A Brief Summary of the Previously Studied Variety of Verse Forms

1. A Brief Summary of the Previously Studied Variety of Verse Forms By Jiang Min

2. Reviewing the previous variety of verse forms (before the Period Augustan) A. The Middle Ages (449-1485) The Anglo-Saxon period (Beowulf- The most important work of Old Englsih literature, the most striking feature is the use of alliteration( word beginning with the same consonant sound)

3. The Anglo- Norman Period ( From about 13 c) the metrical Romances( in verse or prose) King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the best of Arthurian romances

4. The Canterbury Tales • ( Geoffrey Chaucer) most of it is written in the heroic couplet

5. Popular Ballads ( the ageless narrative folk song flourished during the 15th c) • the most important are the Robin Hood ballads. • Ballads are mostly written in quatrains with the first and third lines in iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines in iambic trimeter, and a rhyme scheme of abcb or abab

6. B. The English RenaissancePeriod (1485-1660) • Petrarchan sonnet: Divided into an Octave (八行) & a sestet (六行) • Shakespearean Sonnet: ababcdcdefefgg, a rhyme scheme made up of three 33quatrains and a concluding couplet. also called The English Sonnet / Elizabethan Sonnet • the Spenserian Sonnet :A compromise between the more rigid Italian and the less rigid English patterns

7. 1.Established by an Italian poet Guitone d’Arezzo in 13th c, preferred by Dante (1265-1321) and perfected by Francesco Peterach (1304-1374)---therefore known as Petrarchan sonnet.

8. I Petrarchan sonnet Divided into an Octave (八行) & a sestet (六行) • Rhythm scheme for the octave is always the prescribed abbaabba (phonologically, the effect is remarkable, the middle 4 lines overlap the others and echo their pattern impress the reader with a similar rhyme pattern.) • That for the sestet may vary. Usu: cdcdcd/ cdecde

9. The Octave presents the theme in the first quatrain and develops it in the second; the sestet exemplifies or reflects upon it in the first tercet() and brings it to a logical emphatic close in the second. • The structure may be shown by spacing or with the help of indentation but frequently the 14 lines are just put together

10. II The English Sonnet/ Shakespearean Sonnet/ Elizabethan Sonnet Since there are far more vowels in English than in Italian and hence fewer words to each sound, it is harder to find rhyming words than in Italian. • When the form of sonnet was bought from Italy By Wyatt to England it became abab cdcd efef gg , a rhyme scheme made up of three quatrains and a concluding couplet.

11. As a rule the argument is taken up in the first quatrain developed in the second, comes to a turn of thought in the third, and reaches a conclusion or effective climax in the final couplet. • The form is perfected and immortalized by Shakespeare and therefore is also known as Shakespearean Sonnet. It was flourishing in the Elizabethan period so is also referred to as Elizabethan Sonnet.

12. III the Spenserian Sonnet • A compromise between the more rigid Italian and the less rigid English patterns. It is seldom used by other poets. • ababbcbccdcdee • It links the three quatrains of the Shakespearean form more closely and concluded with an independently rhymed couplet.

13. Metaphysical poet John Donn, wearied of the sweet melodies of the Petrachan and pastoral Elizabethans, his poems have a use of colloquial speech, considerable flexibility of rhythm and meter, sometimes he wrote in sonnets too. ( quote from Wang Peilan)

14. Blank Verse • Blank verse: one form of poetry---unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is by far the commonest and most important form of rhymeless poetry.—according to Wang Bao tong

15. A legacy of history as rhyme is • Except for free verse, it’s the form closest to the form of English speech. Its stresses alternate as speech stresses tend to / its measure of 5 strong stresses marked by the juncture of the line-end—readily apprehended without counting/ has become ‘ the commonest and most serviceable all –purpose framework’, & its unencumbered (unhindered)没有阻碍的 gait步法 (A particular way or manner of moving on foot, rhythm ) makes it the proper measure for works of elaboration and continuity.

16. It has undergone constant perfection: • when first introduced in to English from Italy (Sb translated Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid from Latin original into Italian and then Surrey translated parts of it into English)

17. 10 syllables only; • 5 almost strictly iambic feet; • pause near the middle of the line; • stop( metrical, if not grammatical) at every line-end ( usu sounds clumsily regular. The lines, all end stopped, plod along in regimented uniformity. The result is a lifeless monotony.

18. Marlowe and Shakespeare and the later Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists changed all that by bringing a new ease and flexibility to Blank verse by: • Breaking the line in the middle ; • Indicating dramatic pauses; • Allowing the sense to flow into a freer sentence structure; while keeping its general regularity in the iambic pentameter nature.

19. As a result , Blank verse was still nearer the speaking voice. The movement of rhythm through a series of lines, and the accommodation of every range of subject, idea and feeling to the pentameter line gave blank verse a flexibility unequalled in any language. • This lends it a fluency of ordinary speech, which is particularly suitable for dramatic poetry.

20. John Milton and His Blank Verse • John Milton (1608-1674) certainly deserves his position as one of the greatest English poets and his masterpiece “Paradise Lost” is considered to be the greatest English epic, in which he developed a grand style which is suitable for the grand theme and is termed as Miltonic with long and powerful blank verse and the theme of universe, the mighty and noble.

21. When blank verse came to the masterly hand of John Milton (1608-1674), he deliberately distorted the normal syntax and sound –patters of English speech while retaining the privilege of drastic metrical variation. His finest effects are gained by playing the thought and feeling structure of his large rhythms against the expected regular beat. and he created the Miltonic style.

22. Main References • Wang Bao-tong, How Poetry Rings, Henan University Press, 1998