Preparation for Lit, 14 July

Preparation for Lit Tutorial 14 July, Paper 1

Villanelle

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.) The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.) God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.) I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Do not go gentle into that good night,            Old age should burn and rave at close of day;    Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A villanelle (also known as villanesque)^[1] is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repeated alternately until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines. The villanelle is an example of a fixed verse form. The word derives from Latin, then Italian, and is related to the initial subject of the form being the pastoral. The villanelle has been noted as a form that frequently treats the subject of obsessions, and one which appeals to outsiders; its defining feature of repetition prevents it from having a conventional tone. The villanelle originated as a simple ballad-like song—in imitation of peasant songs of an oral tradition—with no fixed poetic form. These poems were often of a rustic or pastoral subject matter and contained refrains.^[5][6] Prior to the nineteenth century, the term would have simply meant country song, with no particular form implied — a meaning it retains in the vocabulary of early music. The villanelle consists of five stanzas of three lines (tercets) followed by a single stanza of four lines (a quatrain) for a total of nineteen lines.^[21] It is structured by two repeating rhymes and two refrains: the first line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the second and fourth stanzas, and the third line of the first stanza serves as the last line of the third and fifth stanzas.^[21] The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as A¹bA² abA¹ abA² abA¹ abA² abA¹A² where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (¹ and ²) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.

With reference to the form's repetition of lines, Philip K. Jason suggests that the "villanelle is often used, and properly used, to deal with one or another degree of obsession"^[24] citing Sylvia Plath's "Mad Girl's Love Song" amongst other examples. He notes the possibility for the form to evoke, through the relationship between the repeated lines, a feeling of dislocation and a "paradigm for schizophrenia".^[24] This repetition of lines has been considered to prevent villanelles from possessing a "conventional tone"^[25] and that instead they are closer in form to a song or lyric poetry.^[25] Stephen Fry says that the villanelle "is a form that seems to appeal to outsiders, or those who might have cause to consider themselves as such", having a "playful artifice" which suits "rueful, ironic reiteration of pain or fatalism".^[26] In spite of this, the villanelle has also often been used for light verse, as for instance Louis Untermeyer's "Lugubrious Villanelle of Platitudes."^[27][28]On the relationship between form and content, Anne Ridler noted in an introduction to her own poem "Villanelle for the Middle of the Way" a point made by T. S. Eliot, that "to use very strict form is a help, because you concentrate on the technical difficulties of mastering the form, and allow the content of the poem a more unconscious and freer release".^[29] In an introduction to his own take on the form entitled "Missing Dates", William Empson suggested that while the villanelle is a "very rigid form", W. H. Auden—in his long poem The Sea and the Mirror—had nonetheless "made it sound absolutely natural like the innocent girl talking".^[30]
Sonnet 1: Shakesperean/Elizabethan

William Shakespeare utilized and popularized the sonnet with the declamatory couplet. His popularity springboarded the sonnet to a prominent place in English literature and become the 2nd dominant sonnet form along side the Petrarchan or Italian Sonnet. The Shakespearean Sonnet, sometimes called the English Sonnet or Elizabethan Sonnet, does not use the octave/sestet structure of the Italian Sonnet. It is usually found in three quatrains ending with a rhyming couplet. Although the Italian form often pivots between the octave and the sestet, the Shakespearean Sonnet pivots deeper into the poem, sometime after line 9 or 10. Shakespeare even delayed the pivot until the 13th line in his Sonnet 30. Wherein the Italian sonnet discloses the epiphany of the subject slowly, the Shakespearean Sonnet makes a swift leap to the epiphany at the ending couplet. Shakespeare knew well the sonnet sequence is not a way of telling a story, but exists for the sake of prolonged lyrical meditation. His thoughts, his dreams, his loves all playout in this musical form.

The defining features of the English or Shakespearean Sonnet are:

• it is a quatorzain made up of 3 quatrains and ending in a rhymed couplet.
• metric, written in iambic pentameter. Sometimes the opening line of the sonnet begins with the first foot, a trochee before the poem falls into a regular iambic pattern.
• composed with the volta (a non physical gap) or pivot (a shifting or tilting of the main line of thought) deep into the poem, varied but always well after the 2nd quatrain.
• developed so that each quatrain progresses toward a surprising turn of events in the ending couplet. The epiphany of the poem arrives in a swift leap at the end.
• rhymed with up to 7 rhymes with a rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
• composed with an ending rhymed couplet which should be declamatory and the defining feature of the sonnet. This couplet is often the loudest, most powerful part of the sonnet.
• XVIII. To His Love by William Shakespeare(1564-1616)
  
  SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day?
  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
  And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
  
  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
  And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
  And every fair from fair sometime declines,
  By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd.
  
