DOCSLIB.ORG

Poetry and Prose Are Distinguished by This One Difference: Poems Are Composed in Lines; Prose Is Not

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Poetry and Prose Are Distinguished by This One Difference: Poems Are Composed in Lines; Prose Is Not English 4 ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020 LESSON # 7: POETRY, LINE BREAKS, AND FREE VERSE LINEATION Poetry and prose are distinguished by this one difference: poems are composed in lines; prose is not. Of course, some poems are musical with rhyme and rhythm patterns. Some poems are packed with images, similes, metaphors, personification, all the “poetic devices” you learned in English literature class. But may poems seem on the surface indistinguishable from prose. And most writers of fiction and nonfiction find the art of line breaks completely mysterious. Attached you will find an introduction to most of the basic terms people use to talk about poetry. I have found that many very accomplished poets are unfamiliar with this list of terms and have little interest in analyzing poems in this way. This is rather like musicians who aren’t trained in music theory, but who can compose and perform their own music brilliantly by ear. So I recommend that you familiarize yourself with these terms or not, as suits your own comfort level. LINEATION AND PROSODY (THE ART OF SETTING WORDS TO MUSIC) The poet Ezra Pound, who was fond of creating definitions and manifestos, came up with these three reasons for poetic line breaks: 1) Idea: A poet may hold a complete thought or a complete unit of syntax in a single line. 2) Image: A poet may hold a complete image in a single line. 3) Music: A poet may choose to end a line for sound effects. A poet may also choose to break a line to fragment an idea, image, or sound. The poet Robert Hass describes poetry as “breath sculpture.” He means by this that the poet’s breath shapes the line length. Each poet’s breath is individual, like a fingerprint. And each poem’s emotions or mood may affect the breath the poet uses to shape the lines. But if the poet gets the “breath” right, then the reader can engage in an intimacy of breath by reading (and especially by memorizing) the poem. Hass felt this intimacy was an intimate as sex. Maybe more so. Some line lengths are prescribed by form. A ballad, for example, in composed of 4-line stanzas (called quatrains), with alternating rhythm (4 beats, 3 beats, 4 beats, 3 beats), and rhyme (abab). If this is too abstract, just think of “Amazing Grace,” which is written in the ballad form (also called the common meter). Most country-western songs and most hymns match this form. So also do many of Emily Dickinson’s poems. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound a 4 beats That saved a wretch like me. b 3 beats Once I was lost, but now I’m found a 4 beats Was blind, but now I see. b 3 beats You have, perhaps, heard of “iambic pentameter.” This refers to a common metrical pattern in English poetry: 10 syllables per line with every other syllable carrying a beat (ta-túm, ta-túm-- like the human heartbeat). Shakespeare wrote his poems and plays using this metrical pattern. When iambic pentameter is unrhymed, it is called “blank verse.” Another kind of form that determines line length is the syllabic form, like haiku, which has a prescribed number of syllables per line: 5/7/5. Some syllabic poems have the same number of syllables for each line; others follow a syllabic pattern. Syllabic poems may look just like free verse English 4 ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020 and require a rather close study to discover the syllabic pattern. I read William Carlos William’s poem “The Red Wheel Barrow” a gozillion times before I realized its elegant simplicity of images rested on a syllabic pattern: The Red Wheel Barrow so much depends (4) upon (2) a red wheel (3) barrow (2) glazed with rain (3) water (2) beside the white (4) chickens (2) There are many traditional forms which poets use to set their thoughts and images to music. But when the poem is written in free verse, it can seem the line breaks are arbitrary. I believe most free- verse poets break their lines by instinct, or ear, or impulse, even just the size and shape of the page, without much conscious thought. That is as it should be. Line breaks should be very kinetic and organic. Somewhere in the process of revision, however, the poet will make those line breaks conscious. And if there is a way to make the poem more meaningful, or emotional, less predictable or dull by breaking the lines differently, then the poet may experiment with that. Look at the poem “Cello,” by Dorianne Laux. Notice how she uses the line breaks sometimes as a rest, sometimes to propel the poem forward, sometimes to create multiple meanings, and sometimes to clarify the image or thought. She moves the resting point around, so that the poem has movement and energy. Technically, we call this shifting the caesura (midline pause) and balancing end-stopped lines with enjambed lines. It is a good demonstration of what Robert Frost referred to as “playing tennis with the net down.” Cello by Dorianne Laux When a dead tree falls in a forest it often falls into the arms of a living tree. the dead, thus embraced, rasp in wind, slowly carving a niche in the living branch, sheering away the rough outer flesh, revealing the pinkish, yellowish, feverish inner bark. For years the dead tree rubs its fallen body against the living—building