Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
Form
Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d. There is no limit to the number of lines, but poems or sections of poems written in terza rima end with either a single line or couplet repeating the rhyme of the middle line of the final tercet. The two possible endings for the example above are d-e-d, e or d-e-d, e-e. There is no set rhythm for terza rima, but in English, iambic pentameters are generally preferred.
History
The first known use of terza rima is in Dante’s Divina Commedia. In creating the form, Dante may have been influenced by the sirventes, a lyric form used by the Provencal troubadours. The three-line pattern may have been intended to suggest the Holy Trinity. After Dante, other Italian poets, including Petrarch and Boccaccio, used the form.
The first English poet to write in terza rima was Geoffrey Chaucer, who used it for his Complaint to His Lady. Although a difficult form to use in English because of the relative paucity of rhyme words available in what is, in comparison with Italian, an overly inflected language, terza rima has been used by Milton, Byron (in his Prophecy of Dante) and Shelley (in his Ode to the West Wind and The Triumph of Life). A number of 20th century poets also employed the form. These include Archibald MacLeish, W. H. Auden, Andrew Cannon, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Derek Walcott, Clark Ashton Smith, Jonas Hyde, and James Merrill.
Not surprisingly, the form has also been used in translations of the Divina Commedia. Perhaps the most notable examples are Robert Pinsky’s version of the Inferno and Laurence Binyon’s version of the entire work.
Some Examples
Acquainted With the Night by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night. (a)
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. (b)
I have outwalked the furthest city light. (a)
I have looked down the saddest city lane. (b)
I have passed by the watchman on his beat (c)
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. (b)
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet (c)
When far away an interrupted cry (d)
Came over houses from another street, (c)
But not to call me back or say good-by; (d)
And further still at an unearthly height (e)
One luminary clock against the sky (d)
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. (e)
I have been one acquainted with the night. (e)
The opening lines of the Divina Commedia:
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!
Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte.
Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,
tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai.
Two tercets from Chaucer’s Complaint to his Lady:
Hir name is Bountee set in womanhede
Sadness in youthe and Beautee prydelees
And Plesaunce under governaunce and drede;
Hir surname is eek Faire Rewthelees
The Wyse, yknit unto Good Aventure,
That, for I love hir, she sleeth me giltelees.
A section from Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind with a couplet ending:
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintery bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
A death poem is a poem written near the time of one’s own death. It is a tradition for literate people to write one in a number of different cultures, especially in Japan.
History
Writing death poems is done by both Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen monks (writing either Chinese style poetry kanshi, waka or haiku), and by many haiku poets, as well as those who wish to write one. It was also an ancient custom in Japan for literate persons to compose a jisei on their death-bed. One of earliest records of jisei was recited by Prince Ōtsu executed in 686. For examples of death poems, see the articles on the famous haiku poet Bashō, the Japanese Buddhist monk Ryōkan, Ōta Dōkan (builder of Edo Castle), and the Japanese woodblock master Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.
Some people left their jisei in multiple forms. Prince Ōtsu made both waka and kanshi, Sen no Rikyu made both kanshi and kyoka.
Poetry has long been a core part of Japanese tradition, in strong relation to religious practice. The poem should be graceful, natural, and about neutral emotions adhering to the teachings of Buddhism and Shinto. Except the earliest works of this tradition, it has been considered inappropriate to mention death explicitly; rather, metaphoric references such as sunsets, autumn or falling sakura (cherry blossom) suggest the transience of life. (See kigo for more on the importance of sakura in Japanese poetry.)
As a once-in-a-lifetime event, it was common to converse with respected poets before, and sometimes well in advance of, a death to help finish writing a poem. As the time passes, changes take place in a person’s life and the poem could often be rewritten. This rewriting was almost never mentioned to keep from tarnishing the deceased person’s legacy.
A death poem sometimes took on an aspect of a will, reconciling differences between persons.
In a full ceremonial seppuku (Japanese ritual suicide) one of the elements of the ritual is the writing of a death poem. The poem is written in the tanka style (five units long which are usually composed of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables). Asano Naganori, the daimyo whose suicide the forty-seven ronin avenged, wrote a death poem in which commentators see the immaturity and lack of character that led to him being ordered to commit seppuku in the first place.
