Poetic Form An Introduction

by Caplan, David

• ISBN13: 9780321198204
• ISBN10: 0321198204
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-05
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

Poetic Formoffers a clear, compact, and entertaining introduction to the history, structure, and practice of the languagers"s most popular verse forms. Written with humor and wit, this guide aims to convey the pleasures of poetry - a sestinars"s delightful gamesmanship, an epigramrs"s barbed wit, a haiku's deceptive simplicity - and the fun of exploring the poetic forms. Each chapter defines a particular verse form, briefly describes its history, and offers examples. Writing exercises challenge students to utilize the forms in creative expression. Covering a wider range of forms in greater detail and with more poetic examples than similar guides on the market, it provides enough material to thoroughly introduce the languagers"s major forms while allowing flexibility in the classroom.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction to Theories of Form	1	(10)
Meter	11	(28)
Background and Structure of Accentual Meter	12	(2)
More Works in Accentual Meter	14	(1)
Easter, 1916	14	(3)
William Butler Yeats
Background and Structure of Accentual-Syllabic Meter	17	(8)
More Works in Accentual-Syllabic Meter	25	(1)
from Paradise Lost, Book 1, ``Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit . . .''	25	(1)
John Milton
Lines, Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798	26	(4)
William Wordsworth
Home Burial	30	(4)
Robert Frost
Background and Structure of Syllabic Meter	34	(3)
More Works in Syllabic Meter	37	(1)
The Fish	37	(2)
Marianne Moore
Musical Forms	39	(30)
Traditional Our Goodman	40	(2)
Background and Structure of the Ballad and the Blues	42	(6)
More Works in the Ballad	48	(1)
Traditional Get Up and Bar the Door	48	(2)
Traditional The Unquiet Grave	50	(3)
``Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?''	53	(1)
Thomas Hardy
During Wind and Rain	54	(1)
Thomas Hardy
Traditional Sir John Barleycorn	55	(2)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Book IV	57	(3)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
La Belle Dame Sans Merci	60	(1)
John Keats
The Wife of Usher's Well	61	(2)
Anonymous
American Traditional Frankie and Johnny	63	(2)
More Works in the Blues	65	(1)
Homesick Blues	65	(1)
Langston Hughes
The Weary Blues	65	(1)
Langston Hughes
Refugee Blues	66	(2)
W. H. Auden
An Exercise in the Musical Forms	68	(1)
Sonnets and the Rondeau	69	(20)
Background and Structure of the Sonnet	70
``My God, where is that ancient heat towards Thee''	69	(2)
George Herbert
Petrarch's Rime 140	71	(1)
Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
``When my love swears that she is made of truth''	72	(2)
William Shakespeare
Background and Structure of the Rondeau	74	(1)
``Help me to seek, for I lost it there''	74	(2)
Thomas Wyatt
Surprised by Joy	76	(1)
William Wordsworth
``To the White Fiends''	77	(1)
Claude McKay
More Works in the Sonnet	78	(1)
``Two loves I have of comfort and despair''	78	(1)
William Shakespeare
``When I consider how my light is spent''	78	(1)
John Milton
``Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age''	79	(1)
George Herbert
from Holy Sonnets, ``Batter my heart, three personed God''	79	(1)
John Donne
from Elegiac Sonnets, Sonnet I, ``The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours''	80	(1)
Charlotte Smith
from Astrophil and Stella, ``Loving in Truth''	80	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney
from Astrophil and Stella, ``Who will in fairest book of nature know''	80	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney
from Astrophil and Stella, ``With how sad steps''	81	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney
from Astrophil and Stella, ``Leave me, O love''	81	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney
``When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes''	82	(1)
William Shakespeare
``My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun''	82	(1)
William Shakespeare
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont	83	(1)
John Milton
``When I consider''	83	(1)
John Milton
``Chopin''	84	(1)
Marilyn Nelson Waniek
Ode to the West Wind	84	(3)
Percy Bysse Shelley
More Works in the Rondeau	87	(1)
``In Flanders Fields''	87	(1)
John McCrae
We Wear the Mask	88	(1)
Paul Laurence Dunbar
An Exercise in the Sonnet	88	(1)
Couplets	89	(30)
To the Memory of Mr. Oldham	89	(1)
John Dryden
Background and Structure of the Couplet	90	(4)
More Works in Couplet Verse	94	(1)
On My First Son	94	(1)
Ben Johnson
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot	95	(10)
Alexander Pope
MacFlecknoe	105	(6)
John Dryden
Adam's Curse	111	(1)
W. B. Yeats
My Last Duchess	112	(1)
Robert Browning
Strange Meeting	113	(2)
Wilfred Owen
Downtown Diner	115	(1)
Jeredith Merrin
An Exercise in Couplet Verse	116	(3)
Sestina	119	(14)
Altaforte: A Sestina	119	(2)
Ezra Pound
Love Letters	121	(1)
Diane Thiel
Background and Structure of the Sestina	122	(4)
More Works in the Sestina	126	(1)
Miracle for Breakfast	126	(1)
Elizabeth Bishop
