FIXED FORM POETRY

Most poems focus on intense emotions such as love, sadness, anger, or admiration; however, there is much more to poetry than the subject matter. The form, which is the structure and shape of a poem, usually plays a crucial role. From a formal point of view, there are two main types of poetry: open and closed. Closed form poetry, also known as fixed form, consists of poems that follow patterns of lines, meter, rhymes and stanzas, whereas open form poetry does not. When writing a closed form poem, the poet follows specific rules to fit a model. (see http://study.com/academy/lesson/closed-form-poetry-definition-examples.html)

MEDIEVAL ”FORMES FIXES”

Source www.wikipedia.org

1. The BALLADE (not to be confused with the ballad) is a form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry as well as the corresponding musical chanson form. It was one of the three formes fixes (the other two were the rondeau and the virelai) and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries. The ballade as a verse form typically consists of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain. The stanzas are often followed by a four-line concluding stanza (an envoi) usually addressed to a prince. The rhyme scheme is therefore usually 'ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC', where the capital 'C' is a refrain.

The many different rhyming words that are needed (the 'b' rhyme needs at least fourteen words) makes the form more difficult for English than for French poets. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the form. It was revived in the 19th century by English-language poets including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Other notable English-language ballade writers are Andrew Lang, Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton. A humorous example is Wendy Cope's Proverbial Ballade.

2. A RONDEAU (plural rondeaux), or RONDEL is a form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry, as well as the corresponding musical chanson form. It is structured around a fixed pattern of repetition of material involving a refrain. The rondeau is believed to have originated in dance songs involving alternating singing of the refrain elements by a group and of the other lines by a soloist. The term "Rondeau" is today used both in a wider sense, covering several older variants of the form – which are sometimes distinguished as the triolet and rondel – and in a narrower sense referring to a 15-line variant which developed from these forms in the 15th and 16th centuries. The rondeau is unrelated with the much later instrumental dance form that shares the same name in French baroque music, which is an instance of what is more commonly called the rondo form in classical music.

The older French rondeau or rondel as a song form between the 13th and mid-15th century begins with a full statement of its refrain, which consists of two halves. This is followed first by a section of non-refrain material that mirrors the metrical structure and rhyme of the refrain's first half, then by a repetition of the first half of the refrain, then by a new section corresponding to the structure of the full refrain, and finally by a full restatement of the refrain. Thus, it can be schematically represented as AB-aAab-AB, where "A" and "B" are the repeated refrain parts, and "a" and "b" the remaining verses. If the poem has more than one stanza, it continues with further sequences of aAab-AB, aAab-AB, etc.

In its simplest and shortest form, the rondeau simple, each of the structural parts is a single verse, leading to the eight-line structure known today as triolet. In larger rondeau variants, each of the structural sections may consist of several verses, although the overall sequence of sections remains the same. Variants include the rondeau tercet, where the refrain consists of three verses, the rondeau quatrain, where it consists of four (and, accordingly, the whole form of sixteen), and the rondeau cinquain, with a refrain of five verses (and a total length of 21), which becomes the norm in the 15th century. In the rondeau quatrain, the rhyme scheme is usually ABBA–ab–AB–abba–ABBA; in the rondeau cinquain it is AABBA–aab–AAB–aabba–AABBA.

The French rondeau forms have been adapted to English at various times by different poets. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote two rondeaus in the rondeau tercet form. In its classical 16th-century 15-line form with a rentrement (aabba–aabR–aabbaR), the rondeau was used by Thomas Wyatt. Later, it was reintroduced by some late 19th-century and 20th-century poets, such as Paul Laurence Dunbar (We Wear the Mask). It was customarily regarded as a challenge to arrange for these refrains to contribute to the meaning of the poem in as succinct and poignant a manner as possible. Perhaps the best-known English rondeau is the World War I poem, In Flanders Fields by John McCrae.

A more complex form is the rondeau redoublé. This is also written on two rhymes, but in five stanzas of four lines each and one of five lines. Each of the first four lines (stanza 1) get individually repeated in turn once by becoming successively the respective fourth lines of stanzas 2, 3, 4, & 5; and the first part of the first line is repeated as a short fifth line to conclude the sixth stanza. This can be represented as - A1,B1,A2,B2 - b,a,b,A1 - a,b,a,B1 - b,a,b,A2 - a,b,a,B2 - b,a,b,a,(A1).