  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
  Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:—
  
  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 2: Petrachan
The rhyme scheme for the octave is typically a b b a a b b a. The sestet is more flexible. Petrarch typically used c d e c d e or c d c d c d for the sestet. Some other possibilities for the sestet include c d d c d d, c d d e c e, or c d d c c d (as in Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convents Narrow Room" poem). This form was used in the earliest English sonnets by Wyatt and others. For background on the pre-English sonnet, see Robert Canary's web page, The Continental Origins of the Sonnet.^[2] In a strict Petrarchan sonnet, the sestet does not end with a couplet (since this would tend to divide the sestet into a quartet and a couplet). However, in Italian sonnets in English, this rule is not always observed, and c d d c e e and c d c d e e are also used.
The octave and sestet have special functions in a Petrarchan sonnet. The octave's purpose is to introduce a problem, express a desire, reflect on reality, or otherwise present a situation that causes doubt or a conflict within the speaker's soul and inside an animal and object in the story. It usually does this by introducing the problem within its first quatrain (unified four-line section) and developing it in the second. The beginning of the sestet is known as the volta, and it introduces a pronounced change in tone in the sonnet; the change in rhyme scheme marks the turn. The sestet's purpose as a whole is to make a comment on the problem or to apply a solution to it. The pair are separate but usually used to reinforce a unified argument - they are often compared to two strands of thought organically converging into one argument, rather than a mechanical deduction. Moreover, Petrarch's own sonnets almost never had a rhyming couplet at the end as this would suggest logical deduction instead of the intended rational correlation of the form.

The sonnet is split in two groups: the "octave" (of 8 lines) and the "sestet" (of 6 lines), for a total of 14 lines.

The octave (the first 8 lines) typically introduces the theme or problem using a rhyme scheme of abba abba. The sestet (the last 6 lines) provides resolution for the poem and rhymes variously, but usually follows the schemes of cdecde or cdccdc.

Example of a Petrarchan sonnet: William Wordsworth's "London, 1802"

Octave - introduces the theme or problem

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: - A

England hath need of thee: she is a fen - B

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, - B

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, - A

Have forfeited their ancient English dower - A

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; - B

Oh! raise us up, return to us again; - B

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. - A

Sestet - solves the problem

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; - C

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: - D

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, - D

So didst thou travel on life's common way , - E

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart - C

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. - E

The Italian, or Petrarchan, Sonnet is written in iambic pentameter. The sonnet consists of fourteen lines, separated into an eight line stanza and a six line stanza. The first stanza (with eight lines) is called an octave and follows the following rhyme pattern:
a b b a a b b a.
The second stanza (consisting of six lines) is called a sestet and follows one of the following rhyme patterns:
c d c d c d        c d e c d e       c d e c e d      c d c e d c
c d d c d c.
The final two lines cannot end in a couplet (given the couplet was never used in Italy or by Petrarch).
The change in both rhyme pattern and subject matter takes place by the creation of two distinct stanzas (the octave and the sestet). The change in rhyme and subject happen at the volta, the ninth line of the poem (the first line of the second stanza).
The Shakespearean Sonnet, or English Sonnet, is very different from the Petrarchan Sonnet. While the Shakespearean Sonnet consists of fourteen lines (like the Petrarchan Sonnet), the lines are divided into stanzas very differently.
This sonnet is composed using three quatrains (three stanzas consisting of four lines each) and a concluding couplet (a two line stanza). The rhyme scheme of this sonnet is alternating, throughout the quatrains, and ends in a rhyming couplet.
Therefore, the rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean Sonnet is as follows:
a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g
Both the Petrarchan and Shakespearean Sonnets have a place where the subject changes, but in the Shakespearean Sonnet it is not called the volta, instead, it is called the turn. The turn takes place at the same point (line 9) as the Petrarchan Sonnet. Sometimes though, the turn may not happen until the couplet.
SOUND DEVICES USED IN POETRY : A List of Definitions 

Sound devices are resources used by poets to convey and reinforce the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound.  After all, poets are trying to use a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response.  The words and their order should evoke images, and the words themselves have sounds, which can reinforce or otherwise clarify those images.  All in all, the poet is trying to get you, the reader, to sense a particular thing, and the use of sound devices are some of the poet’s tools.

ACCENT

The rhythmically significant stress in the articulation of words, giving some syllables more relative prominence than others. In words of two or more syllables, one syllable is almost invariably stressed more strongly than the other syllables. Words of one syllable may be either stressed or unstressed, depending on the context in which they are used, but connective one-syllable words like, and, but, or, to, etc., are generally unstressed. The words in a line of poetry are usually arranged so the accents occur at regular intervals, with the meter defined by the placement of the accents within the foot. Accent should not be construed as emphasis.