In 1970 writer Yukio Mishima and his disciples composed jisei before their abortive takeover of the Ichigaya garrison in Tokyo, where they killed themselves in this ritual manner.
An epic is a lengthy, revered narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. A work need not be written to qualify as an epic, although even the works of such great poets as Homer, Dante Alighieri, and John Milton would be unlikely to have survived without being written down. The first epics are known as primary, or original, epics. Epics that attempt to imitate these like Virgil’s The Aeneid and John Milton’s Paradise Lost are known as literary, or secondary, epics. Another word for epic poetry is epyllion (plural: epyllia) which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means ‘little epic’, came in use in the Nineteenth century. It refers primarily to the type of erotic and mythological long elegy of which Ovid remains the master; to a lesser degree, the term includes some poems of the English Renaissance, particularly those influenced by Ovid. One suggested example of classical epyllion may be seen in the story of Nisus and Euryalus in Book IX of The Aeneid. In current times, poets such as Jonas Hyde are rekindling the epic genre with works such as Insula de Verum, Moment with a Muse, Seraph’s Song: The Epic Fable of Sister Sera, and Daughter’s Dream.
Oral epics or world folk epics
The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral poetic traditions. In these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means.
Early twentieth-century studies of living oral epic traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated the paratactic model used for composing these poems. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and importance. This facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it.
Parry and Lord also showed that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance.
Epic: a long narrative poem in elevated stature presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race.
An example of epic poetry- “The Odyssey” by Homer.
Epics have 6 main characteristics:
1. The hero is of imposing stature, of national or international importance, and of great historical or legendary significance.
2. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world, or the universe.
3. The action consists of deeds of great valor or requiring superhuman courage.
4. Supernatural forces—gods, angels, demons—interest themselves in the action.
5. A style of sustained elevation is used.
6. The poet retains a measure of objectivity.
The hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey, and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society from which the epic originates. Many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture.
Conventions of Epics:
1. Praepositio: Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic. This may take the form of a purpose (as in Milton, who proposed “to justify the ways of God to men”); of a question (as in the Iliad, where Homer asks the Muse which god it was who caused the war); or of a situation (as in the Song of Roland, with Charlemagne in Spain).
2. Invocation: Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus. The poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero. (This convention is obviously restricted to cultures which were influenced by Classical culture: the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, or the Bhagavata Purana would obviously not contain this element)
3. In medias res: narrative opens “in the middle of things”, with the hero at his lowest point. Usually flashbacks show earlier portions of the story.
4. Enumeratio: Catalogues and genealogies are given. These long lists of objects, places, and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal context. Often, the poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of audience members.
5. Epithet: Heavy use of repetition or stock phrases: e.g., Homer’s “rosy-fingered dawn” and “wine-dark sea.”
Literate societies have often copied the epic format; the earliest European examples of which the text survives are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgil’s Aeneid, which follow both the style and subject matter of Homer. Other obvious examples are Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, Tulsidas’ Sri Ramacharit Manas.
Notable epic poems
This list can be compared with two others, national epic and list of world folk-epics.
