman or “If  See No End In Is” by Frank Bidart. The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 12 — Sonnet: A fourteen-line poem, usually composed in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes. There are three major types of sonnets, upon which all other variations of the form are based: the “Petrarchan” or “Italian” sonnet, the “Shakespearean” or “English” sonnet, and the “Spenserian” sonnet. A Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet consists of an octave rhymed abbaabba and a sestet rhymed either cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce. The octave poses a question or problem, relates a narrative, or puts forth a proposition; the sestet presents a solution to the problem, comments upon the narrative, or applies the proposition put forth in the octave. Since this form presents an argument, observation, question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines. This turn marks a shift in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or whatever answer the octave demands. See “Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning or “Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent” by John Milton. The Shakespearean (English) sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a couplet rhymed abab // cdcd // efef // gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, epigrammatic comment, or even refutation of the narrative or problem put forth in the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end. See “America” by Claude McKay or “Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God” by John Donne. The Spenserian sonnet uses three quatrains and a couplet like the Shakespearean, but links their three rhyme schemes in this way: abab // bcbc // cdcd // ee. The Spenserian sonnet develops its theme in two parts like the Petrarchan, its final six lines resolving a problem, analyzing a narrative, or applying a proposition put forth in its first eight lines. See Amoretti by Edmund Spenser or “The Snowdrop” by John Clare. Terza Rima: Invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the late 13th century to structure his three-part epic poem, The Divine Comedy, terza rima is composed of tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the first and third lines in the following tercet: aba // bcb // cdc // ded . . . . See “Complaints to his Lady” by Geoffrey Chaucer or “Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Villanelle: A French nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repeated alternately until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines. The first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain. Thus lines 1, 6, 12, and 18 are the same, as are lines 3, 9, 15, and 19. Lines 1 and 3 form a final couplet. The lines rhyme: aba // aba // aba // aba // aba // abaa. See “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop or “Do Not Go Gentle” by Dylan Thomas. The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 15 — Quoting Poetry If you’re quoting one, two, or three lines of poetry, you mark the end of a line by placing a space and a / (a virgule) followed by another space: William Carlos Willams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” ends thus: “beside the white / chickens.” If a short quotation of poetry spans two stanzas, signal a stanza break with two virgules: Williams composes a place full of “water // beside the white / chickens.” Verse quotations of more than three lines should be treated like a block quotation of prose. That is, they should begin on a new line. Unless the quotation involves unusual spacing, indent each line one-half inch from the left margin and double-space between lines, adding no quotation marks that do not appear in the original: Williams’ minimalist modernist poem calls attention to the fact that we, as readers, are looking at a work of art which takes as its subject itself: so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. The English Major’s Prosody Cheat Sheet — 16 — Stolen From The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones, editors. Broadview Press, 1993. Brooks, Cleanth, and Robert Penn Warren. Understanding Poetry. Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, 1968. “Glossary of Literary Terms.” Gale Cengage. n.d. www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/ glossary/index.htm. Gwynn, R. S. Poetry: A Pocket Anthology. 7th ed. Longman, 2012. Hollander, John. Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse. 4th ed. Yale UP, 2014. Lennard, John. The Poetry Handbook: A Guide to Reading Poetry for Pleasure and Practical Criticism. Oxford UP, 1996. Meyer, Michael, ed. Poetry: An Introduction. 5th ed. Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. Morillo, John. “Guide to Poetics and Prosody.” North Carolina State University. n.d. www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/morillo/public/prosody1.htm. Newman, Bob. “Stanzas.” A Guide to Verse Forms. 1 January, 2013. www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/. The Norton Introduction to Poetry. 9th ed. J. Paul Hunter, Alison Booth, and Kelly J. Mays, editors. W. W. Norton, 2007. Pérez, Jesús Tronch. “Basic Guide to English Prosody.” Universitat de Vàlencia. www.uv.es/~tronch/stu/GuideEnglishProsody.html. Preminger, Alex, and T. V. F. Brogan. The New Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton UP, 1993. Ríos, Alberto. “Glossary of Rhymes.” Arizona State University. Fall 2000. www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page2.html. Sacks, Peter. The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats. Johns Hopkins UP, 1987. Shapiro, K. A Prosody Handbook. Harper & Row 1965 Wales, Katie. A Dictionary of Stylistics. Longman, 1991.