its dead music, making its raw mark—wearing the tough bough down, moaning in wind, the deep rosined bow sound of the living shouldering the dead. English 4 ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020 Because the poem’s rhythms, line breaks, and internal music are so well-crafted, you don’t notice how often she’s used “living”(4 times) and “dead” (5 times). And only after many readings might the reader become aware of how the images and sounds of the words in the poem lead inevitably to the controlling metaphor of the cello, which is the poem’s title, but which makes its appearance indirectly only in the second to last line. IN-CLASS WRITING EXERCISE: EXPERIMENTING WITH LINEATION Directions: Read over the poems reprinted here without their line breaks. Pick one of these. Spend 5-10 minutes reading the poem over and over until you find the rhythm, the (s)pacing, the breathing that you feel is most satisfying and meaningful. Mark the line breaks with a forward slash mark (/), stanza breaks with a double forward slash (//). Then reconstruct the poem in your journal with your new lineation. There is no right or wrong way to do this. The writing exercise is just to see what kind of line breaks you are naturally inclined to make. The original poems with the poet’s line breaks and spacing are on p. 7 of this handout—but don’t peek! Pachuta, Mississippi/A Memoir by Al Young I too once lived in the country Incandescent fruits in the moonlight whispered to me from trees of 1950 swishing in the green nights wavelengths away from tongue-red meat of melon wounded squash yellow as old afternoons chicken in love with calico hiss and click of flit gun juice music you suck up lean stalks of field cane Cool as sundown I lived there too. Bluefish by Laurie Sheck Opened by the knife it is beautiful archeology, abstract as desires the body has abandoned. Its eyes a milky blue. Its scales prisms that break light. Its whole body arched toward death the way a woman having placed a stone in each pocket enters the still water. We wrap it is plastic, take it to the car. But once beneath sunlight and a knife, its body, opened, was strangely diminished. Intricate cage. Psalm by George Oppen Veritas sequitur . In the small beauty of the forest the wild deer bedding down—that they are there! Their eyes effortless, the soft lips nuzzle and the alien small teeth tear at the grass the roots of it dangle from their mouths scattering earth in the strange woods. They who are there. Their paths nibbled thru the fields, the leaves that shade them hang in the distances of sun the small nouns crying faith in this in which the wild deer startle, and stare out. The Dance by William Carlos Williams In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess, the dancers go round, they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies (round as the thick-sided glasses whose wash they impound) their hips and their bellies off balance to turn them. Kicking and rolling about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those shanks must be sound to bear up under such rollicking measures, prance as they dance in Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess.” English 4 ABC Creative Writing Instructor Terry Ehret Spring 2020 ASSIGNMENTS FOR WEEK 7 (DUE ON 3/13) Note: If you are taking the course for a letter grade of an A or B, you will need to attend two literary events on campus or in the community and write a brief review of your experience. The first of these is due on March 13. You can find the guidelines for this and a student sample review in the Supplemental Information Packet you received on the first day of class, and also on canvas. 1. Read pages 135-159 in Writing down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, or a comparable number of pages in your selected text.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • MLA In-Text Citations
    1 MLA In-Text Collin College–Frisco, Lawler Hall 141 972-377-1080 ▪ [email protected] Citations Appointments: collin.mywconline.net Short Quotations Prose: Less than four (4) typed lines of prose is considered to be a short quotation. • Quotations should always be incorporated into a sentence of your original prose. A quotation should never stand alone in a sentence. • Follow each quotation with a parenthetical in-text citation containing: o Author’s last name (unless the author is introduced in your sentence) o Page number from which the quotation was taken. • The period comes after the parenthetical citation. A question mark or exclamation point should be placed within the quotation if it is part of the quoted section, with a period following the parenthetical citation. Example: According to John Brown, the writing center proves to be a “calm and quiet area to learn more about writing techniques” (22). Poetry: Three (3) lines or less of a poem is a short quotation. • In the parenthetical citation, use line number(s) instead of page numbers • The first time you quote a poem, use the word “line” or “lines.” In subsequent references, only include the actual line numbers. • Indicate each line break with a slash (/), placing a space both before and after it. • Use two slashes to indicate a stanza break. • A verse play, such as those written by Shakespeare, follows the rules for poetry. Example: The closing lines of Frost’s poem have a sleepy, dream-like quality: “The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake // The woods are lovely, dark and deep” (lines 11-13).
