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Tichy's Main
 
 
 
 

Poems in MAP are italicized. 
Poems on line are linked.
All others with page numbers are in the Norton

Quick Reference to Forms

Page One:   Sonnet  /  Blank verse / Heroic couplet / Hexameter Couplet  /  Short couplet / 

Page Two: 4x4 forms:   Ballad  /  Common Measure  /  Hymnal  / 

Page Three:  Tetrameter  /  Trimeter & Dimeter  /  Triple meters

Page Four:  Heroic quatrain / envelope quatrain / Other quatrains  / 

Page Six:   Tercets & Triplets  /  Quintets  /  Sestets  /  Septets  /  Octaves  /  Spenserian stanza  / Other stanza forms

Page Seven:   Sestina  /  Villanelle

Page Eight:  Strong-stress & Accentual  /  Syllabics  /  Free verse roots

Page Nine:  Genres (or kinds):  Aubade  /  Epigram  /  Epistle  /  Ars Poetica  /  Nocturne

Page Ten:  Elegy  /  Elegy for a Child  /  Farewell to a Husband  /  Mother's Legacy

Page Eleven:   Carpe Diem  /  Pastoral Elegy  /  Retreat Poem  /  Pastoral

Page Twelve:  Satire  /  Parody & Reply  /  Woman's Complaint  /  Defense of Women

Page Nine:   Pastoral  /  Aubade  / 

Page Ten:   Elegy  /  Elegy for a child  / Farewell to a husband  /  Mother's legacy  / 

Page Eleven:  Satire

Page Twelve:  Ode

Heroic Line: iambic pentameter

Alexandrine: iambic hexameter

Fourteener: iambic septameter, generally a couplet aa –see common measure 

Couplet: any two-line unit

short couplet: iambic tetrameter aa
heroic couplet: iambic pentameter aa 
split or uneven couplet: lines of different lengths: aa 
open couplet: first line runs on, second end-stopped aa 
closed couplet: both lines end-stopped aa

triplet: three lines with a single rhyme aaa
blues stanza: a triplet with 1st line repeated and third rhyming: AAa BBb
terza rima: a series of tercets with interlocking lines: aba bcb cdc
haiku: Japanese: syllabic triplet with 5/7/5 syllables per line 

4x4: Derek Attridge's term for quatrains built on variations of the 4-beat line, including:

ballad stanza: accentual, alternating four-beat & three beat xaxa
common measure: iambic, alternating tetrameter & trimeter xaxa
hymnal stanza: same as common measure, but rhymes abab (many variations)

heroic quatrain (or stanza): iambic pentameter abab

envelope quatrain: abba

Italian q.: envelope q. in iambic pentameter
“In Memoriam q.”: envelope q. in iambic tetrameter

couplet quatrain: aabb

pantoum: Malayan: a set form in quatrains with interlocking refrains and rhymes

English quintet: ababb
Tanka: Japanese: syllabic, 5/7/5/77

heroic: iambic pentameter, ababcc or abbacc
Italian: iambic pentameter, abcabc
Sicilian: iambic pentameter, ababab
Burns Stanza: three lines iambic tetrameter, then a dimeter, a tetrameter, and 
     a final dimeter, rhymed aaabab

Rime Royal: iambic pentameter: ababbcc (sometimes ababccc)

Ottava Rima: iambic pentameter, abababcc

Spenserian stanza: 8 lines iambic pentameter, last line an Alexandrine

English ode stanza: ababcdecde 

Italian or Petrarchan: octave & sestet: abbaabba cdecde (or cdcdcd)
English or Shakespearean: three quatrains & couplet: ababcdcdefef gg
Spenserian: three interlocking quatrains & couplet: abab bcbc cdcd ee
Miltonic: Italian sonnet w/ the turn in middle of line, usually the 9th
Curtal: Hopkins: 11-line form: sestet, quatrain, & the last line a single
      spondee: abbacy dbcd c (considered a sonnet only because Hopkins said so)
Blues: four blues triplets & couplet: AAa BBb CCc DDd ee

Villanelle: 19 lines: 5 triplets & quatrain, with two rhymes & two refrains

Sestina: 39 lines: 6 sestets & tercet: with six end-words repeated in fixed sequence and all 6 words appearing in the tercet, 2 per line

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