Poetic Form

Poetic Form
David Caplan, Ohio Wesleyan University
0-321-19820-4
Written with humor, this guide aims to convey the pleasures of poetry-a sestina's playful delight, an epigram's barbed wit, a haiku's deceptive simplicity-and the joy of exploring poetic forms. Covering a wider range of forms in greater detail and with more poetic examples than similar guides, Poetic Form provides a clear, compact, and entertaining introduction to the history, structure, and craft of the most popular verse forms.
Features

• In-depth background information and extensive coverage of over 25 verse forms.
• Plentiful examples in each chapter total more than 130 poems, featuring renowned poets such as William Shakespeare, John Keats, and Langston Hughes, alongside more esoteric writers like Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein.
• Scansions and annotations in each chapter illustrate the technical aspects of poetry.
• Writing exercises help students put into practice the principles of the various forms while honing their creative writing skills.

Advance Praise for Poetic Form
“I have never seen a text so accurately explain the capacity for certain forms to create certain effects.”
-Anna Priddy, Louisiana State University
“[Poetic Form is] fresh, clear, and free of condescension. It makes a strong case for the use of form not as empty exercise, but as a set of practical strategies to be used, modified, or invented; it emphasizes form's vital rhetorical and procedural utility. …It is exceptionally well-fitted to its purpose.”
-Read Gildner-Blinn, Franklin Pierce College
“The text effectively straddles the line between academic depth and student accessibility; it is written in a style that is intelligent but is also accessible to undergraduate writing students. The interweaving of substantial illustrations of the specific forms within the text offers students clear examples in each section. [Caplan] also effectively follows up each section with a nice selection of complete poems that demonstrate the use of each form.”
-Jeffrey Ihlenfeldt, Harrisburg Area Community College
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List of contents

