Saturday 19 April 2014

Q... is for Quatrain

A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. One of the quatrains I had to study was the heroic stanza or elegiac stanza (iambic pentameter, rhyming ABAB or AABB; from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard")
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

From Wikipedia, I found that "The Ruba'i form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Omar Khayyám, among others. This work was a major inspiration for Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, written in Persian. The ruba'i was a particularly widespread verse form: the form rubaiyat reflects the plural."

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.
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This is the seventeenth post for the April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge 2014.
Previously, Archaism, British literature, Critical Analysis, Drama, Edinburgh, Faust, Gothic Fiction, Humour, Interpretation, Journalling, Keats, Language, Metaphysical Poetry, Narration, Ode, Papillion(ed)

1 comment:

Tony Laplume said...

I most associate the term "quatrain" with Nostradamus. He probably saw that coming...