Poetry: Genres and Forms

• Study Notes on Poetic Genres and Forms

Basic Elements of Poetry

• Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 explores themes of beauty and eternity

• It suggests beauty is more perfect and eternal than a summer's day and will live forever through procreation and poetry

• Tudor England saw an influence of Petrarchan poetry with praising a woman's beauty through similes, which is evident in the first line

• Shakespeare challenges imagery validity and Petrarchan conventions with his sonnet 113.

• Some sonnets lack a clear gender sign and do not describe a woman's beauty; the subject is speculated to be a mysterious man from the previous 17 sonnets

• The poem's speaker uses similes or metaphors praising his beloved lady's beauty

• Consists iambic rhythm and lines of 10 syllables, i.e., pentameters

• Uses a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, forming 3 quartets + 1 couplet

• Employs alliteration, which is the repetition of a sound, like in line 7 and the last line (l and g).

• Includes anaphora, which is the repetition of words at a line's beginning, seen in lines 4-6-7, 10-11, and 13-14.

• Contains metaphors like "the eye of the sun" and "eternal lines"

• Includes personification, for example, "the eye of heaven" and "Death - his shade"

• There are forms like "thou" and the suffix -st

• Poetry is often written in verse

• It emphasizes language's phonological and musical qualities

• It explores figurative language possibilities and exploits words' polysemy

• Poetry manipulates syntactical order; deviates from everyday language

• It expresses a poet's feelings and reflections in a brief, condensed, and elaborate manner

• John Keats' "Ode To A Nightingale" is a lyrical poem marked by feeling and style exaltation

• A speaker listens in solitude to a nightingale in its natural environment

• Presented is an imaginative response to the bird, intended to be a profoundly significant and shared experience

• Follows an ABAB CDE CDE iambic structure

• Explores beauty and poetry's eternity

• Nightingale's song serves as a symbol of beauty, unaffected by death and human suffering

• Celebrates the power of poetry to help escape the world's suffering

• Ultimately, the poem recognizes imagination's limitations

Narrative Poetry

• Narrative poetry tells a story in verse, focusing on characters, events, and a narrator

• Utilizes rhythm, repetition, and imagery with an oral tradition meant to be recited/heard

• Its rhythm and rhyme aided memorization/recitation

• It served as the main storytelling method until the 15th century

• A long narrative poem written in elevated language about the deeds of a hero is an Epic

• Epics feature a proposition of the theme, invocation to a muse, and action that starts in the middle of the story

• It uses epithets, which is when someone is refered to, long formal speeches from the hero, and divine interventions to help the human characters

• Also, there will be a hero's desent into the underworld, plus the hero embodies his civilization's values

Anglo-Saxon Epic

• Anglo-Saxon epics, part of oral tradition, were recited in public with a harp
• They showcase the era's ethical code, which is characterized by seeking honor to prove loyalty, courage, and strength in battle
• "Beowulf" is an example of an Anglo-Saxon epic dating back to the 10th century
• It is about Beowulf who is a hero from the Geats. Beowulf assists Hrothgar, who is the king of Danes, to killing the monster Grendel as well as Grendel’s Mom
• Later Beowulf kills a dragon but is mortally wounded
• Epics concludes a funeral in his honour
• Anglo-Saxon epics use rhythm and alliteration, not rhyme
• It contains 2 or 3 stressed syllables per line alliterate and verses split into 2 hemistichs using caesura
• Its epithets like "Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow/Protector of the Danes" and kennings like "swan-road = sea; ring-giver = king." are used

Romance

About the 12th century, it is characterized as verse written in romance languages instead of Latin

• Its fictional narrative poem deals primarily with courtly love, it is distinct from historical Latin chronicles
• The term was used in England in the 14th century to identify comparable works written in English

Medieval Romance

• Concerned with upper-class characters, their love, and chivalric adventures
• Set in classic/legendary past with quest and supernatural elements
• Usually recited to music for a courtly audience
• Involves "courtly love," which emphasizes a lady's idealization and resulting complications (adultery/self-denial)
• Contains usual strategies: challenges/help for the protagonist involving delays, obstacles, fortune reversals, and supernatural elements
• The hero starts a quest after an encounter, vision, and or call
• Hero goes through hostile lands and fights enemies
• Christian knight must be strong, courageous, loyal, courteous, and generous. He also should possess piety, and an unblemished moral code
• The setting of the poem is imprecise and remote, and the world is idealized
• Symbolism is expressed using objects, colors, and/or materials
• Magic and marvellous elements appear frequently
• However, historical chronicles are also, often, presented

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• Anonymous author. Late 14th c.
• Alliterative verse + "bob and wheel" structure (rhyming ABABA at the end of stanzas)
• One of the many romances involving King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
• Beginning → New Year’s Eve celebrations at Camelot
• The Green Knight proposes a “beheading game”.
• Gawain wears a green shield with a golden pentangle
• Gawain is faultless and upholds the virtues and wounds of Christ
• The hero is welcomed by Lord Bertilak and his wife in their castle
• Meeting with the Green Knight on New Year’s Eve at the Green Chapel.
• Slightly wounded after 3 axe blows.
• The Green Knight is Lord Berilak
• She intended to scare Queen Genevere and test Arthur and his knights
• Hero returns home happy but ashamed
• It shows wonder, magic, characters/setting and quest

The Canterbury Tales

• Geoffrey Chaucer wrote it in the late 14th c.

