CHAPTER 2: FORMS OF WRITTEN

LITERATURE
 Poems
• A poem is a work of literature that uses the
sounds and rhythms of a language to evoke
deeper significance than the literal meanings
of the words (Terry Eagleton, 1996).
 Elements of a poem
• Form
the arrangement of words, lines, verses, rhymes, and other features.
• Stanza
a part of a poem with similar rhythm and rhyme that will usually
repeat later in the poem.
• Rhyme
words that end with similar sounds. Usually at the end of a line of the
poem.
• Rhyming
two lines of a poem together with the same rhyme
• Rhythm
a pattern created with sounds: hard - soft, long - short, bouncy, quiet
- loud, weak - strong.
• Meter
a rhythm that continuously repeats a single basic pattern.
 Stanzas
• Stanzas are a series of lines grouped together and
separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They
are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. It may
have two or many lines.
• In English literature, some kinds of stanza are:
– Couplet (2 lines)
– Tercet (3 lines)
– Quatrain (4 lines)
– Cinquain (5 lines)
– Sestet/ sexain (6 lines)
– Septet (7 lines)
– Octave (8 lines)
– Free verse poem (no particular stanza length and no
particular rhyme scheme)
 Rhymes and rhyming
• Rhymes refer to the words that end with similar sounds,
usually at the end of a line of the poem.
• Rhyming: two lines of a poem together with the same
rhyme
• A rhyme may or may not be present in a poem. Free verse
of poetry does not follow this system. However where
present, the pattern is present in different forms, like aa,
bb, cc (first line rhymes with the second, the third with
fourth, and so on) and ab, ab (first line rhymes with third
and the second with fourth).
• E.g.: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right!" – Hamlet
Rhymes and rhyming
 Meter (or metrics)
• Meter is a poetic device that serves as a
linguistic sound pattern with stressed and
unstressed syllables in a verse, or within the
lines of a poem.
• A meter contains a sequence of several “feet”,
where each foot has a number of syllables
such as stressed/unstressed.
 Meter (or metrics)

 iamb convince
 trochee borrow
 anapest contradict
 dactyl accurate
 spondee seaweed
When the blood
creeps and the
nerve prick
Number of feet Meter
1 Monometer
2 Dimeter
3 Trimeter
4 Tetrameter
5 Pentameter
6 Hexameter
7 Heptameter
8 Octameter
 Meter (or metrics)
English poetry employs five basic meters, including:
• iambic meter (unstressed/stressed)
“If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! It had a dying fall:”
(Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare)

• trochaic meter (stressed/unstressed)

“Shadows pointed towards the pithead:
In the sun the slagheap slept.
Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke.”
(The Explosion by Philip Larkin)
 Meter (or metrics)
• spondaic meter (stressed/stressed)
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.
(Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare)
• anapestic meter (unstressed/unstressed/ stressed)
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair …”
(The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll)
• dactylic meter (stressed/unstressed/unstressed)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death”
(The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson)
 Common poetic forms
There are three most common types of poems in Western
culture:
• 1. Lyric Poetry:
It is a type in which one speaker (not necessarily the poet)
expresses strong thoughts and feelings. Most poems,
especially modern ones, are lyric poems.
2. Narrative Poem:
It is a poem that tells a story and its structure resembles the
plot line of a story [i.e. the introduction of conflict and
characters, rising action, climax and the denouement].
• 3. Descriptive Poem:
It is a poem describing the world that surrounds the speaker.
It uses elaborate imagery and adjectives.
 Common poetic forms
• There are three most common types of poems in
Western culture:
• 1. Lyric Poetry:
– Ode
– Elegy
– Sonnet
• 2. Narrative Poem:
– Ballad
– Epic
– Limerick
• 3. Descriptive Poem:
– Free verse
– Concrete poetry
 Lyric Poetry: Ode
Ode: It is usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious
subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern.

• E.g.:
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
(Grecian Urn by John Keats)
 Lyric Poetry: Elegy
Elegy: It is a lyric poem that mourns the dead. It has no set metric or stanzaic
pattern, but it usually begins by reminiscing about the dead person, then laments
the reason for the death, and then resolves the grief by concluding that death
leads to immortality. It can have a fairly formal style, and sound similar to an ode.

• E.g.:
“Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer …”
• (Lycidas by John Milton)
 Lyric Poetry: Sonnet
Sonnet
• It is a lyric poem consisting of 14 lines and is usually
written in iambic pentameter.
• There are two basic kinds of sonnets:
– the Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet
The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet is named after Petrarch, an
Italian Renaissance poet. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of
an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines).
– the Shakespearean (or Elizabethan/English) sonnet.
The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four
lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines). The
Petrarchan sonnet tends to divide the thought into two parts
(argument and conclusion), while the Shakespearean into
four (the final couplet is the summary).
 Narrative Poem: Ballad
Ballad: It is a narrative poem that has a musical
rhythm and can be sung. A ballad usually has a
simple rhythm structure, and tells the tales of
ordinary people.
 Narrative Poem: Epic
Epic: It is a long narrative poem in elevated style
recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical
hero.
• The Odyssey by Homer (~800 BCE)
• Beowulf of English literature (~8th-11th century
CE)
• Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667)
• The Mahabharata of Indian literature (350 BCE)
 Narrative Poem: Limerick
Limerick: It is a very structured poem, usually
humorous & composed of five lines (a cinquain), in an
aabba rhyming pattern; beat must be anapestic (weak,
weak, strong) with 3 feet in lines 1, 2, & 5 and 2 feet in
lines 3 & 4. It's usually a narrative poem based upon a
short and often ribald anecdote.
• E.g.:
There was a Young Lady of Lucca,
Whose lovers completely forsook her;
She ran up a tree,
And said, 'Fiddle-de-dee!'
Which embarrassed the people of Lucca.
(Young Lady of Lucca - Edward Lear)
 Narrative Poem: Limerick
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill holds more than his belican.
He can take in his beak,
Enough food for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

(A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican - Dixon Lanier

Merritt)
 Descriptive Poem: Free verse
• Free verse: Much modern poetry does not
obviously rhyme and doesn't have a set meter.
However, sound and rhythm are often still
important, and it is still often written in short
lines.
• Concrete poetry (pattern or shape poetry) is a
picture poem, in which the visual shape of the
poem contributes to its meaning.
 How to analyze a poem
• The poet uses his/her own personal and
private language which leaves poetry open to
different interpretations.
• All interpretations must be supported by
direct reference to the text.
• As with any type of literary analysis, readers
need a basic knowledge of the elements of
poetry.
 How to analyze a poem
The following guide and questions might help.
• Read the poem entirety to get a general impression.
• What is the poem about?
• What is the title of the poem? What is it theme?
• What is voice of the poem? To whom is the speaker speaking?
• What is the purpose of the poem: to describe, amuse,
entertain, narrate, inform, express grief, celebrate or
commemorate?
• What is the tone of the poem? Sad, happy, melancholy, bitter?
• What is it rhyming and meter?
• What literary devices are used in the poem?