Forms
- The heroic stanza or elegiac stanza (iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB or AABB; from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard")
- The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
- The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
- The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
- And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
- The Ruba'i form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Omar Khayyám, among others. This work was a major inspiration for Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, written in Persian. The ruba'i was a particularly widespread verse form: the form rubaiyat reflects the plural. One of FitzGerald's verses may serve to illustrate:
- Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
- Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
- The Bird of Time has but a little way
- To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.
- The Midnight Songs poetry form is from Fourth Century China, consisting of regular five-character lines, with each quatrain formed from a pair of rhymed couplets. The subject matter involves the personal thoughts and feelings of a courtesan during the four seasons, into which the quatrains are individually assigned.
- Shairi (also known as Rustavelian Quatrain) is an AAAA rhyming form used mainly in The Knight in the Panther's Skin.
- The Shichigon-zekku form used in Classical Chinese poetry and Japanese poetry. This type of quatrain uses a seven characters length of line. Both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase.
- Ballad meter (The examples from "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well" are both examples of ballad meter.)
- Decasyllabic quatrain used by John Dryden in Annus Mirabilis, William Davenant in Gondibert, and Thomas Gray
- Various hymns employ specific forms, such as the common meter, long meter, and short meter.
- The thirty syllable, Celtic verse form Englyn from the Welsh language is another interesting variation of the quatrain, and is also now popular in the English language.
Read more about this topic: Quatrain
Famous quotes containing the word forms:
“For forms of Government let fools contest;
Whateer is best administered is best.”
—Alexander Pope (16881744)
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Who by his highness quiets them, high peace
Upon whose shoulders even the heavens rest,
Two brothers. And a third form, she that says
Good-by in the darkness, speaking quietly there,
To those that cannot say good-by themselves.”
—Wallace Stevens (18791955)
“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning....They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and then they can use what they learn in new forms of play.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
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