https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] VERSE FORM IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE POETRY: A CATALOGUE OF STANZA PATTERNS BY MUNZER ADEL ABSI THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW 1992 ABSI, M.A. ProQuest Number: 10992066 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10992066 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 q 3U To my wife (Sahar) and two children (Mus'ab & Leen) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To express appreciation and gratitude for the quality of support and encouragement I have received over the years would require more wit than I can muster here at the end of the task and beginning of the finished work. To compute the quality of help from what seems numberless people and places would be a work in itself. My sole hope is that the unnamed here will never read this and feel themselves excluded. What follows is a necessarily abridged list of obligations. My parents never faltered, even when I did, and supported this in every way possible: thank you mother and father. My chief thanks are due to the director of my studies, Mr Robert M. Cummings whose keen interest in versification has been a steady source of inspiration. He has from beginning and continues to be infinitely kind, patient, generous, helpful and wise. The members of the Department of English Literature have been thoroughly helpful and kind at every step: I have been fortunate indeed in the learning and generousity of the entire committee. Special thanks are to Mr John Ross and to Mr David Newell. I am grateful also for Mrs Jean Anderson of STELLA lab for her kindness and patience with me while I was learning how to use the computer. Thanks also are due to Mike Black of the DISH lab. Many thanks must also go to Ms Avril MacGregor of the International Programme Office for her infinite kindness and help, especially when we first arrived in Glasgow. The Ministry of Higher Education and the University of Aleppo (Syria) supported this work financially. The impossible task comes at the end, to attempt to tell what I owe to my wife (whose support has been particularly inspiring); my two children (who have been great comfort in moments of stress) and how much I thank them all for being here throughout it all. 'Wine up<m ItitF, ltnr upon line' Isaiah 28: 10, 13 Authorized Version TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication Acknowledgement Table of Contents Abstract__________________________________________________________ vii List of abbreviations ________________________________________________ viii Preface____________________________________________________________ix Chapter One: Introduction _________________________________________________ 1 Chapter Two: The Couplet__________________________________________________20 Chapter Three: Stanzas of Three Lines ________________________________________43 Catalogue of Three Line Stanzas ________________________________50 Notes ______________________________________________________55 Chapter Four: Stanzas of Four Lines __________________________________________57 Catalogue of Four Line Stanzas __________________________________70 Notes _______________________________________________________88 Chapter Five: Stanzas of Five Lines __________________________________________94 Catalogue of Five Line Stanzas _________________________________ 102 Notes ______________________________________________________ 111 Chapter Six: Stanzas of Six Lines __________________________________________ 114 Catalogue of Six Line Stanzas __________________________________ 124 Notes ______________________ 148 Chapter Seven: Stanzas of Seven Lines ________________________________________ 156 Catalogue of Seven Line Stanzas ________________________________ 164 Notes 172 Chapter Eight: Stanzas of Eight Lines ________________________________________ 175 Catalogue of Eight Line Stanzas ________________________________ 184 Notes 202 Chapter Nine: Stanzas of Nine Lines _________________________________________ 207 Catalogue of Nine Line Stanzas _________________________________ 211 Notes 218 Chapter Ten: Stanzas of Ten Lines _________________________________________ 220 Catalogue of Ten Line Stanzas _________________________________ 227 Notes 239 Chapter Eleven: Longer stanzas ______________________________________________ 242 Stanzas of Eleven Lines _______________________________________ 243 Stanzas of Twelve Lines ______________________________________ 245 Stanzas of Thirteen Lines ______________________________________ 248 Stanzas of Fourteen Lines (Quatorzains) __________________________ 250 The Sonnet Proper ___________________________________________ 254 The Ode and The Canzone _____________________________________ 272 Catalogue of Eleven Lines _____________________________________ 285 Notes ______________________________________________________ 290 Catalogue of Twelve Lines ________________________ 292 Notes ______________________________________________________ 299 Catalogue of Thirteen Lines ____________________________________ 301 Notes ______________________________________________________ 305 Catalogue of Fourteen Lines including Sonnet _____________________ 306 Notes ______________________________________________________ 321 Catalogue of Fifteen lines and over ______________________________ 325 Notes 344 Appendix A______________________________________________________ 346 Appendix B______________________________________________________ 359 Bibliography 375 ABSTRACT 'Poetry is form and permanent poetry is permanent form', says Paul Fussell. Form has ever been one of the problems poets encounter when deciding to building their poems. Views of traditional stanzaic forms reflect to some extent standpoint towards authority, hierarchy, and history. Some poets wrote most of their verse in the traditional stanza forms. Others favour more exotic forms. Others again, tried to abandon established forms and create new ones. This is not, I fear, a comfortable and easy study; none the less, it may be interesting. It is essentially a catalogue of stanza forms of English Renaissance verse. It also attempts to define what is meant by stanza, why it exists, and how it is used in seventeen well-known poets of the English Renaissance: Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, John Donne, Ben Jonson, William Drummond, Robert Herrick, William Browne, Christopher Harvey, George Herbert, Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller, John Milton, John Suckling, Richard Lovelace, Abraham Cowley, and Henry Vaughan. The catalogue also includes English madrigal verse 1588-1632. The thesis is divided into eleven chapters. Apart from the first two, each of the remaining chapters, falls into two main sections: theoretical, covering the general history of the stanza form; practical, including a catalogue and appendix (notes) to all poets. ABBREVIATIONS ISt Pt: Poems First Part (Drummond) 2nd Pt: Poems Second Part (Drummond) A&S: Astrophil and Stella (Sidney) CS: Certain Sonnets (Sidney) CV: Commendatory Verse (Drummond) Dub: Poems of doubtful Authenticity (various) FF: Forth Feasting (Drummond) FOS: Flowers of Sion (Drummond) H: Hesperides (Herrick) LM: Lady of May (Sidney)' M&E: Madrigals and Epigrams (Drummond) Mads: Madrigals (Drummond) NN: Noble Numbers (Herrick) OA: Old Arcadia (Sidney) PHP1/1I/1II/1V: Posthumous PoemsI/lI/llI/lV (Drummond) PODO: Poems of Doubtful Authenticity (Drummond) PP: Poems Possibly by Sidney (Sidney) SG: Shepheards Garland (Drayton) SP: The Shepherd's Pipe (Browne) St.: Stanza (Pindaric Odes: Cowley) WAP: Wrongly Attributed Poems (Sidney) PREFACE What follows is a catalogue, listing and describing the stanza forms used in English by a selection of poets between the reformation of English verse at the hands of Sidney and Spenser and the poets of the middle seventeenth century. Brief chapters, introducing the various sections of the catalogue, deal with theoretical and practical aspects of the stanza. Recently, more intensive attention has been given to such matters by editors and critics of poetry. The importance accorded in the nineteenth century to new or revived verse forms was reflected at the time in the great prosodic studies of Schipper