Poetry II

LECTURE TWO

Forms of Poetry

There are endless varieties of human culture which have given rise to different poetic cultures. For the purpose of this study, let me speak on four major poetic forms. These are:

i. Narrative

ii. Satirical

iii. Dramatic

iv. Lyric and Ode

Narrative Poetry

A narrative poem tells a tale in verse, and usually from an omniscient point of view. The epic*, the Romance, and the Heroic chants fall under this category. The epic is a very long narrative poem. It is significantly a product of the feudal stage in the historical development of society. Epic poetry is the ultimate the farthest a poet can go, and the sublime or the hallmark in poetic attainment. Only a negligible number of poets ever attained the mark. The epic celebrates real historic events and the greatness, the heroic achievements, the mores and the civilization of a race (or nation) as embodied in a central hero. The destiny of the nation is delicately tied to the fate of the central hero.

There are two kinds of epic poetry, the oral (primary epic), and the written (secondary epic). The epics of Homer like "Odyssey and Iliad" (Greek); the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf", and in Africa, John Pepper Clark- Bekoderemo's "Ozidi"; Gorden Innes' recorded three "Sunjata" versions; The epic of SON-JARA text by Fa-Digi Sisoko; "the Mwindo" epics of the Baganda, recorded by Biebuycks; and Daniel Kunene's "Chaka" are all oral epics

On the other hand, epic poems like John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Virgil's "Aeneid" belong to the tradition of secondary orality because they are written epics. The epic is expressed orally or in written form in highly elevated language and style. A standard secondary epic (written) usually has twelve books often subdivided into cantos. On the other hand, an oral epic may take up to seven days to run through by a minstrel, or a traditional griot. The use of epic simile (main source of digression), repetition, etc., is largely responsible for this unusual length or volume of epic poetry.

Romance in this context does not have anything to do with lovers necking under some innocuous tree in the dark. Romance is a poetic form that blossomed particularly in the medieval English society. It was generally believed to have originated from ancient Rome. Romance is a poetic tradition that is very close to the epic in form, structure and topicality. It is also a very long narrative poem, but not as long as epic. Like the epic, romance poetry celebrates the greatness and heroic exploits of a central hero, usually a knight riding a horse

(eg, Sir Gawaine of the legendary King Arthur's Court, or a Christian Knight, the Knight of the Red Cross in Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene"). Romance often does adopt allegorical approach in its treatment of topicality. Its setting usually alternates between the physical or realistic world and the supernatural world where the unusual is willed or made to happen. Like the epic, the central hero embarks on a dangerous and long journey in search of greatness. Like his epic counterpart, he encounters difficulties in the course of his journey at the end of which his society is the better for it. The medieval England's "Sir Gawaine and the Knight of the Greene Castle" and Edmund Spenser's "The Facric Queene" which belong to romance tradition shall be given a more detailed attention in this study. Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Locke", Lord Bryon's "Don Juan", S.T. Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and quite a good number of modern short poems like, Thomas Hardy's "At the Draper's" or J.P. Clark's (-Bekederemo) "Night Rain", all share the narrative poetic form

Satirical Poetry

Satirical poems comment on human experience. They lampoon the follies or vices of men by the use of exaggeration, ridicule, sarcasm, irony, and humour for the purpose of reducing the subject to absurdity. A satirical poem criticizes actual life in intelligible poetic structure of varying length. Often they assume a journey motif of similar dimension as those of epic and the English medieval romance. A satirical poem may sound acerbic and biting yet hilarious, witty and elegant, thus compelling the audience to laugh at him/herself.

Dramatic Poetry

This is a form of poetry that is usually written in dramatic monologue. Monologue as opposed to dialogue involves only the poetic voice (persona) presumed to be addressing, or responding to, someone else (unseen). It is done in such a way that only the poetic voice is heard, and through whose address, response or reaction it is possible for the audience to imagine what the unseen addressee might likely be saying. The drama takes place in the audience's imagination. The dramatic verse form was popularized by the English metaphysical poets and other poets like Percy B. Shelley, and Lord Byron.

We must quickly add, however, that later development has confirmed the possibility of a dramatic verse having a dramatic situation in which characters engage in a dialogue. Thomas Hardy's "At the Draper's", is a good example. In contemporary African poetry, dramatic verse form is known to have been popularized by Okot p'Bitek in "Song of Lawino", "Song of Ocol" and "Song of Malaya". Other examples include, Wole Soyinka's "Telephone Conversation" and L.S. Senghor's "Chaka". More African poets have continued this poetic trend because it readily identifies with indigenous African oral poetry tradition. They include, Niyi Osundare, Moon Songs, Okinba Launko Ire and Other Poems for Performance Tanure Ojaide, and lately, Ademola Dasylva's Songs of Odamolugbe.

Lyric Poetry

These are poems composed with the mind to produce songs or music with a relatively fixed form. Lyrics are normally short, and between eight and hundred lines. They usually conform to the rules of music such as beat, meter, rhyme and rhythm The ballad, the sonnet and pastoral poetry strictly belong to the lyrical mode. Although, the ode may fall under this category too, its lyricism is largely intrinsic. I shall briefly comment on each:

The Ballad

It is one of the oldest and simplest lyrics that originate from oral tradition. It is a song narrative which tells a story of heroic exploits or of a common-place event, expressing basic human emotions such as love, hate, fear or surprise at physical or supernatural world. Structurally, the melody is made simple by the four-line stanza of iambic verse coupled with interlocking rhyme and a refrain that gives it a dramatic touch. E.g.,

Sir Patrick Spens

(Anon.)

The king sits in Dumferline town,

Drinking the blude-reid wine: blood-red

"O whar will I get a guid sailor

To sail this ship of mine?"