• It is written in verse (“rhyme royal”: iambic pentameters with couplet rhyme)

• Collection of framed tales, including "General Prologue," links, and prologues.

• About social classes (i.e. knight, squire, physician, miller, cook, and or nuns) for a general view

• The narrator is one of the pilgrims, creating an illusion of credibility and justification.

• A proposal involves each pilgrim telling 2 stories each way with the best story winning dinner But only 24 of the tales are told

  Several mediaeval narrative genres: fabliaux, romances, the life of a saint, miracle and sermons

Fabliau

• Fabliau is a comic story that stems from the 12th century and has been reworded in the 14th by Chaucer and Boccaccio
• They have sexual and scatological obscenity
• Its characters involve peasants, craftsmen, thieves, students, cuckolded husbands, and or immoral clergy
• There is a contrast between romance and religious narratives
• Take the Miller's Tale which is after the Knights tale, which include robin the miller who wresltes and tells tavern stories but is drunk
• John, who's an old carpenter Oxford, is married to a young good looking girl Named Alison, and he let's a student named Nicholas who likes astrology rent a room in "secret'
• Absalon who is working at the office and also is seeing Alison together
• Prank of John-> Nicholas and Alison sleep in that order"
• Its comedy that revolves around being bawdy; scatological humour stems from ignoble actions"
• Contrasting the idealization and solemnity found in romances

Lyric Poetry

• Expresses the personal feelings and thoughts of the speaker
• Ancient Greek literature used a lyre to sing in musical form.
• In summary, it has high musical verse
• Contains song like quality
• Explores single ideas by bringing together deep emotions and thoughts in one setting
• Its brief
• Used as moments of feelings and reflections
• Often epiphanic
• Attempts to be memorable
• This category includes a list of narrative poetry, such as: elegies, odes, sonnets
• Selected examples

Sonnet Origin

• Sonnet's Origin; The Sonnet-Italian translates to" small song/sound
• This can Developed in Italy from the early 14th century

Petrarchan Sonnet

• Reached with Height: Reach with height w Francesco Petrarch
• Petrarchan sonnets are 14 line poems divided into a octave(abba abba), or a sestet (cde cde)
• Contains courtly genre: written by, about courtiers, about “courtly love'
• Male Love interest: The Male love wants to seek to express Idealisation from the woman she needs
• Most of the time Love never works:Love-The unrequired
• Subject Matters:Subject matters on Love/ how emotional the lover is-Between sadness excitement Describing how the Speaker: They must to say describe her with beauty
• To give examples of beautiful women: they write"lips like rubies", they write"eyes like suns"
• With using similes, e.g.. lips lie Rubies; corals, eyes like the sun
• Imagery of love as a war, conquest or hunting
• Common figures use Hyperbole /paradox

Introduction in England

• Introducing through English literature (by Thomas Wyattrh and in the 16th c
• English Sonners-> A four part poem using consisting of three quatrain or Couplet to 3

Phillip Sidney;s and Astrophil

Consisting 1o8 sonners and 11 song-> Love for stella

• Sideys frustration in love made its autoBiigraphical.
• He went on several stages: First expectations second satisfaction and final is desperatiom

Elegy

• Meditative lyric poem that laments someone's death Dealinm with deaths more often Expressing the ancient Greek tone. Written in certain tone so the subject must follow There meter must alter the tone.

The English Tone(Anglo Sax)

Used frequently along sidies/ with epic poetry Lyric rather then a arrative Examples"The wife/and wanderer lament About MainSpeaker

Anglo-Saxon elegy

• Anglo Saxon Elgy is an important genre along side epic poetry.

• They can be interrelated, but elegies focuses on the speaker instead.

• One can Find "The Wanderer and The Wife's Lament", which is included in the the Exeter Book on the 10th c.

• One way is when you express a main speaker.

• Main speaker can revolve a lone warrior.

• The speaker then claims he misses the past for a tradition.

• There a speaker (which can be uncommom) The Wife's Lament.

• The speaker is the wife laming the heros band for his love.

Seventeenth Century:

• Jonh Dunn with the exemple of showing the latin for love
• John miltons example is love fro 1676: a sad day for someone of nature

Eighteenth Century:

• The poets would speak in the topics of somber.

• Consider as a cursior of the Goth Examples:

• Night thoughts: The Young and old one.

• More Examples

Nineteenth Century

Dirge: Is where christianta shows great things

There must be more to this than meets the eyes to show off great qualities. Then that of course follows the great and wonderful Exmples of the great

• Whitmans

Twentieth Century

Yeatus

• Cummings
• Audens

Ode

• Ode -> lyric which represents a person or item.
• They have 3 components with the third allowing for more structure
• The 10th has a similar system in terms of strcuturte and literature
• They are as for follows->immortality plus more.
• There structure-> which the third has even more.

An ekhass, means litary compostiton.