Ancient epics (to 500)
* 20th to 18th century BC:
o Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian mythology)
o Atrahasis (Mesopotamian mythology)
* 8th to 6th century BC:
o Enuma Elish (Babylonian mythology)
o Iliad, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
o Odyssey, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)
o Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)
o Jaya, ascribed to Vyasa (Hindu mythology)
o Lost Greek epics ascribed to the Cyclic poets:
+ Epic Cycle including Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Sack of Troy, Return from Troy, Telegony
+ Theban Cycle including Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni (epic), Alcmeonis
+ Others: Titanomachy, Heracleia, Capture of Oechalia, Naupactia, Phocais, Minyas, Danais’
* 7th to 5th century BC:
o Bharata, ascribed to Vaisampayana (Hindu mythology)
* 5th to 4th century BC:
o Mahabharata, ascribed to Vyasa (Hindu mythology) (5th to 1st century BC)
o Ramayana, ascribed to Valmiki (Hindu mythology) (5th century BC to 4th century AD)
o Lost Greek epics: poems by Aristeas (Arimaspeia), Asius of Samos, Chersias of Orchomenus
o The Book of Job
* 3rd century BC:
o Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes
* 2nd century BC:
o Annales by Ennius
* 1st century BC:
o Aeneid by Virgil
o Táin Bó Cúailnge
* 1st century AD:
o Metamorphoses by Ovid
o Pharsalia (Bellum Civile or Civil War) by Lucan
o Punica (Bellum Punicum or Punic War) by Silius Italicus
o Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus
o Thebaid by Statius
* 2nd century:
o Buddhacarita by Aśvaghoṣa (Indian epic poetry)
o Saundaranandakavya by Aśvaghoṣa (Indian epic poetry)
* 2nd to 5th century:
o The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature:
+ Cilappatikaram by Prince Ilango Adigal
+ Manimekalai by Seethalai Saathanar
+ Civaka Cintamani by Tirutakakatevar
+ Kundalakesi by a Buddhist poet
+ Valayapati by a Jaina poet
* 3rd to 4th century:
o Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna
* 4th century:
o Evangeliorum libri by Juvencus
o Kumārasambhava by Kālidāsa (Indian epic poetry)
o Raghuvamsa by Kālidāsa (Indian epic poetry)
* 5th century:
o Dionysiaca by Nonnus
Medieval epics (500-1500)
* 8th to 10th century:
o Beowulf (retelling of Anglo-Saxon legends)
o Waldere, Old English version of the story told in Waltharius (below), known only as a brief fragment
o David of Sasun (Armenian language)
* 9th century:
o Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit “Stories of the Lord”) written from earlier sources
* 10th century:
o Shahnameh (Persian mythology) (epic poem detailing Persian legend and history from prehistoric times to the fall of the Sassanid Empire)
o Waltharius by Ekkehard of St Gall, Latin version of the story of Walter of Aquitaine
o The Battle of Maldon, brief Old English epic describing a recent battle
* 11th century:
o Poetic Edda (Norse mythology) (collection of poems of Norse mythology from various sources; dates of composition vary within the collection, but the majority of poems existed before the 12th century based on the excerpts in the Prose Edda)
o Ruodlieb, Latin epic by a German author
o Digenis Akritas (Byzantine epic poem)
o La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland)
o Epic of King Gesar (Tibetan epic; compiled from earlier sources)
o Epic of Manas (Kyrgyz epic, possibly later)
* 12th century:
o The Knight in the Panther Skin by Shota Rustaveli
o Alexandreis, Latin epic by Walter of Châtillon
o De bello Troiano and the lost Antiocheis by Joseph of Exeter
o Carmen de Prodicione Guenonis (Latin version of the story of the Song of Roland)
o Architrenius, satirical Latin epic by John of Hauville
o Liber ad honorem Augusti by Peter of Eboli, Latin narrative of the conquest of Sicily by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor
* 13th century:
o Nibelungenlied (Germanic mythology)
o Brut by Layamon
o Chanson de la Croisade Albigeoise (”Song of the Albigensian Crusade”; Occitan)
o Epic of Sundiata
o El Cantar de Mio Cid, Spanish epic of the Reconquista
o De triumphis ecclesiae, Latin literary epic by Johannes de Garlandia
o Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach
* 14th century:
o Cursor Mundi by an anonymous cleric (c. 1300)
o Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) by Dante Alighieri
o Africa, Latin literary epic by Petrarch
o The Tale of the Heike (Japanese epic war tale)
* 15th century:
o Alliterative Morte Arthure
o Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo (1495)
Modern epics (from 1500)
* 16th century:
o Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1516)
o Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões (c.1555)
o La Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso (1575)
