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Renaissance verse forms. Revised Lectures for the Medieval to Renaissance module Spring term: Week 3: Renaissance Verse Forms. Paul Botley Week 4: No lectures or seminars Week 5: No lectures or seminars Week 6: Reading Week
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Revised Lectures for the Medieval to Renaissance module Spring term: Week 3: Renaissance Verse Forms. Paul Botley Week 4: No lectures or seminars Week 5: No lectures or seminars Week 6: Reading Week Week 7: Sidney, Apology for Poetry. Máté Vince Week 8: Spenser, Faerie Queene. Vlad Brljak Week 9: Spenser, Faerie Queene. Tess Grant Week 10: Renaissance Epyllia. Iman Sheeha Summer term: Week 1: Term begins on Wednesday due to this year’s late Easter. Week 2: The Poetry of Thomas Wyatt. Sarah Poynting Week 3: Sidney, Astrophil and Stella. Paul Botley
Dódo Dodó
oops set nai straw moth lam bo wau ma tot flu tea wri fat
Is the stressed syllable louder than the unstressed syllable? (volume) What is stress? Does it take a longer to say than the unstressed syllable? (duration/quantity) Is it pronounced at a higher or lower pitch than the unstressed syllable? (pitch) Is it articulated more clearly than the unstressed syllable? Do you breath out more air as you say it?
Quantitative verse: Used by Homer and Vergil Alliterative verse: Used in Beowulf and the Gawain poet
Quantitative verse: • Some syllables take longer to pronounce than others. • Regular patterns of short and long syllables are said to make up ‘feet’. • ‘Feet’ are combined to produce the verse line. • A combination of six ‘feet’ composes the heroic hexameter verse.
Tum Iunoomnipotenslongummiseratadolorem difficilisqueobitusIrimdemisitOlympo quae luctantemanimamnexosqueresolueretartus. namquianecfatomeritanecmorteperibat, sedmisera ante diem subitoqueaccensa furore, nondumilliflauum Proserpina uerticecrinem abstuleratStygioque caput damnaueratOrco. ergo Iris croceis per caelumroscidapennis mille trahensuariosaduerso sole colores deuolat et supra caput astitit. 'hunc ego Diti sacrum iussaferotequeistocorporesoluo': sic ait et dextracrinemsecat, omnis et una dilapsuscaloratque in uentosuitarecessit. [Aeneid, Book 4, 493-704] Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain A death so ling'ring, and so full of pain, Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife Of lab'ring nature, and dissolve her life. For since she died, not doom'd by Heav'n's decree, Or her own crime, but human casualty, And rage of love, that plung'd her in despair, The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair, Which Proserpine and they can only know; Nor made her sacred to the shades below. Downward the various goddess took her flight, And drew a thousand colors from the light; Then stood above the dying lover's head, And said: "I thus devote thee to the dead. This off'ring to th' infernal gods I bear." Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair: The struggling soul was loos'd, and life dissolv'd in air.
Tum Iunoomnipotenslongummiseratadolorem difficilisqueobitusIrimdemisitOlympo quae luctantemanimamnexosqueresolueretartus. namquianecfatomeritanecmorteperibat, sedmisera ante diem subitoqueaccensa furore, nondumilliflauum Proserpina uerticecrinem abstuleratStygioque caput damnaueratOrco. ergo Iris croceis per caelumroscidapennis mille trahensuariosaduerso sole colores deuolat et supra caput astitit. 'hunc ego Diti sacrum iussaferotequeistocorporesoluo': sic ait et dextracrinemsecat, omnis et una dilapsuscaloratque in uentosuitarecessit. [Aeneid, Book 4, 493-704] Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain A death so ling'ring, and so full of pain, Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife Of lab'ring nature, and dissolve her life. For since she died, not doom'd by Heav'n's decree, Or her own crime, but human casualty, And rage of love, that plung'd her in despair, The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair, Which Proserpine and they can only know; Nor made her sacred to the shades below. Downward the various goddess took her flight, And drew a thousand colors from the light; Then stood above the dying lover's head, And said: "I thus devote thee to the dead. This off'ring to th' infernal gods I bear." Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair: The struggling soul was loos'd, and life dissolv'd in air.
