Download Suggested Answers to the Introductory Quiz

Bischoff
WS 2005/06
SE Anglo-American Poetry after T.S. Eliot
Suggested Answers to the Introductory Quiz
Sources:
Hobsbaum, Philip. Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
1. Define two metrical feet. Give the English terms (nouns, adjectives) and their
pronunciation in phonetic transcription. (4)
Iamb, iambic
Trochee, trochaic
Anapest, anapestic
Dactyl, dactylic
Spondee, spondaic
Phyrric, phyrric
(unstressed, stressed)
(stressed, unstressed)
(unstressed, unstressed, stressed)
(stressed, unstressed, unstressed)
(stressed, stressed)
(unstressed, unstressed)
2. Give three poetic devices and explain them using examples. (3)
e.g.:
Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, especially at the beginning of related words, e.g.
shining/shimmering
Assonance is the repetition of vowels, especially in the case of related or empathetic words, e.g.
not/rod.
Enjambement is the name given to an effect whereby sense and rhythm run over the line-ending
and on into the next line, e.g. “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / …” (as opposed to
end-stopped lines).
Onomatopoeia (echoism) is a combination of words whose sounds seem to resemble the sound
it
denotes, e.g. “ooze of oil”.
Further examples: parallelism, chiasm, repetition
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3. What is the difference between a “tercet” and “trimeter”? (2)
A “tercet” is a three-line verse form while a “trimeter” is a line consisting of three main stresses.
4. Scan the following stanza. What is the meter and stanza form called? (4)
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The stillness in the Room
Was like the stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of the Storm –
Emily Dickinson (old #465/new #591)
The meter this stanza is written in is called “common meter”. The stanza is a ballad stanza (hymn
stanza), two iambic lines of four stresses alternating with two iambic lines of three stresses.
5. Name three different types of rhyme and explain the function of rhyme in general. (4)
Using rhyme, a poet may introduce a remote constellation of associations that may confirm, question
or even deny the literal meaning of their words.
Masculine rhymes consist of a single stressed syllable, feminine rhymes consist of a stressed
followed by an unstressed syllable.
Types of rhyme:
- End rhyme: the exact echoing of a sound at the end of one line by the sound at the end of
another line.
- Internal rhyme: the exact echoing of a sound within words of the same line.
- Perfect (full or true) rhyme is the exact correspondence of rhyming sounds.
- Eye rhymes are words whose endings are spelled alike, and in most instances were
pronounced alike, but have in the course of time acquired a different pronunciation. (e.g.
daughter/laughter)
- Off-rhyme differs from perfect rhyme in changing vowel sound and/or the concluding
consonants expected of perfect rhyme. (e.g. Room/Storm)
- Vowel rhyme goes beyond off-rhyme to the point at which words have only their vowel sound
in common. (e.g. green/leaves)
- One speaks of pararhyme when the stressed vowel sounds differ but are flanked by identical
or similar consonants. (e.g. trod/trade)
- Monorhyme is a poem of no predetermined meter, line length, or number of lines; the sole
requirement being its one rhyme.
Pair rhyme (aabb), cross rhyme (abab), and embracing rhyme (abba) are rhyme schemes.
6. What is “syllabic meter”? Which prominent American poet used it? In contrast, what is
quantitative meter and where was it employed? Considering these two types of meter,
what is the prime element in English rhythm? (4)
Syllabic meter measures only the number of syllables in a line, without regard to their stress.
Syllabic meter was used by Ezra Pound in his haikus, as well as by Marianne Moore, Richard
Wright and Richard Wilbur. Stress appears for rhetorical emphasis rather than in a formal metrical
pattern, resulting in an informal and prosaic effect.
Quantitative meter, which structures most Greek, Sanskrit, and later Latin poetry, is based on
notions of a syllable’s “quantity”, its duration in time. Renaissance English poets tried to follow this
type of classical meter. It is difficult to determine the “length” of English syllables according to
ancient rules. Thus, the theoretical prescriptions often generated poems in which “long” syllables are
in fact stressed syllables.
The prime element in English poetry is stress.
7. Compare – in metrical terms – the excerpts from Blake’s “The Tyger” and Shelley’s
Prometheus Unbound (II. iv): (2)
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Life of life! My lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them
And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire…
Meter is the regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.
Blake’s stanza is written in trochaic tetrameter. The rhyme is masculine, and the lines have a
catalectic ending (the final unstressed syllable of the trochee is dropped giving prominence to the
stressed syllable necessary for rhyme). The rhythm is very important in the excerpt from Blake’s
“The Tyger”, as it can be seen to correspond to (the tigers) heartbeat.
The excerpt from Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound is also written in trochaic
tetrameter. However, the rhyme is feminine, the ending is not catalectic.
8. How many feet does a “hexameter” have? (1)
A “hexameter” has six feet.
9. Describe the difference between “blank verse” and “free verse”. (2)
“Blank verse” consists of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. It is the standard meter for
Elizabethan poetic drama. When rhymed, e.g. the last two lines of the Shakespearian sonnet, one
speaks of a heroic couplet. Being close to the natural rhythm of spoken English, it is adaptable to the
different levels of speech.
“Free verse” is poetry that makes little or no use of traditional rhyme and meter, it is an open form,
not conform to a pre-set pattern. But, of course, it has rhythm.
10. Analyze the structure of the following excerpt: (3)
Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table,
waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
she ran on tiptoe down the darkened passage
to meet him in the doorway with the news
and put him on his guard. “Silas is back.”
She pushed him outward with her through the door
and shut it after her. “Be kind,” she said.
She took the market things from Warren’s arms
and set them on the porch, then drew him down
to sit beside her on the wooden steps.
This excerpt from “The Death of the Hired Man” by Robert Frost is written in blank verse. It
combines lyric and dramatic poetry. Due to the punctuation marks and the meters close resemblance
to the natural speech rhythm of the English language the excerpt closely resembles a piece of prose
when, as here, printed without regard to the original structure (line length) of the stanza.
11. Describe the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet. (4)
A sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameters linked by a rhyme scheme. The Shakespearean
sonnet is structured into three cross-rhyming quatrains followed by a turn at the end of line twelve
and concluding in a (heroic)couplet (often a summary of epigrammatic character).
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
1st quatrain
2nd quatrain
3rd quatrain
turn
G
G
couplet
12. What does the word “lyrics” mean? (1)
Lyrics are the words (text) to a song.
13. Feet, lines, stanzas are formal elements that make up the “poem as a whole”. Name two
other verse forms (in addition to the sonnet). (2)
-
(Fixed/closed) verse forms: villanelle, sestina, canzone, limerick, clerihew, haiku, hymn, ballad
Irregular verse forms: elegy, ode
14. Discuss – in metrical terms – Wallace Stevens’s opening lines of “Sunday Morning”:
(3)
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair
And the green freedom of a Cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
The opening lines of “Sunday Morning” are written in “free” blank verse. There is no rhyme. It is
characterized through the absence of disjunctive pauses and a preference for medium stress.
15. Name three American and/or English poets (not mentioned in this quiz) and give titles of
their works. (3)
e.g.:
Ezra Pound Cantos, William Carlos Williams Paterson, Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass, T.S. Eliot
The Waste Land, John Milton Paradise Lost, G. Chaucer The Canterbury Tales, Robert Frost “The
Road not Taken”, Allen Ginsberg Howl