Literary Terms: Epic Poems, Sonnets, and More
Epic: Poems of adventures, narrative, containing a lot of passion and many events. Originally a spoken poem, it was later written down. Early Literacy adopted the Epic Poem’s form. Epic poems were normally sung by scops, who were professional poem singers, often accompanying the poem with music, typically a harp.
Sonnet: A lyric or poetic form. Lyric opposes epic as it has a brief form and emotional content. This contrast can be seen in “Beowulf.” Lyric is more intimate, domestic, focused on feelings, and interiority, whereas epic focuses on adventure and action, but not emotion.
Medieval Romance: Stories of adventure in which the chief parts are played by knights, famous kings, or distressed ladies, acting most often under the impulse of love, religious faith, or a desire for adventure. Stories were first told in verse, but when prose versions were made, they were also called romances. In length, the verse romances vary from a few hundred lines to tens of thousands, while the prose ones are mostly very long. They can be long or short and are narrative poems like epic poetry.
Pastoral: Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Christopher Marlowe wrote excellent examples of this type of poetry, which was popular with Elizabeth’s Court. A pastoral is a poem that portrays shepherds and rustic life, usually in an idealized manner. The poets did not attempt to write in the voice of a common shepherd; their speakers used courtly language rather than the language of common speech. The pastoral form was artificial as well, with meters and rhyme schemes characteristic of formal poetry. An example is “Astrophel and Stella” by Sidney.
Cavalier: The word cavalier means “knights,” and they sided with Charles I in the English Civil War. Witty and charming, it dealt with themes of love, war, and the topic of carpe diem. In their poetry, the events of everyday life were celebrated. Poets include Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Robert Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling.
Metaphysical: Reacting against the tired clichés of Elizabethan love poetry (rosy cheeks or hearts pierced by arrows of love or other metaphors used to describe the poetic object). They reacted against the Elizabethan poets because they wanted to differentiate themselves from the previous authors and conventions. They used unusual imagery, elaborated metaphors, and an irregular meter. Focused on subjects that went beyond the natural sciences. Demanded mental alertness and engagement from readers, due to the requirement of a quick interpretation and an easy linking of ideas. Admired by the modernist poet T.S. Eliot.
Caesura: The pause in the middle of a line of Anglo-Saxon poetry, used to show the speaker where to breathe.
Pun: A play on words.
Tone: The author/speaker’s attitude toward the subject.
Iambic: One line made of 5 feet (2 syllables per foot), made of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. The iambic pentameter is easier to memorize and understand. It follows the rhythm of spoken English and is said to follow the rhythm of the heart.
Italian Sonnet: 5 rhymes (a through e). 1 octave, where the poet states a problem or raises a question + 1 sestet, where the poet tries to solve the problem or states a resolution for the problem. ABBA ABBA CDE DCE/ CDC DEE / CDD CEE / CDC DCD.
Novel: From the Italian word ‘novella’, itself from the Latin ‘novella’. A genre resisting an exact definition, as the novel is a melting pot of different genres (in a novel you can find poetry, epic, pastoral, elegy, tragedy…). The novel quotes, parodies, and transforms other genres; it is less a genre than an anti-genre. It cannibalizes other literary modes and mixes the bits and pieces promiscuously together. Virginia Woolf described it as ‘the most pliable of all forms’.
Conceit: Consists of the association of dissimilar ideas; while paradoxes, epigrams, and puns are common features. Comparisons between objects which at first glance seem to have nothing in common.
Bob & Wheel: Rhyming section at the end of each stanza, in which Bob is the short line followed by the wheel, which is the longer lines with internal rhyme ABAB. Bob is also a bridge between alliterative lines; bob maintains the alliteration of the previous lines and begins the rhyme on the concluding lines.
Alliteration: Repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of words.
Characterization: The techniques that writers use to develop characters and their personalities. It is in intensely detailed lines, and each one is unique and realistic (direct and indirect). The narrative voice of each character is subtly maintained and represents the psychological reality of the character.
Breton Lay: Verse similar to romance but shorter in rhymes, love, and chivalry.
Beast Fable: A prose or verse fable or short story that usually has a moral.
Fabliaux: Short tales in verse, comic tone, and form of everyday life.
Elements of Metaphysical Poetry:
- Speaker: Writing in the form of argument: the speaker tries to persuade his lover to share his point of view.
- Tone: Dramatic and colloquial (mix), acute realism, concrete, immediacy, talks about very mundane things and agency, intimate and passionate.
- Word choice and diction: Ordinary speech mixed with paradoxes and puns (flea), varied fields of knowledge (physics, mechanics, law, etc.). In “The Flea” the new discoveries of the blood circulation and on “to his mistress” historical and mythological, words related to body, sex, violence, intimacy.
- Figures of speech: Conceits (extended metaphors) Large doses of wit (ingenio): Ability to relate dissimilar ideas. Paradoxes, conceits and puns, imagery from the sciences, travel, medicine, alchemy and philosophy.
- Themes: Religious sentiment, Carpe diem, Love and sex, Death, Science and empire.
- Purpose: Shock the reader, make YOU think and engage.
Mood: The way the reader feels.