    [Show full text]
  • Villanelle WORKSHEET
    Villanelle WORKSHEET Rhyme 1. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 2. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 3. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 4. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 5. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 6. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 7. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 8. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 9. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 10. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 11. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 12. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 13. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 14. ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______ Rhyme 15. ______________________________________________________________________________________
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Meter
    Introduction to Meter A stress or accent is the greater amount of force given to one syllable than another. English is a language in which all syllables are stressed or unstressed, and traditional poetry in English has used stress patterns as a fundamental structuring device. Meter is simply the rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse. To scan a poem means to read it for meter, an operation whose noun form is scansion. This can be tricky, for although we register and reproduce stresses in our everyday language, we are usually not aware of what we’re going. Learning to scan means making a more or less unconscious operation conscious. There are four types of meter in English: iambic, trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic. Each is named for a basic foot (usually two or three syllables with one strong stress). Iambs are feet with an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable. Only in nursery rhymes to do we tend to find totally regular meter, which has a singsong effect, Chidiock Tichborne’s poem being a notable exception. Here is a single line from Emily Dickinson that is totally regular iambic: _ / │ _ / │ _ / │ _ / My life had stood – a loaded Gun – This line serves to notify readers that the basic form of the poem will be iambic tetrameter, or four feet of iambs. The lines that follow are not so regular. Trochees are feet with a stressed syllable, followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic meter is associated with chants and magic spells in English: / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Double, double, toil and trouble, / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
    [Show full text]
  • Decoding the Narrative Structure of EE Cummingsʼ Visual Love
    Athens Journal of Philology - Volume 5, Issue 4 – Pages 285-300 Decoding the Narrative Structure of E. E. Cummingsʼ Visual Love Poetry: A Stylistic Analysis of Foregrounding in "All in Green Went My Love Riding" By Nashwa Elyamany E. E. Cummings is known for his bold experimentation with poetic forms and eccentric deviation from linguistic norms in his visual love poetry. The peculiar distribution of lines and unerring rhetorical skills are given special zest and prominence by virtue of his twin obsessions: poetry and painting. The current study is premised on two tenets: first, foregrounding is the dominant feature of Cummings’ narrative poetry; second, the multitude of semiotic resources and their division of labor in his poetic texts, coupled with the wittily expressed attitudinal values, add new layers of discourse that are worthy of investigation. The aim of the research endeavor at hand is to unravel the poetic effects of the foregrounding devices employed in the love poem "all in green went my love riding". To this end, the meta-functions of Systemic Functional Theory and Visual Grammar are used as the basis of analysis. Various types of deviation and regular patterns, in terms of repetition and parallelism, are combined to enable smooth narrative flow while engaging the reader in the setting and the action from start to finish. Linguistic deviation effectively serves foregrounding in the poem. This, in turn, tempts readers to reach valid interpretations of the poem overall. The poem is an exquisite mixing bowl of counter-grammatical devices and regularities within the syntactic texture of each of the fourteen stanzas.