3. A VIRELAI is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. One of the most famous composers of virelai is Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377), who also wrote his own verse; 33 separate compositions in the form survive by him. Other composers of virelai include Jehannot de l'Escurel, one of the earliest (d. 1304), and Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400–1474), one of the latest. By the mid-15th century, the form had become largely divorced from music, and numerous examples of this form (including the ballade and the rondeau) were written, which were either not intended to be set to music, or for which the music has not survived. A virelai with only a single stanza is also known as a bergerette.

The virelai as a song form of the 14th and early 15th century usually has three stanzas, and a refrain that is stated before the first stanza and again after each. Within each stanza, the structure is that of the bar form, with two sections that share the same rhymes and music ("stollen"), followed by a third ("abgesang"). The third section of each stanza shares its rhymes and music with the refrain.

Within this overall structure, the number of lines and the rhyme scheme is variable. The refrain and abgesang may be of three, four or five lines each, with rhyme schemes such as ABA, ABAB, AAAB, ABBA, AAAB, or AABBA. The structure often involves an alternation of longer with shorter lines. Typically, all three stanzas share the same set of rhymes, which means that the entire poem may be built on just two rhymes, if the stollen sections also share their rhymes with the refrain.

THE SONNET

See https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poetic-form-sonnet

From the Italian sonetto, which means “a little sound or song," the sonnet is a popular classical form that has compelled poets for centuries. Traditionally, the sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter - five pairs of stressed and unstressed syllables -, which employ one of several rhyme schemes and adhere to a tightly structured thematic organization. Two sonnet forms provide the models from which all other sonnets are formed: the Petrachan or Italian sonnet and the Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet.

Petrarchan Sonnet

The first and most common sonnet is the Petrarchan, or Italian. Named after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), the Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two stanzas, the octave (the first eight lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final six lines). The tightly woven rhyme scheme, abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd, is suited for the rhyme-rich Italian language, though there are many fine examples in English. Since the Petrarchan presents an argument, observation, question, or some other answerable charge in the octave, a turn, or volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines. This turn marks a shift in the direction of the foregoing argument or narrative, turning the sestet into the vehicle for the counterargument, clarification, or whatever answer the octave demands.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) introduced the Petrarchan sonnet to England in the early sixteenth century. His famed translations of Petrarch’s sonnets, as well as his own sonnets, drew fast attention to the form. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a contemporary of Wyatt’s, whose own translations of Petrarch are considered more faithful to the original though less fine to the ear, modified the Petrarchan, thus establishing the structure that became known as the Shakespearean sonnet. This structure has been noted to lend itself much better to the comparatively rhyme-poor English language.

Shakespearean Sonnet

The second major type of sonnet, the Shakespearean, or English or Elizabethan sonnet, follows a different set of rules. Here, three quatrains and a couplet follow this rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, usually arriving in the form of a conclusion, amplification, or even refutation of the previous three stanzas, often creating an epiphanic quality to the end.

Sonnet Variations

Though Shakespeare’s sonnets were perhaps the finest examples of the English sonnet, John Milton’s Italian-patterned sonnets (later known as “Miltonic” sonnets) added several important refinements to the form. Milton freed the sonnet from its typical incarnation in a sequence of sonnets, writing the occasional sonnet that often expressed interior, self-directed concerns. He also took liberties with the turn, allowing the octave to run into the sestet as needed. Both of these qualities can be seen in “When I Consider How my Light is Spent.” The Spenserian sonnet, invented by sixteenth century English poet Edmund Spenser, cribs its structure from the Shakespearean - three quatrains and a couplet - but employs a series of “couplet links” between quatrains, as revealed in the rhyme scheme: abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. The Spenserian sonnet, through the interweaving of the quatrains, implicitly reorganized the Shakespearean sonnet into couplets, reminiscent of the Petrarchan. One reason was to reduce the often excessive final couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet, putting less pressure on it to resolve the foregoing argument, observation, or question.

Sonnet Sequences

There are several types of sonnet groupings, including the sonnet sequence, which is a series of linked sonnets dealing with a unified subject. Examples include Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese and Lady Mary Roth’s The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania, published in 1621, the first sonnet sequence by an English woman. Within the sonnet sequence, several formal constraints have been employed by various poets, including the corona (crown) and sonnet redoublé. In the corona, the last line of the initial sonnet acts as the first line of the next, and the ultimate sonnet’s final line repeats the first line of the initial sonnet. La Corona by John Donne is comprised of seven sonnets structured this way. The sonnet redoublé is formed of 15 sonnets, the first 14 forming a perfect corona, followed by the final sonnet, which is comprised of the 14 linking lines in order.

