Stanza Forms HEROIC COUPLET BLANK VERSE SPENSERIAN STANZA CHAUCERIAN STANZA TERZA RIMA

YouTube: Academic Domain Website: theacademicdomain.com Video Link: https://youtu.be/hEJGEtK-ytw Stanza

● A stanza is a group of lines having a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme. ● Stanzas in poetry are similar to paragraphs in prose. 1. Heroic Couplet ● Heroic couplets are two rhyming lines of verse in Iambic Pentameter. ● They're called heroic because in the old days of English poetry they were used to talk about the trials and adventures of heroes. ● It was used in poetry for a long time particularly in 17th and 18th centuries. Poets:

● Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet to use it in The Canterbury Tales. ● Alexander Pope: The Rape of The Lock, The Dunciad, Essay on Man, and Essay on Criticism. ● John Dryden: Mac Flecknoe

Example: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. 2. Blank Verse:

● Blank verse is an un-rhyming verse written in Iambic Pentameter. ● The majority of English poetry has been written in blank verse. ● It became popular in 16th century in the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare.

Poets: Marlowe, Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth

Example: Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste 3. Spenserian Stanza:

● It is a nine lines stanza. ● It is a verse form that consists of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by a ninth line of six iambic feet (an alexandrine). ● The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. ● It was invented by Edmund Spenser for The Faerie Queene.

Poets:

Lord Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage John Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes P. B. Shelley: Adonais Example: (The Faerie Queene by Spenser)

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, (A) As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds, (B) Am now enforst a far unfitter taske, (A) For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds, (B) And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; (B) Whose prayses having slept in silence long, (C) Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds (B) To blazon broad emongst her learned throng: (C) Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song.(C) 4. Chaucerian Stanza/Rhyme Royal/Rime Royal:

● The Chaucerian Stanza is a stanza of seven Iambic Pentameter lines. ● In this stanza the first line rhymes with the third, the second with the fourth and fifth. ● The last two lines rhyme together, thus forming a couplet. ● Geoffrey Chaucer introduced it into English and James I of Scotland wrote poems using this form. Poets:

● Chaucer first used it in his long poems Troilus and Criseyde and Parlement of Foules. ● He also used it for four of the Canterbury Tales: the Man of Law's Tale, the Prioress' Tale, the Clerk's Tale, and the Second Nun's Tale. ● James I of Scotland used it for his Chaucerian poem The Kingis Quair. ● Rhyme scheme: ABABBCC. ● Structure: (ABA BB CC) (ABAB BCC) Example: (Parliament of Fowls by Chaucer)

A garden saw I, full of blossomy boughs (A)

Upon a river, in a green mead, (B)

There as sweetness evermore enough is, (A)

With flowers white, blue, yellow, and red, (B)

And cold well-streams, nothing dead, (B)

That swimming full of small fishes light, (C)

With fins red and scales silver bright. (C) 5. Terza Rima:

● It is a poetic stanza that uses tercets, or three-line stanzas. ● It is written in a pattern of interlocking end rhymes. ● First time it was used in 14th century in Dante’s Divine Comedy. ● A concluding couplet rhymes with the penultimate line of the last tercet.

Rhyme Scheme: aba bcb cdc ded ee Examples: P.B. Shelley: Ode to the West Wind Derek Walcott: The Bounty Example: (Ode to the West Wind by P.B. Shelley)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, (A) Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead (B) Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, (A)

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, (B) Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, (C) Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed (B)

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, (C) Each like a corpse within its grave, until (D) Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow (C)

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (D) (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) (E) With living hues and odours plain and hill: (D)

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; (E) Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! (E) Thank You