Sidelight: Two degrees of accent are natural to many multisyllabic English words, designated as primary and secondary.

Sidelight: When a syllable is accented, it tends to be raised in pitch and lengthened. Any or a combination of stress/pitch/length can be a metrical accent.

Sidelight: When the full accent falls on a vowel, as in PO-tion, that vowel is called a long vowel; when it falls on an articulation or consonant, as in POR-tion, the preceding vowel is a short vowel.

ALLITERATION

Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings, as in "wild and woolly" or the line from the poem, Darkness Lost:

From somewhere far beyond, the flag of fate's caprice unfurled,

Sidelight: The sounds of alliteration produce a gratifying effect to the ear and can also serve as a subtle connection or emphasis of key words in the line, but should not "call attention" to themselves by strained usage.

ASSONANCE

The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as in the words, date and fade.

CONSONANCE

A pleasing combination of sounds; sounds in agreement with tone. Also, the repetition of the same end consonants of words such as boat and night within or at the end of a line, or the words, cool and soul, as used by Emily Dickinson in the third stanza of He Fumbles at your Spirit.

CACOPHONY (cack-AH-fun-ee)

Discordant sounds in the jarring juxtaposition of harsh letters or syllables, sometimes inadvertent, but often deliberately used in poetry for effect, as in the opening line of Fences:

Crawling, sprawling, breaching spokes of stone,

Sidelight: Sound devices are important to poetic effects; to create sounds appropriate to the content, the poet may sometimes prefer to achieve a cacophonous effect instead of the more commonly sought-for euphony. The use of words with the consonants b, k and p, for example, produce harsher sounds than the soft f and v or the liquid l, m and n.

DISSONANCE

A mingling or union of harsh, inharmonious sounds that are grating to the ear.

EUPHONY (YOO-fuh-nee)

Harmony or beauty of sound that provides a pleasing effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not only by the selection of individual word-sounds, but also by their relationship in the repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns.

Sidelight: Vowel sounds are generally more pleasing to the ear than the consonants, so a line with a higher ratio of vowel sounds will produce a more agreeable effect; also, the long vowels in words like moon and fate are more melodious than the short vowels in cat and bed.

INTERNAL RHYME

Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within the line, as in the poem, The Matador:

His childhood fraught with lessons taught by want and misery

METER

A measure of rhythmic quantity, the organized succession of groups of syllables at basically regular intervals in a line of poetry, according to definite metrical patterns. In classic Greek and Latin versification, meter depended on the way long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one another, but in English the distinction is between accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of meter is the foot. Metrical lines are named for the constituent foot and for the number of feet in the line: monometer (1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7) and octameter (8); thus, a line containing five iambic feet, for example, would be called iambic pentameter. Rarely does a metrical line exceed six feet.

Sidelight: In the composition of verse, poets sometimes make deviations from the systematic metrical patterns. This is often desirable because (1) variations will avoid the mechanical "te-dum, te-dum" monotony of a too-regular rhythm and (2) changes in the metrical pattern are an effective way to emphasize or reinforce meaning in the content. These variations are introduced by substituting different feet at places within a line. (Poets can also employ a caesura, use run-on lines and vary the degrees of accent by skillful word selection to modify the rhythmic pattern, a process called modulation. Accents heightened by semantic emphasis also provide diversity.) A proficient writer of poetry, therefore, is not a slave to the dictates of metrics, but neither should the poet stray so far from the meter as to lose the musical value or emotional potential of rhythmical repetition. Of course, in modern free verse, meter has become either irregular or non-existent.

MODULATION

In poetry, the harmonious use of language relative to the variations of stress and pitch.

Sidelight: Modulation is a process by which the stress values of accents can be increased or decreased within a fixed metrical pattern.

NEAR RHYME

Also called slant rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme or half rhyme, a rhyme in which the sounds are similar, but not exact, as in home and come or close and lose.

Sidelight: Due to changes in pronunciation, some near rhymes in modern English were perfect rhymes when they were originally written in old English.

ONOMATOPOEIA (ahn-uh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh)

Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, like whispering, clang and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning.

Sidelight: Because sound is an important part of poetry, the use of onomatopoeia is another subtle weapon in the poet's arsenal for the transfer of sense impressions through imagery.

Sidelight: Though impossible to prove, some philologists (linguistic scientists) believe that all language originated through the onomatopoeic formation of words.

PHONETIC SYMBOLISM

Sound suggestiveness; the association of particular word-sounds with common areas of meaning so that other words of similar sounds come to be associated with those meanings. It is also called sound symbolism.

