THE FORM OF POETRY

THE FORM OF POETRY • A. Sound Values : Rhyme, Alliteration and Assonance, Onomatopoeia • B. Versification - Rhythm and Meter - Lines of Verse - Stanza Forms - The Sonnet - Free Verse

Rhyme • Masculine • Feminine • Double rhyme • Triple rhyme • End rhyme • Internal rhyme

Rhyme • Lines of verse are said to rhyme when the ends of their final words have identical sounds. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters, and with might;

Rhyme • Here “quivers”, “rivers”, “shivers”; “light” and “might” are rhyming groups. In each of these clusters both pronunciation and spelling coincide. • Since rhyming is a matter of sound, though, a difference in spelling is of no consequence so long as the various spellings represent the same sound

Masculine and feminine rhyme • When the accented vowel is in the final syllable of the line—and again, this is the usual practice– the rhyme are said to be masculine • When one or two unaccented syllables follow the accented syllable is the rhyming words, the rhyme is feminine. The more frequent kind of feminine rhyme, that of two syllables, is called double rhyme.

Feminine rhyme • The more frequent kind of feminine rhyme, that of two syllables, is called double rhyme. • Triple rhyme is the variety of feminine rhyme in which two unaccented syllables follow the accented syllable and all three rhyme with a similar arrangement in a nearby line.

End rhyme • We usually expect to find rhymes in the final position of lines of verse. This customary use is called end rhyme.

Internal rhyme • Some poets enrich their verbal melody by placing a word within the line (usually at or near the middle) to rhyme with the final word. Such internal rhyme enhances the binding effect of rhymes; it may also give great stress to certain lines if most lines in the poem do not share this quality.

THE FORM OF POETRY