    [Show full text]
  • Sonnet Study Essential Vocabulary
    1 Sonnet Study Essential Vocabulary “The vessel, the sonnet form, actually becomes a part of the meaning of the poem.” Thomas C. Foster Sonnet Types: • Italian/Petrarchan • English/Shakespearean • Spenserian • Alternative/blank Anatomy of a Sonnet: [closed form] – 14 Lines (140 syllables) typically divided into two “units” • couplet • quatrain • sestet • octave • rhetorical shift/turn/volta Rhyme Patterns: Note – the Italian language is more rich in rhyme than the English language which accounts for the adjusted rhyme pattern. • Italian – abba abba cdecde [sestet can be many variations] • English – abab cdcd efef gg • Spenserian – abab bcbc cdcd ee [interlocking rhyme with internal couplets] • Other variations also apply including the blank sonnet which has no pattern of end rhyme. • Other rhyme vocabulary: end rhyme, internal rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme Rhythm: • iambic pentameter [rising meter] unstressed-stressed unit • foot • iamb [unstressed followed by stressed, example: to-dáy] Elizabeth Davis – Westwood High School 2 ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY CONTINUED: Poetic and Rhetorical Devices: ** You will likely find more devices than what is listed here and you may add them as you see them.** • theme • tone(s) • point of view • irony • imagery • connotation/denotation • details • syntax [sentence structure] • enjambment • repetition • elision • apostrophe • paradox • oxymoron • pun Poetic and Rhetorical Devices (continued): • figurative language: o conceit/extended metaphor o metaphor o simile o personification o metonymy o synecdoche o hyperbole o litotes • sound devices: o alliteration o assonance o consonance o onomatopoeia o cacophony / euphony Elizabeth Davis – Westwood High School 3 RHYME AND SONNET TYPE – Unlocking the “cheat codes” What most readers learn first about poetry is the pleasure that comes from hearing rhymes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Waste Land by T
    The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot Copyright Notice ©1998−2002; ©2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design® and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license. ©2007 eNotes.com LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution or information storage retrieval systems without the written permission of the publisher. For complete copyright information on these eNotes please visit: http://www.enotes.com/waste−land/copyright Table of Contents 1. The Waste Land: Introduction 2. Text of the Poem 3. T. S. Eliot Biography 4. Summary 5. Themes 6. Style 7. Historical Context 8. Critical Overview 9. Essays and Criticism 10. Topics for Further Study 11. Media Adaptations 12. What Do I Read Next? 13. Bibliography and Further Reading 14. Copyright Introduction Because of his wide−ranging contributions to poetry, criticism, prose, and drama, some critics consider Thomas Sterns Eliot one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The Waste Land can arguably be cited as his most influential work. When Eliot published this complex poem in 1922—first in his own literary magazine Criterion, then a month later in wider circulation in the Dial— it set off a critical firestorm in the literary world. The work is commonly regarded as one of the seminal works of modernist literature. Indeed, when many critics saw the poem for the first time, it seemed too modern.
    [Show full text]
  • Quoting Literature –Basic MLA Rules
    QUOTING LITERATURE: Basic MLA Rules Prepared by Dr. Mira Sakrajda, Professor, English Department, Westchester Community College ______________________________________________________________ I. POETRY When you quote poetry, pay close attention to the poem’s original division into lines. If you quote one line of a poem, incorporate it into your sentence, using quotation marks and the line number in parentheses. If the quote ends your sentence, place the period after the parenthetical reference, not before it. From an essay on William Blake’s “The Clod and the Pebble”: Having focused on the selflessness of love in the first stanza, Blake challenges the reader’s understanding of this concept by saying that “Love seeketh only self to please” (9). If you quote two to three lines, add slash marks, with a space on either side, to indicate line division. From an essay on Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness is divinest Sense –”: Dickinson draws a sharp contrast between society’s treatment of conformists and nonconformists: “Assent – and you are sane. / Demure – you are straightway dangerous and handled with a chain” (6-7). If you quote more than three lines, set the quote off one inch from the left margin (double the typical paragraph indent). The set-off quote should look like a perfect photocopy of the original in terms of layout, capitalization, and line division. Do not use quotation marks for a set-off quote, but do indicate line numbers in parentheses after the quote. From an essay on Robert Frost’s “Birches”: I have two children, three part-time jobs and four mid-terms next week, but I love my life and I totally identify with the speaker of “Birches” when he says: I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over.