Modern Sonnets

The sonnet has continued to engage the modern poet, many of whom also took up the sonnet sequence, notably Rainer Maria Rilke, Robert Lowell, and John Berryman. Stretched and teased formally and thematically, today’s sonnet can often only be identified by the ghost imprint that haunts it, recognizable by the presence of 14 lines or even by name only. Recent practitioners of this so-called “American” sonnet include Gerald Stern, Wanda Coleman, Ted Berrigan, and Karen Volkman. Hundreds of modern sonnets, as well as those representing the long history of the form, are collected in the anthology The Penguin Book of the Sonnet: 500 Years of a Classic Tradition in English, edited by Philis Levin.

Sonnet in Romania

See euinvat.bluepink.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/sonetulinromania.doc

The first Romanian poet to write sonnets was Gheorghe Asachi (1788-1869), as a result of his great interest in Italian culture and literature. His sonnets are entirely Petrarchan, mostly Romanian versions of Petrarch's sonnets which impose a new flavor to Romanian early 19^th century literature. The most beautiful Romanian sonnets were written by Mihai Eminescu and they also apply the Petrarchan style but their content is mostly Romantic. The Symbolist writer Geroge Bacovia also wrote sonnets whose ideas adapt to his views on the world as prey to an irreparable existential decay. In the 20^th century, the Shakespearean sonnet type was cultivated by Vasile Voiculescu in his Ultimele sonete închipuite ale lui William Shakespeare, while Ion Pillat and Nechifor Crainic choose the Italian sonnet in their creations. Other writers of sonnets: Șt. Augustin DOinaș, Marin Sorescu, Victor Eftimiu, Adrian Păunescu, Leonid Dimov.  In contemporary poetry, with its radicalization of language and elements of the quotidian inserted in the subject matter of the poems, the sonnet is no longer a ”myth”. The form preserves as obligatory only the 14-line structure, while the coherence of ideas is broken by postmodern fragmentariness. Therefore, we can speak nowadays of a pseudo-sonnet, with writers such as Alexandru Mușina, Mircea Cărtărescu.        

OTHER FIXED FORMS

HAIKU is a very short form of Japanese poetry. It is typically characterised by three qualities: the essence of haiku is "cutting" (kiru). This is often represented by the juxtaposition of two images or ideas and a kireji ("cutting word") between them, a kind of verbal punctuation mark which signals the moment of separation and colors the manner in which the juxtaposed elements are related. Traditional haiku consist of 17 on (also known as morae), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 on respectively. A kigo (seasonal reference), usually drawn from a saijiki, an extensive but defined list of such words. (www.wikipedia.org)

The GHAZAL is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain. The form is ancient, originating in Arabic poetry in Arabia long before the birth of Islam. The term Ghazal is of North African and Middle Eastern origin. The structural requirements of the ghazal are similar in stringency to those of the Petrarchan sonnet. In style and content it is a genre that has proved capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central themes of love and separation. (www.wikipedia.org)

Originally an Arabic verse form dealing with loss and romantic love, medieval Persian poets such as Rumi and Hafiz of Persia embraced the ghazal, eventually making it their own. Consisting of syntactically and grammatically complete couplets, the form also has an intricate rhyme scheme. Each couplet ends on the same word or phrase (the radif), and is preceded by the couplet’s rhyming word (the qafia, which appears twice in the first couplet). The last couplet includes a proper name, often of the poet’s. In the Persian tradition, each couplet was of the same meter and length, and the subject matter included both erotic longing and religious belief or mysticism. English-language poets who have composed in the form include Adrienne Rich, John Hollander, and Agha Shahid Ali; see Ali’s “Tonight” and Patricia Smith’s “Hip-Hop Ghazal.” (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-term/ghazal)

The LIMERICK is a fixed light-verse form of five generally anapestic lines rhyming AABBA. Edward Lear, who popularized the form, fused the third and fourth lines into a single line with internal rhyme. Limericks are traditionally bawdy or just irreverent; see “A Young Lady of Lynn” or Lear’s “There was an Old Man with a Beard.” (www.poetryfoundation.org) The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.

The VILLANELLE is a French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas (tercets) and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain. See “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art,” and Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The House on the Hill.” (www.poetryfoundation.org)