Quatrain
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Aquatrainis a type ofstanza,or a completepoem,consisting of fourlines.[1]
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears inpoemsfrom the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations includingPersia,Ancient India,Ancient Greece,Ancient Rome,andChina,and continues into the 21st century,[1]where it is seen in works published in many languages.
This form of poetry has been continually popular inIransince the medieval period, asRuba'isform; an important faction of the vast repertoire ofPersianpoetry, with famous poets such asOmar KhayyamandMahsati GanjaviofSeljuk Persiawriting poetry only in this format.
Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) used the quatrain form to deliver his famous "prophecies"in the 16th century.
There are fifteen possiblerhyme schemes,but the most traditional and common areABAA,AAAA,ABAB,andABBA.
Forms[edit]
Under the portrait, a quatrain byGuy Patin.
- Theheroic stanzaorelegiac stanzaconsists of theiambic pentameter,with therhyme schemeof ABAB.
An example can be found in the following ofThomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
- Thehymnal stanzaconsists of alternating rhymes with theiambic trimeterand theiambic tetrameter,with a rhyme scheme of ABCB.
An example can be found inRobert Burns,"A Red, Red Rose".[2]
O, my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve’s like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
- Thememoriam stanzaconsists of theiambic tetrameterand a rhyme scheme of ABBA.
An example can be found inAlfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H.".[3]
So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch’d me from the past,
And all at once it seem’d at last
The living soul was flash’d on mine.
- Anenvelope stanzais when the samestanzastarts and ends a poem with little change of wording, although this term is also used on stanzas that have a symmetrical rhyme scheme of ABBA.
An example can be found inWilliam Blake's "The Tyger".(These are the first and last stanzas of the poem)[4]
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
...
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry
- Theballad stanzaconsists of theiambictetrameterwith a rhyme scheme of ABCB (seeballad stanzafor more details).[5]
An example can be found in “La Belle Dame sans Merci”byJohn Keats.[6]
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Thee hath in thrall!’
- TheRuba'iform of rhymed quatrain was favored byPersian-languagepoetOmar Khayyám,among others. This work was a major inspiration forEdward FitzGerald'sRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.Theruba'iwas a particularly widespread verse form: the formrubaiyatreflects the plural. One of FitzGerald's verses[7]may serve to illustrate:
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
- TheMidnight Songs poetryform is from Fourth Century China, consisting of regular five-character lines, with each quatrain formed from a pair of rhymed couplets. The person matter involves the personal thoughts and feelings of a courtesan during the four seasons, into which the quatrains are individually assigned.
- Shairi(also known as Rustavelian Quatrain) is an AAAA rhyming form used mainly inThe Knight in the Panther's Skin.
- TheShichigon-zekkuform used onClassical Chinese poetryandJapanesepoetry. This type of quatrain uses a seven-character line length. Both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase.
- Balladmeter (The examples from "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well" are both examples of ballad meter.)
- Decasyllabic quatrainused byJohn DrydeninAnnus Mirabilis,William DavenantinGondibert,andThomas Gray
- Varioushymnsemploy specific forms, such as thecommon meter,long meter,andshort meter.
- In the Malay tradition,syair,pantunandpantoumare arranged in quatrains.
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ab"Definition and Examples of Literary Terms".Literary Devices.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^"A Red, Red Rose".Poetry foundation.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^"Prosody, In Memoriam Stanza".Britannica.The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^"The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms".Oxford Reference.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^"Ballad".Litcharts.From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^"Definition of Ballad".Literary Devices.Literary Devices, Terms, and Elements.Retrieved2 December2020.
- ^Verse VII, seeRubaiyatversion at Wikisource