    [Show full text]
  • “Tools” of Poetry
    Then show the students some free verse (unrhymed) poetry. You will find examples in the works of many modern poets for children, including Eve Merriam, George Swede, Charlotte Zolotow, Langston Hughes and Carl Sandburg. Use a chart to outline the features that distinguish poetry from prose. Your list will probably include these points: • a unique treatment of an ordinary topic • poetic use of descriptive language • precise and economical word choice • focus on the sounds of language as well as the meaning • repetition of sounds, words and phrases for effect • attention to line breaks and “white space” • sometimes a formal structure (sonnet, ballad, etc.) Teaching the “Tools” of Poetry A poet uses many “tools” to shape language to suit an idea and a pur- pose. Here are some examples: • rhythm • comparisons • musical language • shape and form • sensory imagery • rhyme These poetic devices are discussed in more detail on the following pages. Let’s leave the limericks in Rhythm Ireland! By middle school, One characteristic that distinguishes poetry from prose is the rhythm your students have written and cadence of the language. Some poetry has a strong beat, while enough limericks and anagram much free verse has a subtle or irregular rhythm. It’s very important to poems to last them a lifetime. It’s time for some other poetry expose students to a variety of poetic forms, so they learn to listen for – rhymed or free verse. many types of rhythms. Repetition of sounds, words and ideas adds to the power and preci- sion of poetry. (Now there’s alliteration!) Sometimes the first line of the poem is repeated at the end.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry Types in One Collection Poems That Use Metaphors 1) the Ezra Pound Couplet Two Lines Long. Each Line Is a Metaphor for the Other
    Poetry Types in One Collection Poems that Use Metaphors 1) The Ezra Pound Couplet Two lines long. Each line is a metaphor for the other. Typically, there are two or three elements in each line. Example: People filing onto a plane Peas rolling down a knife into a giant’s mouth The people are the peas, the filing into the plane is the rolling down the knife, and the plane itself is the giant. Good Ezra Pound Couplets utilize metaphors that are very different from each other. Too much similarity creates a poor poem. Example: Children playing in a sandbox Adults playing on the beach 2) The Metaphor Poem In this poem, many different forms could be used, such as quatrains or free verse, but the essence of the poem is that the first line provides a metaphor. Take an abstract concept and compare it to a concrete object. Each line that follows describes the concrete object. Example: Love is a battlefield – each line that follows this line will describe a battlefield. Because of the metaphor already established, each of these lines automatically also describes love. We’ll create this poem, based on the song by Pat Benetar, in class now. 3) Riddle Poetry Utilizes the invisible or unknown concrete object. Similar to the above example but without stating that it is love that is being talked about. Dylan Thomas portraits – this is a three line poem that asks a question which is answered by 4-6 word pairs ending in “ing”. Here is an example: Have you ever seen the rain? Life-giving, ground-soaking Mud-making, tires-spinning Haiku – Japanese three line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable pattern.
