Form

Poetry
Form is closely related to genre and writers choices of forms are closely
influenced by the historical period in which they live i.e. what was
fashionable at the time.
The form of a text is like a box that comes in many different shapes and
sizes.
Poets have a huge range of possible forms to use in writing. The main
ones are

EPIC
LYRIC
BALLAD
ODE
SONNET
COUPLET
TERCET
QUATRAIN
MONOLOGUE
BLANK VERSE
FREE VERSE
Remember that forms are not necessarily rigid and although they can be used across
different historical periods they can be used creatively and rules can be bent or broken
within specific forms.

Poetic Form (TF)

1. Content and form: distinction between what is said and the way it is said.
1.1 Analogous to distinction in narrative fiction between story and
discourse.
2. In poetry, form may be taken as equivalent to 'structure' - the ordering of
the poem's contents in order to generate specific meanings or effects.
2.1 Poetic form may include the shape of the poem on the page.
2.2 It may also include various 'devices of sound' - metre, rhyme,
alliteration, etc.
2.3 More often, a poem's form is understood as the way it combines all these
elements into an overall pattern in which each element contributes to the
poem's purpose, effect, or meaning.
3. There are various devices of sound that are used in poems.
3.1 Rhyme: 'repetition, in the rhyming words, of the last stressed vowel and
of all the speech sounds following that vowel: late/fate; follow/hollow'
(Abrams, Glossary).
3.2 Pararhyme ('half', 'near', or 'imperfect rhyme'):
imagination/ammunition, pack/ache, red/rid (from Wilfred Owen,
'Insensibility').
3.3 Consonance: 'repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but
with a change in the intervening vowel: live-love, lean-alone, pitter-patter'
(Abrams). (see pararhyme)
3.4 Alliteration: 'repetition of a speech sound in a sequence of words; the
term is usually applied only to consonants ... in a conspicuous position at the
beginning either of a word or of a stressed syllable within a word' (Abrams):
'My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow' (see below).
3.5 Assonance: 'repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds ... in a
sequence of nearby words' (Abrams): 'Mister city policeman sitting pretty
little policeman in a row' (The Beatles, 'I am the Walrus').
4. Critical/theoretical discussion revolves around question of relationship
between form and content in poetry/literature; there are various arguments:
(a) poetic form is an aesthetic container in which a poem's contents are
delivered; (b) poetic form echoes or reflects content/meaning; (c) poetic
form and content are organically interrelated; (d) poetic form foregrounds
materiality of language for its own sake; (e) poetic form can resist and
disrupt meaning.
4.1 A sonnet can be identified by use of form: 14 lines of iambic pentameter;
complex rhyme scheme; perhaps split by a volta into octave/sestet; but it
might also use any of the above 'devices of sound'. In addition, sonnets often
shape the 'argument' to sonnet form: the volta or turn in rhyme scheme

between octave and sestet is often accompanied by a turn in content (often

signalled by 'turning words' such as 'yet' or 'but'); a similar effect often
occurs if there's a final rhyming couplet.