Transcript Document

A Brief Summary of the
Previously Studied Variety
of Verse Forms
By Jiang Min
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)
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



The Canterbury Tales
( Geoffrey Chaucer) most of it is written in the
heroic couplet



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
B. The English Renaissance
Period (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


1.Established by an Italian poet Guitone
d’Arezzo in 13th c, preferred by Dante (12651321) and perfected by Francesco Peterach
(1304-1374)---therefore known as Petrarchan
sonnet.
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


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
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.


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.
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.
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)

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
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.
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)

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.





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.


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.
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.

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.
Main References

Wang Bao-tong, How Poetry Rings, Henan
University Press, 1998