Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
Structure and versification in St Mary Magdalene
As we have said, this is a loosely structured poem but there are linking words and phrases between the variations and no subsection or variation is allowed to take over or run on for more than two or three stanzas. There is a sudden and economic opening and a sense of ending in the final question and answer to and from the tears themselves.
The stanza structure is very regular for a poem of this length. A sestet rhyming ababcc, the a-lines being trimeters, the other lines tetrameters. The metre is generally iambic but not consistently so. The last two lines form neat couplets for many of the stanzas, though not with the epigrammatic neatness of Andrew Marvell's tetrameter couplets.
Investigating St Mary Magdalene
- What strikes you as the main features of St Mary Magdalene?
- Do you feel it is a strange poem?
- Can you say wherein the strangeness lies?
- Is it really a religious poem?
- Or is it just a poem about weeping?
The 6-line stanza of a Petrarchan sonnet, occupying the last six lines, sometimes divided into tercets or couplets. It often resolves the problem posed in the octave or comments significantly on it.
The device, frequently used at the ends of lines in poetry, where words with the same sound are paired, sometimes for contrast ' for example, 'breath' and 'death'.
A line of verse of three feet or stresses.
A line of verse consisting of four metrical feet (in modern verse) or eight feet (in classical verse).
The particular measurement in a line of poetry, determined by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (in some languages, the pattern of long and short syllables). It is the measured basis of rhythm.
A term used of speech rhythms in blank verse; an iambic rhythm is an unstressed, or weak, beat followed by a stressed, or strong, beat. It is a rising metre.
A rhyming 2-line unit of verse.
Concise, neat and witty, in the style of an epigram.
A rhyming 2-line unit of verse.
1. Devout, involved in religious practice
2. Member of a religious order, a monk or nun.
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