Articles
- Poetry: Recognising poetic form
- Historical aspects
- Stylistic aspects
Quatrains
Definition
A four lined division of lines (for example, within a sonnet) or stanza which can be rhymed or unrhymed and is predominately the most common form of structuring a poem. Most quatrains include rhyming alternate lines, such as the rhyme scheme ab ab. Although there can be variants, typically the rhyming lines consist of a similar amount of syllables to ensure a regular rhythm. The most common form of quatrain is the narrative ballad quatrain. However poems can consist just one or multiple quatrains.
Origins
The word quatrain is a derivative of the French word quatre which means four (from the Latin quattor). The earliest use of the quatrain is evident in the poetry from ancient Greece, Rome and various other early civilisations, but it is a form which has endured into the modern poetic era.
Current Forms
- Elegiac quatrain which uses the rhyme scheme of ab ab
- Ballad quatrain
- Heroic or decasyllabic quatrain
Examples
- The Tyger (1794) by William Blake (1857-1827)
‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Would frame thy fearful symmetry
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Would frame thy fearful symmetry
Blake achieves impact by using trochaic tetrameter in rhyming couplets, rather than the more common iambic pentameter
- Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Grey
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
The steady iambic quatrains are both heroic (elevated in their diction, tone and theme) and elegiac (lamenting the passing of life), despite the simplicity of their form.
A sonnet is a poem with a special structure. It has fourteen lines, which are organised in a particular manner, usually characterised by the pattern of rhyming, which changes as the ideas in the poem evolve.
The technical name for a verse, or a regular repeating unit of so many lines in a poem. Poetry can be stanzaic or non-stanzaic.
The musical effect of the repetition of stresses or beats, and the speed or tempo at which these may be read.
Traditional poem or song, usually consisting of quatrains with abcb rhyme and iambic tetrameters.
Mournful, melancholy, plaintive.
Use of a metric foot in a line of verse, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed. It is thus a falling metre.
A line of verse consisting of four metrical feet (in modern verse) or eight feet (in classical verse).
A line containing five metrical feet each consisting of one stressed and one unstressed syllable.
The choice of words a poet makes; his vocabulary and any special features of it.
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