1. Introduction to Theories of Form
 
2. Meter
Background and Structure of Accentual Meter
More Works in Accentual Meter
            Easter, 1916 William Butler Yeats
Background and Structure of Accentual Syllabic Meter
More Works in Accentual Syllabic Meter
            From Paradise Lost, Book 1, "Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit…” John Milton
            Lines, Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798 William Wordsworth
            Home Burial Robert Frost
Background and Structure of Syllabic Meter
More Works in Syllabic Meter
            The Fish Marianne Moore
3. Musical Forms  
Background and Structure of the Ballad and the Blues
            Our Goodman Traditional
            The Unquiet Grave Traditional
More Works in the Ballad
            Get Up and Bar the Door Traditional
            "Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?" Thomas Hardy
            During Wind and Rai, Thomas Hardy
            Sir John Barleycorn Traditional
            The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Book IV Samuel Taylor Coleridge
            La Belle Dame Sans Merc, John Keats
            The Wife of Usher's Well Anonymous
            Frankie and Johnny American Traditional
More Works in the Blues
            Homesick Blues,
            The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes
            Refugee Blues, W. H. Auden
An Exercise in the Musical Forms
4. Sonnets and the Rondeau
Background and Structure of the Sonnet
            "My God, where is that ancient heat towards Thee" George Herbert
            Petrarch's Rime 140 translations by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
            When my love swears that she is made of truth" William Shakespeare
            "Help me to seek, for I lost it there ThomasWyatt
            Surprised by Joy William Wordsworth
            "To the White Fiends" Claude McKay
More Works in the Sonnet
            "Two loves I have of comfort and despair” WilliamShakespeare
            “When I consider how my light is spent” John Milton
            "Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age" George Herbert
            from Holy Sonnets, "Batter my heart, three personed God" John Donne
            from Elegiac Sonnets, Sonnet I, "The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours", Charlotte Smith
            from Astrophil and Stella, "Loving in Truth" Sir Phillip Sydney
            from Astrophil and Stella, "Who will in fairest book of nature know" Sir Philip Sydney
            from Astrophil and Stella, "With how sad steps" Sir Philip Sydney
            (from Astrophil and Stella?), "Leave Me, O Love” Sir Phillip Sidney
            "When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes" WilliamShakespeare
            "My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” WilliamShakespeare
            "On the Late Massacre" Kate Chopin
            "When I Consider" Kate Chopin
            "It's Sunday Evening.  Pomp holds the receipts…" Marilyn Nelson Waniek
            Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysse Shelley
More Works in the Rondeau
            "In Flanders Fields" John McCrate
            We Wear the Mask, Paul Laurence Dunbar
An Exercise in the Sonnet
5. Couplets
Background and Structure of the Couplet
            To the Memory of Mr. Oldham John Dryden
More Works in Couplet Verse
            Epistles to Dr. Arbuthnot Alexander Pope
            Mac Flecknoe John Dryden
            Adam's Curse W. B. Yeats
            My Last Duchess Robert Browning
            Strange Meeting Wilfred Owen
            Downtown Diner Author?
An Exercise in Couplet Verse
6. Sestina  
Background and Structure of the Sestina
            Altaforte: A Sestina Ezra Pound
            Love Letters, Diane Thiel
More Works in the Sestina
            Of the Lady Petra degli Scrovigni Dante Alighieri, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
            "Ye goatherd gods…" Sir Philip Sidney
            Miracle for Breakfast Elizabeth Bishop
An Exercise in the Sestina
7. Villanelle
Background and Structure of the Villanelle
            The House on the Hill Edward Arlington Robinson
More Works in the Villanelle
            Villanelle for D. G. B. Marilyn Hacker
            Theocritus Oscar Wilde
            One Art Elizabeth Bishop
            fromFive Villanelles Weldon Kees
            Daughters, 1900 Marilyn Nelson Waniek
            Macbeth's Daughter William Logan
            Macbeth's Daughter Drowned William Logan
An Exercise in the Villanelle
8. Other French Forms  
Background and Structure of the Ballade and the Triolet
            The Ballade of the Incompetent Ballade-Monger J. K. Stephen
            "When first we met we did not guess" Robert Bridges
More Works in the Ballade
            A Ballade of Dreamland Algernon Charles Swinburne
            Envoi Algernon Charles Swinburne
            Ballade of the Yale Younger Poets of Yesteryear R. S. Gwynn
            A Ballad of Suicide G. K. Chesterton
            The Ballad of Dead Ladies François Villon, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
            Ballade of a Great Weariness Dorothy Parker
An Exercise in the French Forms
9. Japanese Forms
Background and Structure of the Japanese Forms
            Etheridge Knight
More Works in Haiku
            Hashin
            Onitsura
"Letter to Munnsville, NY from the Rue de Turenne"
10. Other Asian Forms
            Of Fire Agha Shahid Ali
More Works in the Rubáiyat and the Ghazal
            Autumn Rachel Wetzsteon
            Prayer Grace Shulman
            selected lines from Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám
An Exercise in the Ghazal
11. Short Comic Forms  
Background and Structure of the Epigram
            Two Cures for Love Wendy Cope
            Their Sex Life A. R. Ammons
            The Common Wisdom Howard Nemerov
Mores Works in the Epigram
            "Sir, I admit your gen'ral rule" Alexander Pope
            "Here lies the body of Richard Hind" Anonymous
            On Sir John Guise Anonymous
            Of Death Anonymous
            To Fool or Knave Ben Jonson
            "Lip was a man who used his head" Anonymous
            Epitaph for Somone or Other J. V. Cunningham
            Unfortunate Coincidence Anonymous
            De Profundis Anonymous
            Comment Dorothy Parker
            Repentance Anonymous
            Desire Anonymous
            Fatherhood Dick Davis
            On a Certain Alderman John Cunningham
            On a Bad Singer Samuel Taylor Coleridge
            “What is an Epigram?” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
            “Truth I pursued” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
            First Fig Edna St. Vincent Millay
            A Critic Walter Savage Landor
Background and Structure of the Limerick
            "There was an Old Man of Messina…" Edward Lear
More Works in the Limerick
            On Himself Dante Gabriel Rosetti
            On Arthur Hugh Clough Algernon Charles Swinburne
            "There was a Young Lady whose chin…" Edward Lear
            "There was an Old Man of the Isles…" Edward Lear
            "There was an old Person whose habits…" Edward Lear
            "There was an Old Man of Calcutta…" Edward Lear
Background and Structure of the Clerihew
            "Sir (then Mr.) Walter Beasant" E. Clerihew Bentley
            "I was once slapped by a young lady named Miss Goringe" Ogden Nash
An Exercise in the Short Comic Forms
12. Classical Imitations  
Background and Structure of Classical Imitations
            "If mine eyes can speak to do hearty errand…" Sir Philip Sidney
More Works of Classical Imitation
            Sapphics Against Anger Timothy Steele
            The Day of Judgment Isaac Watts
            Hatred and Vengeance, My Eternal Portion William Cowper
An Exercise in Classical Imitation 
13. Forms of Free Verse  
            VII. But to Honor Truth Which is Smooth Divine and Lives Among the Gods…" Anne Carson
            Grove of Academia, H. D.  
More Works in Free Verse
            The Young Housewife William Carlos Williams
            The Waste Land Author
            from Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman
            When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd Author
            Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Wallace Stevens
14. Prose Poetry
More Works in Prose Poetry
            from Tender Buttons Gertrude Stein
            fromMy Life Lyn Hejinian
            A Story About the Body Robert Hass
15. New Forms and Old
"From the Basque" Charles Bernstein
Manifesto Edwin Morgan
"AID/I/SAPPEARANCE” Joan Retallack
The Beautician Thom Gunn
Notes
 
Suggestions for Further Reading

Summary

Poetic Formoffers a clear, compact, and entertaining introduction to the history, structure, and practice of the language's most popular verse forms. 
 
Written with humor and wit, this guide aims to convey the pleasures of poetry - a sestina's delightful gamesmanship, an epigram's barbed wit, a haiku's deceptive simplicity - and the fun of exploring the poetic forms.  Each chapter defines a particular verse form, briefly describes its history, and offers examples.  Writing exercises challenge students to utilize the forms in creative expression.  Covering a wider range of forms in greater detail and with more poetic examples than similar guides on the market, it provides enough material to thoroughly introduce the language's major forms while allowing flexibility in the classroom.

Product details

• Authors: David Caplan
• Publisher: Pearson Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2007
• EAN: 9780321198204
• ISBN: 978-0-321-19820-4
• No. of pages: 250
• Weight: 310 g
• Series: Longman; Longman
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies