Sonnets, Elegies, and Odes - Week 2-3
for week 4 assignment:
find key themes/ overall message
format features (meter, rhyme scheme) (iambic? quatrain number? sestet and octave?)
use of language/word choice
include quotes
Sonnets
a 14-line poem made popular during the early modern period, originating in
Italy in the 13th century
a lyric poem comprising 14 lines of equal length
generally, each of the lines has the same metre (arrangement of stresses/rhythm)
arranged according to a particular rhyme scheme
the two main sonnet types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and English
(Shakespearean)
after line 8 or line 12, a volta, or turn (Petrarchan - Line 8 Shakespeare - Lines 10 - 12)
lyric poem - expressing the heart or thoughts of a single speakers personal mood, thoughts or perceptions (includes sonnets, elegies, and odes)
Petrarch:
established in the 14th century as a major form of love poetry (originator of the sonnet)
usually address the torments of love (usually within the conventions of ‘courtly love’)
an 8-line octave (abbaabba) and a 6-line sestet (cdecde or cdcdcd)
each stanza more-or-less develops one theme
the “turn” (Italian: volta) in the argument or mood falls between the octave and the sestet
Shakespeare:
3 quatrains (four-line stanzas, rhyming ‘abab cdcd efef’) and a closing couplet (gg)
the volta generally comes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve the neatness of an epigram
the metre is usually iambic pentameter (penta being Greek for ‘five’)
each line: five iambic feet (each ‘foot’ made up of one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable – repeated five times)
often more satirical and less traditionally romantic when compared to Petrarch.
Examples of Sonnet Writers include Keats and Charlotte Smith
Odes
a long, formal, lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style, and
elaborate in stanzaic structure.”
Classical origins in Pindar and Horace
Pindar (522-442BC) was the classical Greek poet who established the general prototype, which was modelled on the songs sung by the chorus in Greek tragedy (strophe, antistrophe, epode) (3 clear stanzas reflecting)
irregular odes keep the Pindaric style yet remove the recurrent stanza allowing for shifts in mood and tone.
Horatian Odes:
Second main type of ode: the Horatian ode, modelled on the Roman poet Horace,
in terms of form, subject matter, and tone.
In comparison to Pindaric odes, which tend to be passionate, visionary, bold and
use formal language, the Horatian ode is calm, meditative, and colloquial.
homostrophic: written in a single repeated stanza form
often shorter: e.g., Keats’s “To Autumn”
Elegies:
OED: “A song or poem of lamentation, esp. for the dead; a memorial poem.”
Encyclopedia Britannica Online: “meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one; by extension, any reflective lyric on
the broader theme of human mortality.”
In Greek and Roman literature, a complaint about love in elegiac meter
(alternating hexameter (6) and pentameter (5) lines)
Revived in the 17th century, as a verse lament for the death of a someone, usually
incorporating an element of consolation.
for week 4 assignment:
find key themes/ overall message
format features (meter, rhyme scheme) (iambic? quatrain number? sestet and octave?)
use of language/word choice
include quotes
Sonnets
a 14-line poem made popular during the early modern period, originating in
Italy in the 13th century
a lyric poem comprising 14 lines of equal length
generally, each of the lines has the same metre (arrangement of stresses/rhythm)
arranged according to a particular rhyme scheme
the two main sonnet types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and English
(Shakespearean)
after line 8 or line 12, a volta, or turn (Petrarchan - Line 8 Shakespeare - Lines 10 - 12)
lyric poem - expressing the heart or thoughts of a single speakers personal mood, thoughts or perceptions (includes sonnets, elegies, and odes)
Petrarch:
established in the 14th century as a major form of love poetry (originator of the sonnet)
usually address the torments of love (usually within the conventions of ‘courtly love’)
an 8-line octave (abbaabba) and a 6-line sestet (cdecde or cdcdcd)
each stanza more-or-less develops one theme
the “turn” (Italian: volta) in the argument or mood falls between the octave and the sestet
Shakespeare:
3 quatrains (four-line stanzas, rhyming ‘abab cdcd efef’) and a closing couplet (gg)
the volta generally comes with the final couplet, which may sometimes achieve the neatness of an epigram
the metre is usually iambic pentameter (penta being Greek for ‘five’)
each line: five iambic feet (each ‘foot’ made up of one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable – repeated five times)
often more satirical and less traditionally romantic when compared to Petrarch.
Examples of Sonnet Writers include Keats and Charlotte Smith
Odes
a long, formal, lyric poem that is serious in subject and treatment, elevated in style, and
elaborate in stanzaic structure.”
Classical origins in Pindar and Horace
Pindar (522-442BC) was the classical Greek poet who established the general prototype, which was modelled on the songs sung by the chorus in Greek tragedy (strophe, antistrophe, epode) (3 clear stanzas reflecting)
irregular odes keep the Pindaric style yet remove the recurrent stanza allowing for shifts in mood and tone.
Horatian Odes:
Second main type of ode: the Horatian ode, modelled on the Roman poet Horace,
in terms of form, subject matter, and tone.
In comparison to Pindaric odes, which tend to be passionate, visionary, bold and
use formal language, the Horatian ode is calm, meditative, and colloquial.
homostrophic: written in a single repeated stanza form
often shorter: e.g., Keats’s “To Autumn”
Elegies:
OED: “A song or poem of lamentation, esp. for the dead; a memorial poem.”
Encyclopedia Britannica Online: “meditative lyric poem lamenting the death of a public personage or of a friend or loved one; by extension, any reflective lyric on
the broader theme of human mortality.”
In Greek and Roman literature, a complaint about love in elegiac meter
(alternating hexameter (6) and pentameter (5) lines)
Revived in the 17th century, as a verse lament for the death of a someone, usually
incorporating an element of consolation.