o Ramacharitamanasa (based on the Ramayana) by Goswami Tulsidas (1577)
o Lepanto by King James VI of Scotland (1591)
o Matilda by Michael Drayton (1594)
o The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1596)
* 17th century:
o The Barons’ Wars by Michael Drayton (1603; early version 1596 entitled Mortimeriados)
o The Purple Island by Phineas Fletcher (1633)
o Szigeti veszedelem, also known under the Latin title Obsidionis Szigetianae, a Hungarian epic by Miklós Zrínyi (1651)
o Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667)
o Paradise Regained by John Milton (1671)
o Prince Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1695)
o King Arthur by Richard Blackmore (1697)
* 18th century:
o Eliza by Richard Blackmore (1705)
o Redemption by Richard Blackmore (1722)
o Henriade by Voltaire (1723)
o Alfred by Richard Blackmore (1723)
o Utendi wa Tambuka by Bwana Mwengo (172 
o Leonidas by Richard Glover (1737)
o Epigoniad by William Wilkie (1757)
o The Works of Ossian by James MacPherson (1765)
o Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire** by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (1773)
o Der Messias by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1773)
o Rossiada by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1771-1779)
o Vladimir by Mikhail Matveyevich Kheraskov (1785)
o Athenaid by Richard Glover (1787)
o Joan of Arc by Robert Southey (1796)
* 19th century:
o Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey (1801)
o Madoc by Robert Southey (1805)
o Columbiad by Joel Barlow (1807)
o Milton: a Poem by William Blake (1804-1810)
o The Curse of Kehama by Robert Southey (1810)
o Roderick, the Last of the Goths by Robert Southey (1814)
o The Revolt of Islam (Laon and Cyntha) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)
o Endymion, (181 by John Keats
o Hyperion, (1818), and The Fall of Hyperion, (1819) by John Keats
o L’Orléanide, Poème national en vingt-huit chants, by Philippe-Alexandre Le Brun de Charmettes (1821)
o Don Juan by Lord Byron (1824)
o Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz (1834)
o Smrt Smail-age Čengića by Ivan Mažuranić (1846)
o Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (1849 Finnish mythology)
o Kalevipoeg by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1853 Estonian mythology)
o The Prelude by William Wordsworth
o The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
o La Fin de Satan by Victor Hugo (written between 1855 and 1860, published in 1886)
o La Légende des Siècles (The Legend of the Centuries) by Victor Hugo (1859-1877)
o Martín Fierro by José Hernández (1872)
o Clarel by Herman Melville (1876)
o The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.) (finished in 1874, published in 1880)
o Canigó by Jacint Verdaguer (1886)
o Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (188
o Lāčplēsis (’The Bear-Slayer’) by Andrejs Pumpurs (1888; Latvian Mythology)
* 20th century:
o Lahuta e Malcís by Gjergj Fishta (composed 1902-1937)
o The Ballad of the White Horse by G K Chesterton (1911)
o Mensagem by Fernando Pessoa
o The Hashish-Eater; Or, The Apocalypse of Evil by Clark Ashton Smith (1920)
o Savitri by Aurobindo Ghose (1950)
o Astronautilía-Hvězdoplavba by Jan Křesadlo
o The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis (Greek verse, composed 1924-193
o The Cantos by Ezra Pound (composed 1915-1969)
o A Cycle of the West by John Neihardt (composed 1921-1949)
o “A” by Louis Zukofsky (composed 1928-196
o Paterson by William Carlos Williams (composed c.1940-1961)
o Victory for the Slain by Hugh John Lofting (1942)
o The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (composed 1950-1970)
o Aniara by Harry Martinson (composed 1956)
o Libretto for the Republic of Liberia by Melvin B. Tolson (1953)
o Mountains and Rivers Without End by Gary Snyder (composed 1965-1996)
o The Changing Light at Sandover by James Merrill (composed 1976-1982)
o Omeros by Derek Walcott (1990)
o The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley (1996)
o Cheikh Anta Diop: Poem for the Living by Mwatabu S. Okantah (1997)
o The Dream of Norumbega: Epic on the U.S. by James Wm. Chichetto (c. 1990; p. 2000- )
o Insula de Verum by Jonas Hyde (2007)
o Seraph’s Song: The Epic Fable of Sister Sera by Jonas Hydem(200
Elegiac couplets are a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than those of epic poetry. The ancient Romans frequently used elegiac couplets in love poetry, as in Ovid’s Amores. As with heroic couplets, the couplets are usually self-contained and express a complete idea.
Elegiac couplets consist of alternating lines of dactylic hexameter and pentameter: two dactyls followed by a long syllable, a caesura, then two more dactyls followed by a long syllable.