Up and spak an eldern knicht, spoke; ancient, knight

Sat at the King's richt knee: right

"Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor

That sails upon the sea."

The king has written a braidº letter broad

And signed it wi'his hand,

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,

Was walking on the sand.

The first line that Sir Patrick read,

A loud laughed he; laugh

The next line that Sir Patrick read,

The tear blinded his ee. eye

"O wha is the has done this deed, who

This ill deed done to me,

To send me out this time o' the year,

To sail upon the sea?

"Make haste, make haste, my mirry men all, merry

Our guid ship sails the morn." not/so

"O say naº sae, ºmy master dear,

For I fear a deadly storm.

"Late late yestre'en I saw the moon old

Wi'the auld moon in her arm,

And I fear, I fear, my dear master,

That we will come to harm."

O our scots nobles were richt laith loath

To weet their cork-heeled shoon, wet/shoes

But lang owre a'the play were played long, after

Their hats they swam aboon above

O lang, lang may their ladies, sit,

Wi their fans into their hand,

Or e'er they see Sir Patrick Spens

Come sailing to the land.

O lang, lang may the ladies stand,

Wi' their gold kembs in their hair, combs

Waiting for their ain glear lords, Own

For they'll see thạme na mair. them no more

Half o'er, half o'er to Aberdour

It's fifty fadom deep,

And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens, fathoms

Wi'the scots lords at his feet. good

Soonet

A sonnet is the most common and the most formal of the lyric poems. Its poetic form, like the ballad, has an imposed pattern. The English sonnet is a more common one. The sonnet is believed to have originated in Italy through Petrarch (1303-74). This is why the original form is referred to as Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. The Italian sonnet was later introduced to England by Edmund Spenser who had cause to travel to Italy where he got fascinated by this novel form of patterned poetry. On his return from Italy, he introduced the Italian sonnet. The English called the new form after Spenser's name. The same sonnet form is referred to as an Italian, or Petrarchan or Spenserian sonnet. The latter sonnet which was largely influenced by the former was introduced by William Shakespeare. This is why it is often referred to as Shakespearian sonnet. It is also known as Elizabethan or the English sonnet.

Both types of sonnet have fourteen lines cach. However, not every poem with fourteen lines qualifies as a sonnet. The Italian sonnet has the first eight lines called the octave, i.e. made up of two quatrains, and the last six lines called the sestel. The octave, which raises an issue of philosophical magnitude, has a rhyme scheme a-b-b-a/a-b-b-a. The rhyme scheme of the sestet varies from c-d-c/c-d-c or c-d-e/c-d-e to something close to these. The sestet suggests an answer or gives a clue to the issue or question raised in the octave.

The Elizabethan or English sonnet does have a different structure even though it has fourteen lines. It has three quatrains of not too distinct stanzas of four lines each, and a couplet. The couplet has a slight initial indention. The rhyme scheme is in the following order.

the first quatrain: a-b-a-b

the second quatrain: C-d-c-d

the third quatrain: e-f-e-f

and a couplet: g-g

The Elizabethan sonnet usually has its lines arranged in iambic pentameter.

We must emphasize, however, that in identifying the rhyme scheme, we must be conscious of the fact that a rhyme may be visual (i.e. eye rhyme), as we have in the following lines:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my love."

Note that "move" and "love" do not sound the same / mu:v/ and /lv/. however, the two words end with the same order of letters m-ove and l-ove. There lies the rhyme. Similarly, a rhyme can be determined purely through a similar sound produced by the end-words. This is called audio or ear rhyme, for example;

… and for this I

the king must pluck an eye

Often a rhyme may be determined by words with similar sound and with similar order of letters. This is a perfect rhyme. e.g.

"And then again I have been told

Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold."

Upon Westminster Bridge

(Williams Wordsworth)

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,

Ship, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep:

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The World Is Too Much with Us

(Williams Wordsworth)

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste or powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 5

The winds that will be howling at all hours.

And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers:

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not, - Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn,

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Sonnet 116

(William Shakespeare).

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O.no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and it never shaken.

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time's fool, though rosy lips and checks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved

Holy Sonnet 6

(John Donne)

DEATH, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure then, from thee much more must flow

And soonest our best men with thee do go.

Rest of their bones and soul's delivery.

Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men.

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.

Pastoral

Originally developed in classical times, pastoral poetry became popularized during the Renaissance, and at the end of the eighteenth century as a reaction against the so-called urban-civilization of the neo-Classical period.

Pastoral poems have identifiable subject matter without a structurally fixed stanzaic form or length. They have elaborate stylized language devices, measured rhythm and consistent movement of sounds and topicality. Pastoral poems are traditionally and thematically preoccupied with a celebration of the beauty of, and abundance in nature. These include a romanticized celebration of fertility, birth, maturity in nature. In other words, pastoral poems celebrate an idealized self-sufficient world of nature and its purity, devoid of decay or pollution of particular interest is the rustic simplicity of the nature-loving and nature-dependent lifestyle of shepherds or shepherdesses. Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is a good example of poetry in this tradition.

Christopher Marlow's "A Passionate Shepherd to his love":

Come live with me and be my love

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

And all the craggy mountains yields.

There we will sit upon the rocks.

And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

With a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold.

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.

Elegy/Pastoral Elegy

Still in the pastoral tradition is the elegiac poetry. An elegy laments or speculates on death or the loss of a beloved, a protector and a provider, while at the same time expressing fear of insecurity and uncertainty of the future. A good example is the Anglo-Saxon "Deor's Lament". In tradition Africa we have "Owusu", among others. Another sub-pastoral group is the Pastoral elegy. It has a rustic, almost mystical rural setting in which shepherds, nymphs and ghomids interact. In pastoral elegy, nature joins in the lament. John Milton's "Lycidas" and Matthew Arnold's "Adonais" are good examples.