A02 Love Through the Ages - Poetry Structure

Who So List to Hount (Wyatt)

8/volta/6, typical of Petrarchan Sonnets.
Petrarch's Rime 190 - in English.
Long vowels, soft constanants in rhymes (slow, ponderous pace).
Strict iambic pentameter.

Sonnet 116 (Shakespeare)

Shakespearean sonnet - 4/4/4/2.
Different sections, build up argument, then conclusion.
ABAB, until final couplet.

The Flea (Donne)

In media res - larger debate.
6/3, with alternating eight/ten syllabic lines.
Strict iambic rhythm.
AABBCCDDD.

To His Coy Mistress (Marvell)

First section, long vowels, soft consonants, slows out pace, and caesura.
Second section, tighter rhythm, enjambment increases pace.
Third section, 3rd, pers-plu first used, enjambment continues.

Garden of Love (Blake)

Rhyme (ABAB) breaks down in final stanza the rhymne interrupts final line.
"And binding with briars my joys and desires."
Desperate strangling, and sudden harshness.
Syllabic length increases, 8/9 to 10 on final couplet.
Polysyndeton - desperate.

Song (Ae fond kiss) (Burns)

Intended for Agnes Maclehose.
Balladic - repeated first stanza (refrain, lack of closure).
Often repeats words at end instead of rhymn.

She Walks in Beauty (Byron)

Two rhyming sounds per stanza, duality.
Regular rhymn and rhythm, calm and ordered.
Iambic rhythm, but on line four, 'Meet' is a substituted anatrochaic foot.

La Belle Dame sans Merci. A Ballad (Keats)

Balladic, medieval and romantic.
Refrain, flashback, speech.
ABCB, song-like.
8/8/8/4 syllabic, unfullfilled.

At an Inn (Hardy)

Regular rhyme (ABABCDCD) and rhythmn (6/4), constraits of society.
Enjambment, breaking free.

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae (Dowson)

Alexandrine poem (12 syllabic, 10 on fifth line), French, long and ponderous, decadent.
4th and 6th lines repeated, refrain, persistence.