The following is a graphic representation of its scansion. Note that - is a long syllable, u a short syllable, and U either one long or two shorts:
- U | - U | - U | - U | - u u | - -
- U | - U | - || - u u | - u u | -
The form was felt by the ancients to contrast the rising action of the first verse with a falling quality in the second. The sentiment is summarized by a line from Ovid’s Amores - Sex mihi surgat opus numeris, in quinque residat - “Let my work surge in six feet, quiet down in five.” The effect is further illustrated by the following English example written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
In the Hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column,
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
Greek Origins
The elegiac couplet is presumed to be the oldest Greek form of epodic poetry (a form where a later verse is sung in response or comment to a previous one). Scholars theorize the form was originally used in Ionian dirges, with the name “elegy” derived from the Greek ε, λεγε ε, λεγε - “Woe, cry woe, cry!” Hence, the form was used initially for funeral songs, typically with a flute as accompaniment. Archilochus expanded use of the form to treat other themes, such as war, travel, or homespun philosophy. Between Archilochus and other imitators, the verse form became a common poetic vehicle for conveying any strong emotion.
At the end of the 7th century BCE, Mimnermus of Colophon struck on the innovation of using the verse for erotic poetry. He composed several elegies celebrating his love for the flute girl Nanno, and though fragmentary today his poetry was clearly influential in the later Roman development of the form. Propertius, to cite one example, notes Plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero - “The verse of Mimnermus is stronger in love than Homer”.
The form continued to be popular throughout the Greek period and treated a number of different themes. Popular leaders were writers of elegy–Solon the lawgiver of Athens composed on political and ethical subjects–and even Plato and Aristotle dabbled with the meter.
By the Hellenic period, the Alexandrian school made elegy its favorite and most highly developed form. They preferred the briefer style associated with elegy in contrast to the lengthier epic forms, and made it the singular medium for short epigrams. The most important of these writers was Callimachus, whose learned character and intricate art would have a heavy influence on the Romans.
Roman Elegy
Like all Greek forms, elegy was adapted by the Romans for their own literature. The fragments of Ennius contain a few couplets, and scattered verses attributed to Roman public figures like Cicero and Julius Caesar also survive.
But it is the elegists of the mid-to-late first century BCE who are most commonly associated with the distinctive Roman form of the elegiac couplet. Catullus, the first of these, is an invaluable link between the Alexandrine school and the subsequent elegies of Tibullus and Propertius a generation later. His collection, for example, shows a familiarity with the usual Alexandrine style of terse epigram and a wealth of mythological learning, while his 66th poem is a direct translation of Callimachus’ Coma Berenices. Arguably the most famous elegiac couplet in Latin is his two-line 85th poem Odi et Amo:
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Gallus is another important statesman/writer of this period, one who is generally regarded by the ancients as the greatest of the elegists. Alas, other than four scant lines, all of his work has been lost.
Elegy in the Augustan Age
The form reached its zenith with the collections of Tibullus, Propertius, and the elegiac collections of Ovid (the Amores, Heroides, Tristia, and Epistulae Ex Ponto. The vogue of elegy during this time is seen in examples from the so-called 3rd and 4th book of Tibullus. Many poems in these books were clearly not written by Tibullus but by others who were perhaps part of a circle under Tibullus’ patron Mesalla. Notable in this collection are the poems of Sulpicia, one of the few surviving bits of Latin literature written by a woman.
Through these poets–and in comparison with the earlier Catullus–it is possible to trace specific characteristics and evolutionary patterns in the Roman form of the verse:
* The Roman authors often write about their own love affairs. In contrast to their Greek originals, these poets are characters in his own stories, and write about love in a highly subjective way.
* The form begins to be applied to new themes beyond love, loss, and the traditional “strong emotion” verse. Propertius, for example, uses it to relate aetiological or “origin” myths such as the origins of Rome and the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill. Ovid’s Heroides–though at first glance fictitious love letters–are described by Ovid himself as a new literary form, and can be read as character studies of famous heroines from mythology.
* The Romans adopt the Alexandrine habit of concealing the name of their beloved in the poem with a pseudonym. Catullus’ vexing Lesbia is notorious as the pseudonym of the teasing Clodia. As the form developed, this habit becomes more artificial; Tibullus’ Delia and Propertius’ Cynthia, while likely real people, lasck something of the specificity seen in Lesbia, while Ovid’s Corinna is a mere literary device.
* The poets become extremely careful in forming the distinctive pentameter line of their verses. Examples:
o A trend toward the clear separation of the pentameter halves. Catullus, for example, allows an elision across the caesura in 18 cases, a rare flaw in the later poets (Ovid, for example, never does this).
o The pentameter begins to show a semi-regular “leonine” rhyme between the two halves of the verse, e.g. Tib. I.1-2, where the culti ending the first half of the pentameter rhymes with the soli closing the verse:
Divitias alius fulvo sibi congerat auro
Et teneat culti iugera multa soli,
*
o While Catullus shows this rhyme in about 1 in 5 couplets, the later elegists use it more frequently. Propertius II.34, for example, has the rhyme in nearly half its pentameters. Rhyming between adjacent lines and even in the two halves of the hexameter is also observed, more than would be expected by chance alone.
o Unlike Catullus, later poets show a definite trend toward ending the pentameter with a two-syllable word. Propertius is especially interesting; in his first two books, he ignores this rule about as frequently as Catullus and Tibullus, but in the last two books endings other than a disyllabic word are very rare. Ovid has no exceptions to the disyllable in his Amores, and only a few proper names occur as polysyllabic endings in his later work.
* The hexameter follows the usual rhetorical trends of the dactylic hexameter in this age. If anything, the elegists are even more interested in verbal effects like alliteration and assonance.
Post-Augustan Writers
Although no poets wrote collections of elegies after Ovid, the verse retained its popularity as a vehicle for popular albeit occasional poetry. Elegiac verses appear, for example, in Petronius’ Satyricon, and Martial used it mainly for short or epigrammatical effect in his collection of Epigrams. The trend continues through the remainder of the empire; short elegies appear in Apuleius’s story Psyche and Cupid and the minor writings of Ausonius.
After the fall of the empire, various Christian writers adopted the verse; Venatius Fortunatus wrote some of his hymns in the meter, while later Alcuin and the Venerable Bede dabbled in the verse. The form also remained popular among the educated classes for gravestone epitaphs; many such epitaphs can be found in European cathedrals.
With the Renaissance, more skilled writers interested in the revival of Roman culture took on the form in a way which attempted to recapture the spirit of the Augustan writers. The Dutch Latinist Johannes Secundus, for example, included Catullus-inspired love elegies in his Liber Basiorum, while the English poet John Milton wrote several lengthy elegies throughout his career. This trend continued down through the Recent Latin writers, whose close study of their Augustan counterparts reflects their general attempts to apply the cultural and literary forms of the ancient world to contemporary themes.
A variant of the common metre is the ballad metre, which is often used in ballads. Like the common metre, it has stanzas of four iambic lines. The first and third typically have four-stresses; the second and fourth have three-stresses and usually rhyme. The ballad metre is distinguished from the common metre in that it has the rhyme scheme X A X A instead of A B A B.
Emily Dickinson is probably the best-known user of ballad metre, because it is so common in her poetry, especially in her best-known pieces:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
— from Emily Dickinson’s poem #712
It makes regular appearances in English language poetry as well. All of Wordsworth’s “Lucy Poems” (including “She dwelt among the untrodden ways”, or “A slumber did my spirit seal”) are in ballad metre. A modern example of ballad metre, one recognizable to many people in the United States, is the theme song to Gilligan’s Island (although an anapaest has crept into each of the first two lines):
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful trip.
That started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
Common metre, abbreviated C. M., is an iambic metre consisting of four lines of length 8,6,8,6 syllables (that is strictly the alternation of iambic tetrametre and iambic trimetre). It has historically been used for ballads such as Tam Lin, and hymns such as Amazing Grace and the Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched their Flocks By Night.
Many of the poems of Emily Dickinson use this metre, with the parlor game of singing her poems to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” or the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island” finding some vogue in the late 20th century. The latter is also a popular choice for “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
Common metre is often used in hymns.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
— from John Newton’s “Amazing Grace”
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A lament or lamentation is a song or poem expressing grief, regret or mourning. Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, in Beowulf, in the Hindu Vedas, and in ancient numerous Near Eastern religious texts.
This is one of my early entries to the site, because many of my own personal works fall into this category.
Writing such as this rarely comes straight from the imagination. While it can be centered around fictional things, often the grief behind the lament has been directly felt by the poet. Often speaking, the more open the poet can be about such raw emotions, the more real and poignant the end piece.
Welcome to ‘All About Poetry’, another WordPress Blog. It will be my attempt here to supply an open resource to explore and talk about poetry, its forms, poets, and more. This will be an ever-growing process, so please feel free to contact me with any direct comments or questions.
You can view my own work here.
