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temperance14Because when life gets boring, let's cover it in beige wallpaper and pull the drapes.
More poetry forms. Because it ain't a blog without lists.
We finished the couplets/the itty bittiests stanzas you can have. Which moves up to...well, three lines.
Now, M William's book doesn't include tercets as a "fully defined stanza pattern but under "loosely defined" patterns, which I find odd. I assume it is because his definition of tercet is that there is no meter or length applied to the term: just any three lines that rhyme "aaa"--same true end rhymes. You will often find tercets included in long poems of heroic couplets, usually highlighted with a large bracket to the right by the author/publisher--one of the ways to vary the heroic meter. Dryden's All For Love opens the prologue with a tercet:
What Flocks of Critiques hover here today,
As vultures wait on Armies for the Prey
All gaping for the carcass of a Play!
Well. That was cheerful.
I suspect that most poets would find long lines of tercets a bit much to listen to: but Williams included this one in his book:
To a Fair Lady, Playing with a Snake
Strange! that such horror and such grace
Should dwell together in one place;
a fury's arm, an angel's face!
'Tis innocence, and youth, which makes
In Chloris's fancy such mistakes,
To start at love, and play with snakes
By this and by her coldness barred,
Her servants have a task too hard;
The tyrant has a double guard!
Thrice happy snake! that in her sleeve
May boldly creep; we dare not give
Our thoughts so unconfineda leave.
Contented in that nest of snow
He lies, as he his bliss did know,
And to the wood no more would go.
Take heed, fair Eve! you do not make
Another tempter of this snake;
A marble one so warmed would speak
--Edmund Waller
*******************
There is Terza Rima, but that is better covered under whole poem forms--the pattern is established by the interlocking of one stanza to the next.
William's book does reference two Welsh forms that run in tercets: Englyn Penfir and Englyn Milwr. These don't ride on accentual syllabic feet, but in syllables.
I like the influence of Welsh and Irish verse traditions--syllabic, assonance and consonance instead of strict rhyme, and internal rhymes tucked in for sparks. The Englyn Milwr is the simplest: per this books definition, 3 lines of 7 syllables, slant rhymed. Unfortunately, the only example is a translation by Wesli Court (aka Lewis Turco), and it is from old Welsh battle praise poetry. Between the subject matter and Turco's translation...I'm not usually too fond of his work. But,
I carry a severed head
Cynfarch's son, its owner, would
Charge two warbands without heed
Englyn Penfir's a bit trickier. A triplet, but the first line is 10 syllables, and the next two 7 syllables. The rhyme is clearly on the end of lines two and three, but in that long first line, may be buried up to 3 syllables back from the end. Think of it this way: even it the longer 10 syllable line, the rhyming word hovers around the 7th syllable.
AND, the sound that does close that first long line must be echoed by true or slant rhyme at the start of line 2. So..
The handsome corpse is laid down today,
Laid under this earth and stone--
Curse my fist! Owain's sire slain!
"day" at the end of line one is echoes in "laid" at the start of line two. The repeating rhyme sound in all three lines is in "down", "stone" and "slain".
Enough. Moving up to 4 lines stanza, the quatrains. Back to English accentual-syllabic, and all the meters and feet and other OCD countables.
More poetry forms. Because it ain't a blog without lists.
We finished the couplets/the itty bittiests stanzas you can have. Which moves up to...well, three lines.
Now, M William's book doesn't include tercets as a "fully defined stanza pattern but under "loosely defined" patterns, which I find odd. I assume it is because his definition of tercet is that there is no meter or length applied to the term: just any three lines that rhyme "aaa"--same true end rhymes. You will often find tercets included in long poems of heroic couplets, usually highlighted with a large bracket to the right by the author/publisher--one of the ways to vary the heroic meter. Dryden's All For Love opens the prologue with a tercet:
What Flocks of Critiques hover here today,
As vultures wait on Armies for the Prey
All gaping for the carcass of a Play!
Well. That was cheerful.
I suspect that most poets would find long lines of tercets a bit much to listen to: but Williams included this one in his book:
To a Fair Lady, Playing with a Snake
Strange! that such horror and such grace
Should dwell together in one place;
a fury's arm, an angel's face!
'Tis innocence, and youth, which makes
In Chloris's fancy such mistakes,
To start at love, and play with snakes
By this and by her coldness barred,
Her servants have a task too hard;
The tyrant has a double guard!
Thrice happy snake! that in her sleeve
May boldly creep; we dare not give
Our thoughts so unconfineda leave.
Contented in that nest of snow
He lies, as he his bliss did know,
And to the wood no more would go.
Take heed, fair Eve! you do not make
Another tempter of this snake;
A marble one so warmed would speak
--Edmund Waller
*******************
There is Terza Rima, but that is better covered under whole poem forms--the pattern is established by the interlocking of one stanza to the next.
William's book does reference two Welsh forms that run in tercets: Englyn Penfir and Englyn Milwr. These don't ride on accentual syllabic feet, but in syllables.
I like the influence of Welsh and Irish verse traditions--syllabic, assonance and consonance instead of strict rhyme, and internal rhymes tucked in for sparks. The Englyn Milwr is the simplest: per this books definition, 3 lines of 7 syllables, slant rhymed. Unfortunately, the only example is a translation by Wesli Court (aka Lewis Turco), and it is from old Welsh battle praise poetry. Between the subject matter and Turco's translation...I'm not usually too fond of his work. But,
I carry a severed head
Cynfarch's son, its owner, would
Charge two warbands without heed
Englyn Penfir's a bit trickier. A triplet, but the first line is 10 syllables, and the next two 7 syllables. The rhyme is clearly on the end of lines two and three, but in that long first line, may be buried up to 3 syllables back from the end. Think of it this way: even it the longer 10 syllable line, the rhyming word hovers around the 7th syllable.
AND, the sound that does close that first long line must be echoed by true or slant rhyme at the start of line 2. So..
The handsome corpse is laid down today,
Laid under this earth and stone--
Curse my fist! Owain's sire slain!
"day" at the end of line one is echoes in "laid" at the start of line two. The repeating rhyme sound in all three lines is in "down", "stone" and "slain".
Enough. Moving up to 4 lines stanza, the quatrains. Back to English accentual-syllabic, and all the meters and feet and other OCD countables.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-07 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-08 05:33 am (UTC)Well, you can try to check it out. If I haven't borrowed it again.
I found some other books from Lehmann on Alibris and ABEbooks that dealing with learning OLD Irish. Damn and damn yes. After taxes are covered.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-15 01:44 am (UTC)Basic Welsh: A grammar and workbook
by Gareth King, published by Routledge Grammars.
If you are interested, I would be happy to hand it over.