English 10 / Unit 5: Poetry: Form, Sound and Meaning
5.4 Fixed Forms Around the World
Notes
Poets in many traditions use set forms with rules.
- Villanelle: 19 lines (five tercets and a quatrain), rhymed ABA, with two lines that repeat as refrains. The repetition suits obsession or grief.
- Ghazal: from Arabic and Persian poetry, made of self-contained couplets, each ending with the same refrain word (radif). Poets like Hafez (Persian) and Ghalib (Urdu) mastered it; the poet often names himself in the last couplet.
- Ode: a formal, serious poem of praise, like Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819).
- Dramatic monologue: a single speaker addresses a silent listener and reveals more than intended. In Browning's "My Last Duchess" (1842), a duke hints that he had his wife killed.
Practice
A poem made of independent couplets, each ending in the same refrain word, is most likely a:
Repeated refrain words ending each couplet mark the ghazal.
In "My Last Duchess," the duke speaks while a visitor listens silently, and the duke reveals his own cruelty. The form is a:
One speaker, a silent listener and accidental self-revelation define it.
Which feature best defines a villanelle?
The villanelle is 19 lines with two refrains.
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