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion
    APPENDIX B Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion Latin poetry follows a strict rhythm based on the quantity of the vowel in each syllable. Each line of poetry divides into a number of feet (analogous to the measures in music). The syllables in each foot scan as “long” or “short” according to the parameters of the meter that the poet employs. A vowel scans as “long” if (1) it is long by nature (e.g., the ablative singular ending in the first declen- sion: puellā); (2) it is a diphthong: ae (saepe), au (laudat), ei (deinde), eu (neuter), oe (poena), ui (cui); (3) it is long by position—these vowels are followed by double consonants (cantātae) or a consonantal i (Trōia), x (flexibus), or z. All other vowels scan as “short.” A few other matters often confuse beginners: (1) qu and gu count as single consonants (sīc aquilam; linguā); (2) h does NOT affect the quantity of a vowel Bellus( homō: Martial 1.9.1, the -us in bellus scans as short); (3) if a mute consonant (b, c, d, g, k, q, p, t) is followed by l or r, the preced- ing vowel scans according to the demands of the meter, either long (omnium patrōnus: Catullus 49.7, the -a in patrōnus scans as long to accommodate the hendecasyllabic meter) OR short (prō patriā: Horace, Carmina 3.2.13, the first -a in patriā scans as short to accommodate the Alcaic strophe). 583 40-Irby-Appendix B.indd 583 02/07/15 12:32 AM DESIGN SERVICES OF # 157612 Cust: OUP Au: Irby Pg.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry Forms Dylan Thomas Couplet a Dylan Thomas Portrait Is a Type of Poetry That Tries to Get People to Use Words in an Adventurous Way
    Poetry Forms Dylan Thomas Couplet A Dylan Thomas Portrait is a type of poetry that tries to get people to use words in an adventurous way. Each portrait tries to capture the essence or basic nature of its subject. Step 1. Write a question like this: Have you ever seen a _______? or Have you ever heard a _________? Step 2. Then write four adjectives followed by nouns: clever - class growing - genius Here is an example: Have you ever seen a disco? Dazzling-lights, hip-hop-dancers, Elvis-like-impersonators, weird wigs Ezra Pound Couplet An Ezra Pound couplet consists of two rhymed lines of verse approximately the same length. This poem should express a metaphor: A rat running in the sewers A human walking to work A duckling trying to fly A baby learning to walk Haiku Haiku is a well known type of Japanese poetry that depends upon the number of syllables. This poem is usually seventeen syllables arranged in three lines; it is possible to steal a syllable from one line to complete another, but the total must be seventeen. You must carefully select words and place them in the pattern: line one ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ five syllables line two ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ seven syllables line three ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ five syllables Teachers Information - Wet Tropics Management Authority - Rainforest Explorer The first two lines should create a vivid picture and the third line should provide some insight into the picture. These poems should concern themselves with nature. Shape Poem This is a free-form poem published in the shape of something which exists in real life, in this instance it could be in the shape of a leaf, animal or buttress root.
    [Show full text]
  • Refrain, Again: the Return of the Villanelle
    Refrain, Again: The Return of the Villanelle Amanda Lowry French Charlottesville, VA B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 1992, cum laude M.A., Concentration in Women's Studies, University of Virginia, 1995 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Virginia August 2004 ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ABSTRACT Poets and scholars are all wrong about the villanelle. While most reference texts teach that the villanelle's nineteen-line alternating-refrain form was codified in the Renaissance, the scholar Julie Kane has conclusively shown that Jean Passerat's "Villanelle" ("J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle"), written in 1574 and first published in 1606, is the only Renaissance example of this form. My own research has discovered that the nineteenth-century "revival" of the villanelle stems from an 1844 treatise by a little- known French Romantic poet-critic named Wilhelm Ténint. My study traces the villanelle first from its highly mythologized origin in the humanism of Renaissance France to its deployment in French post-Romantic and English Parnassian and Decadent verse, then from its bare survival in the period of high modernism to its minor revival by mid-century modernists, concluding with its prominence in the polyvocal culture wars of Anglophone poetry ever since Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art" (1976). The villanelle might justly be called the only fixed form of contemporary invention in English; contemporary poets may be attracted to the form because it connotes tradition without bearing the burden of tradition. Poets and scholars have neither wanted nor needed to know that the villanelle is not an archaic, foreign form.
    [Show full text]