Poetic Forms Glossary, Help sought Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hello!  

I am looking for help in creating an MM version of a poetic forms glossary since we have designated Hermia's Homilies as the Fixed Form critique forum. There are many sites available to guide us, however I would like to incorporate our own words into the forms.

If you are interested in assiting me with this task, please reply or PM me at your convenience.  

Some of the forms that immediately come to mind are as follows:
Acrostic
Allegory
Ballad
Cinquain
Clerihew
Diamante
Epic
Epigram
Epitaph
Ethere
Fable
Haiku
Kyrielle
Limerick
Monody
Monorhyme
Monotetra
Naani
Nonet
Ode
Ottava Rima
Palindrome
Pantoum
Parable
Paradelle
Quinzaine
Rictameter
Rondelet
Rondeau
Sedoka
Senryu
Septolet
Sestina
Sonnet
Swap Quatrain
Tanka
Terza Rima
Terzanelle
Tetractys
Triolet
Trois-par-Huit
Tyburn
Villanelle

If you would like to create the description, by all means add a reply. I will change the color to RED so we can keep track. Your help is MOST appreciated!

~Cleo    

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi, I believe the following to be correct - but I am quite prepared to be corrected by form specialists.

Sonnets have different styles.

A Shakespearian Sonnet is:

• Of Italian origin
• Tight structure
• Fourteen lines
• Rhyme scheme: ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG
• All lines in iambic pentameter (Ten syllables per line).
• Most usual topic is love
• Often written as part of a longer sequence.

James.

[Cleo_Serapis]

Alan!

Well.... aren't you a silly!  

Now as the sonnet....

Sonnet (Italian meaning "little song")
In the Renaissance Italy, the sonnet became a fixed form consisting of 14-lines patterned on iambic pentameter.

Decribed by AMETHYST:
A sonnet is a poem made of 14 rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme schemes could be either:
Italian sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan sonnet. (Named after a famous Italian sonneteer, Francesco Petrarch). The first 8 lines, which is the first two quatrains are rhymed as followed: ABBA, ABBA. The next 6 lines can be rhymed CDE/CDE, or CDCDCD. There is a turning point from the 2 quatrains to the final stanza of 6 lines, it is considered a "TURN" or a VOLTA that effects the tone or mood of the poem.

Then there is my favorite, the English sonnet. It was developed by Henry Howard and is also known as the Shakespearean sonnet. It is made up of three quatrains and a final couplet. The rhyme scheme is either: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG. OR ABBA CDDC EFFE GG.

The Spenserian sonnet links the three quatrains in rhyme pattern of: ABAB , BCBC, CDCD, EE.

The final couplet in both are where that turn in mood or concept is placed.

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE:

She was too kind, wooed too persistently
by Samuel Butler

She was too kind, wooed too persistently,
Wrote moving letters to me day by day;
The more she wrote, the more unmoved was I,
The more she gave, the less could I repay.
Therefore I grieve, not that I was not loved,
But that, being loved, I could not love again.
I liked, but like and love are far removed;
Hard though I tried to love I tried in vain.
For she was plain and lame and fat and short,
Forty and over-kind. Hence it befell
That though I loved her in a certain sort,
Yet did I love too wisely but not well.
Ah! had she been more beauteous or less kind
She might have found me of another mind.
[*]English (or Shakespearean) sonnet: the English form of the Italian sonnet, contains three quatrains and a concluding couplet, with the scheme abab cdcd efef gg .
[*]Italian: a fourteen-line poem with two sections, an octave (eight-line stanza rhyming abbaabba), and a sestet (six-line-stanza rhyming cddc ee), an English variant of the Petrachan.
[*]Petrachan: a fourteen-line poem with two sections, an octave (eight-line stanza rhyming abbaabba), and a sestet (six-line-stanza rhyming cdcdcd or cdecde).
[*]Reverse sonnet: a comic form invented in Wilfred Owens' sonnet "Hand trembling towards hand," which starts with the couplet rather than ending with it.
[*]Spenserian sonnet: a fourteen-line poem developed by Edmund Spenser in his Amoretti that varies the English form by interlocking the three quatrains, abab bcbc cdcd ee .

[Cleo_Serapis]

An Acrostic is a poem or series of lines in which certain letters, usually the first in each line, form a name, motto, or message when read in sequence. They need not rhyme. A double acrostic has the first and last letters forming new words. A comparative rarity, the triple acrostic appeared occasionally in puzzle books, almanacs and children's magazines until the mid-20th century at which time, it seems to have faded from view.

The word ACROSTIC comes to the English language via the Latin derivation of the Greek words, 'AKRON' (end) and 'STIKHOS' (line of verse).

Some examples of Acrostic:

14 September 1789
Boston Gazette

GREAT Hero! whose illustrious actions claim
Eternal blessings and an endless fame--
Of every virtue and each gift possess
Religion reigns triumphant in his breast.
Grant him, almighty God! thy aid and health
Ever to rule these states and guard their wealth.

What power of Language can enough extoll
A Son of Liberty and friend to all--
Saviour and patron of Columbia!
Her sons revere thee and exult this day--
In thee, their Favourite and firm support--
Nations applaud thee and thy friendship court.
Generous deliverer of thy Country's right!
Thou hast prov'd victor over lawless might.
Of all the Conquerors in the historic page,
None have surpass'd this Phœnix of the age.

TWO ACROSTICS

by Lewis Carroll

ROUND the wondrous globe I wander wild,
Up and down-hill- Age succeeds to youth-
Toiling all in vain to find a child
Half so loving, half so dear as Ruth. -

MAIDENS, if a maid you meet
Always free from pout and pet,
Ready smile and temper sweet,
Greet my little Margaret.
And if loved by all she be
Rightly, not a pampered pet,
Easily you then may see
'Tis my little Margaret. -

[Cleo_Serapis]

An allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.  
Example:
Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser; Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan; Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

A fable is a story with a moral or lesson to impart, often through the actions of animals that speak and act like people; one extended sense is pejorative: fables never really happen, so they’re lies.

An Æsop Fable...

The Lion and the Mouse
ONCE when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. “Pardon, O King,” cried the little Mouse: “forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these days?” The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters, who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a waggon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, sent up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. “Was I not right?” said the little Mouse.
      “LITTLE FRIENDS MAY PROVE GREAT FRIENDS.”

A parable (from the Hebrew word “mashal”- a term denoting a metaphor, or an enigmatic saying or an analogy) is a brief story told to illustrate a moral or religious idea.

A myth is a narrative of a ficticious nature or belief that explains the prehistory of a people, often dealing with their origins and their gods;  typically an ancient story of supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves a worldview of a people and ideals of society. An example is the myth of Eros and Psyche.