Poetic Designs

by Adams, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9781551111292
• ISBN10: 1551111292
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-03-01
• Publisher: Broadview Pr

Summary

There are numerous introductions to poetry and prosody available, but none at once so comprehensive and so accessible as this. With the increasing emphasis on free verse, the past generation has developed a widespread impression that the study of poetic meter is old fashioned-or even that form 'doesn't matter' in poetry. It is an impression that has not been dispelled by the emphasis of some of the existing texts in the area on forms that are now rare or outmoded. The irony is that simultaneously in the past decade interest in formal matters among many poets and literary scholars has been on the increase; the reality is that prosody is today on the cutting edge of literary studies.Stephen Adams' text provides a full treatment of traditional topics, from the iambic pentameter through other accentual-syllabic rhythms (trochaic, dactylic and so on) and covering as well other metrical types, stanza structure, the sonnet and other standard forms. Adams also includes a variety of topics not covered in most other introductions to the topic; perhaps most significantly, he provides a full chapter on form in free verse. Moreover, he treats rhyme extensively and includes a comprehensive chapter on on literary figures. Poetic Designs is thus much more that an introduction to prosody; it is a concise but comprehensive introduction to the nature of poetry in English. It is a book for the general reader and the aspiring writer as well as for the student, a book intended (in the words of the author) to help 'heighten the experience of poetry.'

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
1 Meter and Rhythm	1	(36)
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROSODY	1	(1)
The Sound of Meter	2	(1)
Different Metrical Systems and Their Histories	3	(6)
The Meaning of Meter	9	(1)
THE ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC SYSTEM	10	(4)
The Regular Iambic Pentameter Line	14	(1)
Variation 1: Reversal of Accent (Trochaic Substitution)	15	(3)
Variation 2: The Principle of Relative Accent (Spondaic and Pyrrhic Substitution)	18	(4)
Variation 3: Added Syllables (Anapestic and Dactylic Substitution)	22	(3)
Variation 4: Omitted Syllables	25	(1)
SYNTACTIC RHYTHM AND THE LINE UNIT	26	(4)
Rhyme, Alliteration, Assonance and Onomatopoeia	30	(5)
Facility	35	(2)
2 Beyond Iambic Pentameter	37	(34)
ACCENTUAL METERS AND THE BALLAD STANZA	37	(6)
The Accentual Meters	43	(7)
THE LONGER AND SHORTER IAMBIC METERS	50	(5)
The Trochaic Meters	55	(6)
The Triple Meters: Anapestic and Dactylic	61	(3)
SYLLABIC AND QUANTITATIVE SYSTEMS	64	(7)
3 Stanza and Form	71	(34)
THE DYNAMICS OF STANZA AND FORM: RHYME, LINE AND CLOSURE	71	(5)
Some Standard English Stanzas	76	(6)
Beyond the Single Stanza	82	(2)
Some Virtuoso Pieces	84	(4)
SOME STANDARD VERSE FORMS: FIXED AND NOT SO FIXED: The Sonnet	88	(4)
The French Forms	92	(9)
The Ode	101	(4)
4 Figures of Speech	105	(44)
RHETORIC AND FIGURE	105	(3)
THE SCHEMES: Figures of Balance and Parallelism	108	(5)
Figures of Repetition	113	(4)
Figures of Amplification and Omission	117	(6)
Figures of Address	123	(4)
Figures of Syntactic Deviation	127	(4)
Figures of Verbal Play	131	(1)
THE TROPES	132	(1)
Metaphor and Simile	133	(4)
Metonymy and Synecdoche	137	(3)
Personification	140	(1)
Irony and Paradox	141	(8)
5 Form in Free Verse	149	(50)
Lines: The Master Convention of Free Verse	152	(15)
Numbers: Metrical Presences in Free Verse	167	(12)
Figures: Syntactic Patterning in Free Verse	179	(9)
THE MARGINS OF GENRE: Shaped Poetry, Concrete Poetry, Sound Poetry	188	(7)
The Prose Poem	195	(4)
Appendix 1: The Terminology of Rhyming	199	(4)
Appendix 2: Sample Scansions, with Commentary	203	(16)
Index of Sources	219	(12)
Index of Names and Terms	231