Sapphic Stanzas and Poetic Form, So Close to the Heartbeat
Fragments of Translation: Sapphic Stanzas and Poetic Form, so close to the heartbeat
A lesson in writing Sapphics with poet Jennifer Hill
Lesson Title: Fragments of Translation: Sapphic Stanzas and Poetic Form
Arts Content Area: Creative Writing/Poetry
Big Idea: Writing is a means of documenting thinking.
Academic Integration Content: Literature
Grade Level: 12
Anticipatory Set: The students will watch two videos with different stances on Sapphic stanza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOcPVj_lcz4 (musical rhythm) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpQIGBehJvI (“psychological” rhythm)
Statement of Learning:
Today we will learn about Sapphic stanzas and how to write them.
Essential Questions:
1. How does writing in form alter the thought process?
2. What role does form play in the art of creative writing?
3. Is form necessary for good writing?
Objectives:
1. The students will read from examples of Sapphic stanzas. (Historical/Cultural) (see attached examples, Sappho will be shared through digital presentation)
2. The students will review the vocabulary with the poet.
3. The students will work in groups to mark out syllable counts and meter within the verse they are given on the handout (see attached) (Aesthetics)
2. The students will be asked to draw some words out of a “hat” for use in their own poem. An optional “hat” of words will be available for those who want a random subject for their verse. (Aesthetics)
3. The students will be guided through the production of a Sapphic verse using this method on the board.
4. They will write their own Sapphic stanza using some of the words they pulled from the hat. They can choose to do the psychological rhythm, or the musical. (Production/Creation)
4. The students will a few lines of their poem and discuss the process.(Critique)
Vocabulary:
The Sapphic stanza, named after Sappho, is an Aeolic verse form spanning four lines. The form is two hendecasyllabic verses, and a third verse beginning the same way and continuing with five additional syllables (given as the stanza's fourth verse in ancient and modern editions, and known as the Adonic or adonean line).
An adonic is a unit of Aeolic verse, a five-syllable metrical foot consisting of a dactyl followed by a trochee. The last line of a Sapphic stanza is an adonic.
Aeolic verse is a classification of Ancient Greek lyric poetry referring to the distinct verse forms characteristic of the two great poets of Archaic Lesbos, Sappho and Alcaeus, who composed in their native Aeolic dialect. These verse forms were taken up and developed by later Greek and Roman poets and some modern European poets.
A trochee /ˈtroʊkiː/ or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. Trochee comes from the Greek τροχός, trokhós, wheel, and choree from χορός, khorós, dance; both convey the "rolling" rhythm of this metrical foot.
A dactyl (Gr. δάκτυλος dáktylos, “finger”) is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight.
The hendecasyllable is a line of eleven syllables, used in Ancient Greek and Latin quantitative verse as well as in medieval and modern European poetry.
In poetry, meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse.
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants).
Materials/Resources Needed:
Paper, pencils, handouts of Sapphic verse (see attached).
Input:
The students will be given background information on Sapphics and the materials necessary to write their own stanza in Sapphics.
Model:
The poet will write her own verse as the students work on theirs, and will share.
Guided Practice:
The teacher will guide writing and sharing of finished poems.
Closure:
Finished poems will be read. Students will be asked a few questions to ponder and pair share.
Sapphics
While Sappho used several metrical forms for her poetry, she is most famous for the Sapphic stanza. Her poems in this meter (collected in Book I of the ancient edition) ran to 330 stanzas, a significant part of her complete works (and of her surviving poetry: fragments 1-42).
Marvellous Sapphics --Rachel Wetzsteon
I would like to tell you about a lovely stanza form I've long been an ardent fan of: it was conjured up in a simpler time by Classical Sappho.
A Sapphic stanza is a quatrain composed of three such lines plus one that is shorter, called an adonic: one dactyle followed by one trochee. There can be any number of stanzas in a Sapphic poem.
This stanza, as you can see, is composed of four lines. The first three lines, 11 syllables long, are called hendecasyllabics; the last line, only five syllables, has a name that seems designed to make up for its diminutive status: the adonic. In addition to its strict syllable count, the stanza also has a very particular meter: in the first three lines, two trochees, followed by a dactyl, followed by two more trochees; in the last, one dactyl and one trochee. They rhythms of each line are falling rhythms - the accents of all verse feet fall on the first syllable like this: xx xx xxx xx xx xx xx xxx xx xx xx xx xxx xx xx xxx xx
Oh My Sapphic Heart lub dub/lub dub/lub dub dub/lub dub/lub dub lub dub/lub dub/lub dub dub/lub dub/lub dub lub dub/lub dub/lub dub dub/lub dub/lub dub lub dub dub/lub dub
ADONIC, SAPPHICS
4-12-98 by Jan Haag
Sun's rise, moon's set, rain's wild lees, dew drops, sea's calm -- where will thunder rumble to fall from lightning skies and shake the earth's mild desire to rest in characteristic
bliss, untroubled, blameless, quite still in green, blue atmosphere, clouds, winds with its longing known, lost?
Come again pale star, ride across the world's bright imagination.
Creatures, blue born, immanent, doomed to walk, die deviant from stars structure. Pre-set cyclones, grace of energized planet's, spinning past fired
Cassiopeia,
bow to Ma Andromeda, cater wishes, transit hopes, fears, all strange sighs, boundless echoes clean of substance, dazzlingly, gifted, garnished habitably.