A Handbook of Poetics for Students of English Verse |
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Common terms and phrases
accented syllables action Alexandrine allegory anapestic Anglo-Saxon ballad beautiful beginning-rime Beowulf blank verse Byron Cæsar cæsura called Century character Chaucer chorus classic combined comedy common dactylic drama early end-rime English verse epic epic poetry example famous folk-song French Germanic Greek half-verse Hamlet harmony heavy syllables hero hexameter hovering accent human hymn iambic imitated Julius Cæsar Keats King later Latin Layamon legend license light syllables lines literature Lost Love's Labour's Lost Lycidas lyric poetry measure metaphor metre metrical scheme Milton modern moral movement nature pause personification play poem poet poetical Pope's popular prose quantity regular rhythm rhythmic rime rule says Septenary Shak Shakespeare Shakspere Shakspere's simile simply sing slurring song sonnet sort sounds speech stanza story stress style Tennyson thee thing thou tion tone tragedy trochaic trope unaccented syllables Vers de Société verse-accent vowel word-accent words
Popular passages
Page 120 - These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, thine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then ! Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens, To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Page 118 - Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Page 131 - O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! Is it not monstrous, that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd ; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit...
Page 112 - For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn. Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Page 158 - ... apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another...
Page 130 - But neither breath of morn, when she ascends With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night, With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon, Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet But wherefore all night long shine these?
Page 200 - You haste away so soon: As yet the early-rising Sun Has not attained his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having prayed together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a Spring; As quick a growth to meet decay As you, or any thing.
Page 115 - Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind.
Page 239 - Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill...
Page 235 - Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea ; Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change...