Of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni	127	(2)
Dante Alighieri
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
``Ye goatherd gods . . .''	129	(3)
Sir Philip Sidney
An Exercise in the Sestina	132	(1)
Villanelle	133	(11)
The House on the Hill	133	(1)
Edward Arlington Robinson
Background and Structure of the Villanelle	134	(4)
More Works in the Villanelle	138	(1)
Villanelle	138	(1)
Marilyn Hacker
Theocritus	139	(1)
Oscar Wilde
One Art	139	(1)
Elizabeth Bishop
from Five Villanelles	140	(1)
Weldon Kees
Daughters, 1900	141	(1)
Marilyn Nelson Waniek
Macbeth's Daughter	141	(1)
William Logan
Macbeth's Daughter Drowned	141	(2)
William Logan
An Exercise in the Villanelle	143	(1)
Other French Forms	144	(13)
The Ballade of the Incompetent Ballade-Monger	144	(2)
J. K. Stephen
Background and Structure of the Ballade and the Triolet	146	(1)
``When first we met we did not guess''	147	(4)
Robert Bridges
More Works in the Ballade	151	(1)
A Ballade of Dreamland	151	(1)
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Ballade of the Yale Younger Poets of Yesteryear	152	(1)
R. S. Gwynn
A Ballad of Suicide	153	(1)
G. K. Chesterton
The Ballad of Dead Ladies	154	(1)
Francois Villon
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Ballade of a Great Weariness	155	(1)
Dorothy Parker
An Exercise in the French Forms	156	(1)
Japanese Forms	157	(9)
Etheridge Knight	157	(2)
Background and Structure of the Japanese Forms	159	(2)
More Works in Haiku	161	(1)
Hashin	162	(1)
Onitsura	162	(1)
``Letter to Munnsville, N.Y. from the Rue de Turenne''	162	(3)
An Exercise in Haiku	165	(1)
Other Asian Forms	166	(10)
Of Fire	168	(3)
Agha Shahid Ali
More Works in the Rubaiyat and the Ghazal	171	(1)
Autumn	171	(2)
Rachel Wetzsteon
Prayer	173	(1)
Grace Shulman
Selected lines from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam	174	(1)
An Exercise in the Ghazal	175	(1)
Short Comic Forms	176	(9)
Two Cures for Love	176	(1)
Wendy Cope
Background and Structure of the Epigram	176	(1)
Their Sex Life	177	(1)
A. R. Ammons
The Common Wisdom	177	(1)
Howard Nemerov
More Works in the Epigram	178	(1)
``Sir, I admit your gen'ral rule''	178	(1)
Alexander Pope
``Here lies the body of Richard Hind''	178	(1)
Anonymous
On Sir John Guise	178	(1)
Anonymous
Of Death	178	(1)
Ben Jonson
To Fool or Knave	179	(1)
Ben Jonson
``Lip was a man who used his head''	179	(1)
J. V. Cunningham
Epitaph for Somone or Other	179	(1)
J. V. Cunningham
Unfortunate Coincidence	179	(1)
Dorothy Parker
De Profundis	179	(1)
Dorothy Parker
Comment	180	(1)
Dorothy Parker
Repentance	180	(1)
Dick Davis
Desire	180	(1)
Dick Davis
Fatherhood	180	(1)
Dick Davis
On a Certain Alderman	180	(1)
John Cunningham
On a Bad Singer	180	(1)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
``What is an Epigram?''	181	(1)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
``Truth I pursued''	181	(1)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
First Fig	181	(1)
Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Critic	181	(1)
Walter Savage Landor
Background and Structure of the Limerick	181	(1)
``There was an Old Man of Messina . . .''	181	(1)
Edward Lear
More Works in the Limerick	182	(1)
On Himself	182	(1)
Dante Gabriel Rosetti
On Arthur Hugh Clough	183	(1)
Algernon Charles Swinburne
``There was a Young Lady whose chin . . .''	183	(1)
Edward Lear
``There was an Old Man of the Isles . . .''	183	(1)
Edward Lear
``There was an old Person whose habits . . .''	183	(1)
Edward Lear
``There was an Old Man of Calcutta . . .''	183	(1)
Edward Lear
Background and Structure of the Clerihew	184	(1)
``Sir (then Mr.) Walter Beasant''	184	(1)
E. Clerihew Bentley
``I was once slapped by a young lady named Miss Goringe''	184	(1)
Ogden Nash
An Exercise in the Short Comic Forms	184	(1)
Classical Imitations	185	(10)
``If mine eyes can speak to do hearty errand . . .''	185	(2)
Sir Philip Sidney
Background and Structure of Classical Imitations	187	(3)
More Works of Classical Imitation	190	(1)
Sapphics Against Anger	190	(3)
Timothy Steele
The Day of Judgment	193
Isaac Watts
Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion	192	(1)
William Cowper
Appendix	193	(1)
Nota	193	(1)
Sir Philip Sidney
An Exercise in Classical Imitation	194	(1)
Forms of Free Verse	195	(31)
VII. But to Honor Truth Which is Smooth Divine and Lives Among the Gods . . .''	195	(5)
Anne Carson
Grove of Academia	200	(1)
H. D.
More Works in Free Verse	201	(1)
The Young Housewife	201	(1)
William Carlos Williams
The Waste Land	202	(12)
T. S. Eliot
from Leaves of Grass	214	(1)
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd	215	(8)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird	223	(3)
Wallace Stevens
Prose Poetry	226	(11)
More Works in Prose Poetry	229	(1)
from Tender Buttons	229	(4)
Gertrude Stein
from My Life	233	(2)
Lyn Hejinian
A Story About the Body	235	(2)
Robert Hass
New Forms and Old	237	(8)
``From the Basque''	237	(1)
Charles Bernstein
Manifesto	238	(2)
Edwin Morgan
``AID/I/SAPPEARANCE''	240	(2)
Joan Retallack
The Beautician	242	(3)
Thom Gunn
Notes	245	(1)
Recommended Additional Reading	246	(5)
Acknowledgments	251	(2)
Index	253