Sidelight: An example of word sounds in English with a common area of meaning is a group beginning with gl, all having reference to light, which include:gleam, glare, glitter, glimmer, glint, glisten, glossy and glow.

RESONANCE

The quality of richness or variety of sounds in poetic texture, as in Milton's

. . . and the thunder . . . ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

RHYME

In the specific sense, a type of echoing which utilizes a correspondence of sound in the final accented vowels and all that follows of two or more words, but the preceding consonant sounds must differ, as in the words, bear and care. In a poetic sense, however, rhyme refers to a close similarity of sound as well as an exact correspondence; it includes the agreement of vowel sounds in assonance and the repetition of consonant sounds in consonance and alliteration. Differences as well as identity in sound echoes between words contribute to the euphonic effect, stimulate intellectual appreciation, provide a powerful mnemonic device, and serve to unify a poem. Terms like near rhyme, half rhyme, and perfect rhyme function to distinguish between the types of rhyme without prejudicial intent and should not be interpreted as expressions of value. Usually, but not always, rhymes occur at the ends of lines.

Sidelight: Originally rime, the spelling was changed due to the influence of its popular, but erroneous, association with the Latin word, rhythmus. Many purists continue to use rime as the proper spelling of the word.

Sidelight: Early examples of English poetry used alliterative verse instead of rhyme. The use of rhyme in the end words of verse originally arose to compensate for the sometimes unsatisfactory quality of rhythm within the lines; variations in the patterns of rhyme schemes then became functional in defining diverse stanza forms, such as, ottava rima, rhyme royal, terza rima, the Spenserian stanza and others. Rhyme schemes are also significant factors in the definitions of whole poems, such as ballade, limerick, rondeau, sonnet, triolet and villanelle.

RHYTHM

An essential of all poetry, the regular or progressive pattern of recurrent accents in the flow of a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the metrical feet, i.e., the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic quantity is the meter.

Sidelight: A rhythmic pattern in which the stress falls on the final syllable of each foot, as in the iamb or anapest, is called a rising or ascending rhythm; a rhythmic pattern with the stress occurring on the first syllable of each foot, as in the dactyl or trochee, is a falling or descending rhythm.

Sidelight: From an easy lilt to the rough cadence of a primitive chant, rhythm is the organization of sound patterns the poet has created for pleasurable reading.

 Definition of Rhythm

What is rhythm in poetry? Think of a song you like. What is it about that song that makes you tap your feet or want to dance? It is the rhythm of the song. In a similar way, all poems that are not written in free verse have rhythm, or a beat, as well. We also call that beat meter. Each specific syllable in a line of poetry is called a foot. This is also referred to as a unit of meter.

Types of Meter: There are five main types of beats, or meter, that we use in poetry. Here, we will take a brief look at each type. In poetry, rhythm is expressed through stressed and unstressed syllables. Take the word, poetry, for example. The first syllable is stressed, and the last two are unstressed, as in PO-e-try. Here are the most common types of meter in the English language:

1. Iamb: The Iamb is a pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, as in the word: en-JOY.
2. Trochee: The trochee is one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable, as in the word: CON-quer.
3. Spondee: Spondee is a pattern of two stressed syllables in poetry. The pattern may cross over from word to word in a poem. An example of spondee might be: GO! GO! Both 1-syllable words are stressed.
4. Anapest: The anapest is a combination of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. Take this phrase: to the NORTH. The first two syllables are unstressed, while the final syllable is stressed.
5. Dactyl: The dactyl is the opposite of the anapest, in that it has one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables as in the phrase: FLY a-way.

These metrical units, or feet, make up the beat or rhythm of poetry. Now let's take a look at how rhythm is used in actual poems. We will take a look at two poems, and analyze them for meter in order to discover their rhythm. The first poem is by Emily Dickinson, entitled 'Will There Really Be a Morning?'
'Will there really be a morning?
Is there such a thing as day?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like water-lilies?
Has it feathers like a bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh, some scholar! Oh, some sailor!
Oh, some wise man from the skies!
Please to tell a little pilgrim
Where the place called morning lies!'
The speaker in the poem is feeling despair and wondering if there will be a 'morning', or hope, again. Trochee Form.

General rhymes

In the general sense, general rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:

• syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter; the final syllable of the words bottle and fiddle are /l/, a liquid consonant.)
• imperfect (or near): a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
• weak (or unaccented): a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. (hammer, carpenter)
• semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
• forced (or oblique): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)
• assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along with consonance.
• consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
• half rhyme (or slant rhyme): matching final consonants. (Roxie', Lexie)
• pararhyme: all consonants match. (tell, tall)
• alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)