poetic-forms

History Early Ballads The exact origins of the ballads are unknown. Some propose ballads began as a communal activity, while others suggest a single composer created the form.  Many ballads were lost through time.  The earliest surviving ballads date back to the 14th and 15th centuries.  \"King Orfeo\" is one such ballad, as it dates back to the 1400s. These early ballads tend to be basic and not as descriptive as later ballads.  Early ballads often covered several years in one or two verses.  These ballads used iambic tetrameter in stanzas of four lines (aka 4-4-4-4 meter). Ballads first really caught on with the invention of the printin

The word \"sestina\" comes from the Italian sesto, or six. The sestina is originally a French form, and a very old one, originating in the twelfth century in the work of Arnaut Daniel, a troubadour. It\'s lyrical and relies on the repetition of six key words and does not normally rhyme. The sestina\'s length lends itself to poems that tell stories or otherwise travel thematically, and its final stanza makes for a strong conclusion. The form has six sextets and a final tercet. Many sestinas are in iambic pentameter, but it is not necessary; but whatever meter is chosen is usually maintained throughout a single poem--so a sestina might be in p

A villanelle is a form used widely in France in the sixteenth century, and which remains popular among formal poets. Its strict repetition and rhyme scheme makes it a source of headaches and sleepless nights for those who enjoy writing them. The form lends itself better to exploration of a haunting theme than to a lyrical subject or story, simply because of the amount of repetition. Formally, the repeated lines are strict; some people vary them somewhat, altering punctuation or a few words, to soften the form somewhat. Most villanelles are in iambic pentameter, but any meter could be used, or none. The form is made up of five tercets and a q

The pantoum, or pantun, is a form originating in Malaysia which was brought to the French language by Ernest Fouinet (not Victor Hugo, contrary to popular belief).  It was popularized by Victor Hugo and later Charles Beaudlaire.  In a pantoum, the lines are interlocking and the first line is identical to the last line, which gives the poem a static or a cyclical feeling. A pantoum has no set meter, but many use iambic tetrameter in the style of a ballad.  The poem is comprised of any number of quatrains rhyming ABAB.  Personally, I enjoy those which rhyme ABAB-BABA-ABAB and so on with only two sets of rhymes, but that is not required of a pa

The Ballade The ballade is one of the fixed forms that became so popular in France in the 14th century. The name derives from the Old Provençal ballada, a song sung while dancing. One of the first poets given credit for perfecting the style and popularizing the form is Guillaume de Machaut. The poem consists of three stanzas of eight lines each, followed by an envoy of four lines. Each stanza uses the same fourth, and last line, and these are also respectively, the second, and last line of the envoy. The form ends up looking like this. a-b-a-B-b-c-b-C a-b-a-B-b-c-b-C a-b-a-B-b-c-b-C b-B-c-C One thing that makes this form a bit more cha

Triolet- Write-Up History: The triolet (pronounced as tree-oh-lay) is one of the many fixed forms of verses we have today. It was invented in medieval France, and has been preserved through modern literature. Back in the medieval ages, the triolets were short witty poems that had a ten-syllable meter to it. It was perhaps due to the lightness of this structure that the triolet was often used to express humour, although it has been said that some of the first English triolets were of spiritual content. Form: A triolet is a French verse of eight lines and two rhymes. Out of these eight lines, five of them are repeated or refrained lines

Tanka (or Waka) Its origin is Japan, its history since whenever. From what\'s been archaeologically found, the oldest tanka dates back to a.D. 620. Consequently, and obviously this form is far older than the haiku, which firmly established itself in the Edo era. The oldest anthology of previously made tanka is said to be made around the year a.D. 760 (This anthology is called Manyoshu and contains over 4000 poems in 20 volumes written by everybody from the emperor to normal peasants). The themes were - not surprisingly - drawn from nature and tradition, then evolved from the personal to subjective, adding Chinese influences of philosophy and

The Luc Bat Many poets enjoy writing in Tri meter (six syllable lines) and Tetra meter (eight syllable lines), so this form should be fun to experiment with. Some of you who prefer lyrical poetry might find this form useful, as well as challenging, because it lends itself quite nicely to some styles of story telling as well. The Luc Bat is a Vietnamese form of poetry, which simply means "six eight." You can see there was an influence by the French as it was The Colony of Indo China before it became Vietnam. It was introduced into Europe by the French, but for some reason never became popular. The odd lines (1, 3, 5, etc.) are six syllables

Haiku is a type of poetic form as well as a way of describing and experiencing the world. A haiku is a very short, 17 syllable form. It usually consists of three lines with a 5 - 7- 5 syllable pattern. This seems deceptively simple, but the haiku form can take years to master. A well written haiku is based in the physical world of our senses, but suggests something more deep, and usually linked to nature and its existence. However, a more modern version of haiku called free-form-haiku is more relaxed on terms of the subject (however, it must still be of a spiritual nature). The original form of haiku does not sound appealing when read aloud