Then Juno omnipotent long pangs with mercye beholding, And this her hard passadge, dydsend from proppèd Olympus Thee lustring Raynebow, from corps the spirit avoyding, With rustling coombat buckling, with slaynebodyejustling. For whereas her parturenoe due death nor destenyecausèd, But before her season thee wretch through phrensye was ended, Her locks gould yellow therefore Proserpina would not Shave from her whit pallet, ne her ding too damnable Orcus. Then loa the fayreRaynebowsaffronlyke feathered, hoov’ring With thowsand gay colours, by the soon contraryereshyning, From the skyedowneflickring, on her head mostejoyfulye standing, Thus sayd: ‘I doo Gods heast, from corps thy spirit I sunder’. Streightwithal her fayre locks with right hand speedelyesnippèd: Foorthwithher heat fading, her liefe too windpufavoyded. [Richard Stanyhurst, 1582]
The oldest English accented metre Of four unfailing fairly audible Strongly struck stresses seldom Attended to anything other than Definite downbeats: how many dim Unstressed upbeats in any line Mattered not much; motion was measured With low leaps of alliteration Handily harping on heavy accents. [John Hollander, 1981]
Wæs se grimmagæst Grendel haten,mæremearcstapa, se þemorasheold,fen ondfæsten; fifelcynneseardwonsæliwerweardodehwile,siþðan him scyppendforscrifenhæfdein Cainescynne. þonecwealmgewræcecedrihten, þæsþe he Abel slog ... [Beowulf, 102-109] That grim demon was named Grendel A notorious border-stalker who ruled the marshes, Fen and fastness; in the land of the monster-race The unhappy being dwelt a while, Ever since the Maker him had condemned Among Cain’s kin – he avenged that killing, the eternal lord, on the one who slew Abel ...
Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, printed posthumously. • 1592 Samuel Daniel, Delia. • Henry Constable, Diana. • 1593 Thomas Lodge, Phillis. • Barnabe Barnes, Parthenophil and Parthenophe. • Thomas Watson, The Tears of Fancie, or Love Disdained . • Giles Fletcher, Licia. • 1594 Michael Drayton, Idea’s Mirror. • William Percy, Coelia. • Anonymous, Zepheria. • 1595 Edmund Spenser, Amoretti. • Richard Barnfield, Cynthia. • Barnes (again), A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets. • 1596 Bartholomew Griffin, Fidessa. • Richard Linche, Diella. • William Smith, Chloris.
‘Then have you Sonnets: some think that all poems (being short) may be called Sonnets, as indeed it is a diminutive word derived of Sonare, but yet I can best allow to call those Sonnets which are of fourteen lines, every line containing ten syllables’. [George Gascoigne, Certayne Notes of Instruction, 1575]
All excellencies being sold us at the hard price of labour, it follows [that] where we bestow most thereof, [there] we buy the best success. And rhyme, being far more laborious than loose measures… must needs, meeting with wit and industry, breed greater and worthier effects in our language… Nor is this certain limit – observed in sonnets – any tyrannical bounding of the conceit but rather a reducing it in girum [in a circle] and a just form ... For the body of our imagination – being as an unformed chaos without fashion, without day – if by the divine power of the spirit it be wrought into an orb of order and form, is it not more pleasing to Nature…? Besides, is it not most delightful to see much excellently ordered in a small room, or little, gallantly disposed and made to fill up a space of like capacity, in such sort that the one would not appear so beautiful in a larger circuit, nor the other do well in a less? [Samuel Daniel, A Defence of Rhyme, 1603]
quatrain = a contained 4-line unit 2) octave = an 8-line unit composed of two quatrains 3) sestet = a 6-line unit 4) tercet = a 3-line unit (common in Petrarch) 5) couplet = a 2-line unit
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, A But as for me, alas, I may no more. B The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, B I am of them that farthest cometh behind. A Yet may I by no means my wearied mind A Draw from the deer, but as she fleethafore B Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore B Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. A Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, C As well as I may spend his time in vain. D And graven with diamonds in letters plain D There is written her fair neck round about: C ‘Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, E And wild for to hold though I seem tame’. E ABBA ABBA CDDC EE
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show A That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: B Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, A Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; B I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, A Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain: B Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow A Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn’d brain. B But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay, C Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows, D And others’ feet still seem’d but strangers in my way. C Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, D Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite-- E “Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.” E ABAB ABAB CDCD EE
Now if nature should intermit her course and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should lose their wonted motions and by irregular volubility turn themselves anyway, as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breath out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief, what would become of man himself whom these things now do all serve?
Now if nature should intermit her course and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should lose their wonted motions and by irregular volubility turn themselves anyway, as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breath out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief, what would become of man himself whom these things now do all serve? Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 1.
