the ode less travelled by Stephen Fry

Author:Stephen Fry
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-12-16T13:59:09.125000+00:00

I

The Stanza

So we can write metrically, in iambs and anapaests, trochees and dactyls. We can choose the length of our measure: hexameter, pentameter, tetrameter. We can write accentually, in three-stress and four-stress lines. We can alliterate and we can rhyme, but thus far our verse has merely been stichk, presented in a sequence of lines. Where those lines terminate is determined, as we know, by the measure or, in the case of syllabic verse, by the syllable count. Prose, such as you are reading now, is laid out (or lineated) differently - as I write this I have no reason to start a new line (to 'press the return key') until it is time for a new paragraph or a quotation and you certainly won't

find me doing this or this, for that

matter; it would be

highly odd,

not to mention confusing: in poetry such a procedure would not be considered strange at all, although as

we shall see, how we

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manage the lineation of our poems is not a question of random line

breaks, or it had better not be . . .

Our first clue that the written words on a page might qualify as poetry may indeed be offered by lineation, but an even more obvious indicator is the existence of stanzas. The word derives from the Italian for 'stand', which in turn developed into the word for 'room' (stanza di pranzo is 'dining room', for example). In everyday speech, in songwriting, hymn singing and many other popular genres a stanza will often be referred to as a verse (meaning 'turn', as in 'reverse', 'subvert', 'diversion' and so on). I will be keeping to the word stanza, allowing me to use verse in its looser sense of poetic material generally. Also, I like the image of a poem being a house divided into rooms. Some traditional verse forms have no stanzaic layout, for others it is almost their defining feature. But first we need to go deeper into this whole question of form . . .

What is Form and Why Bother with It?

Stephen gets all cross

By form, just so that we are clear, we mean the defining structure of a genre or type. When we say formal, the word should not be thought of as bearing any connotations of stiffness, starchiness, coldness or distance — formal for our purposes simply means 'of form', morphological if you like.

In music, some examples of form would be sonata, concerto, symphony, fugue and overture. In television, common forms include sit-com, soap, documentary, mini-series, chat show and single drama. Over the years docu-dramas, drama-docs, mocku-mentaries and a host of other variations and sub-categories have

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emerged: form can be undermined, hybridised and stretched almost to breaking point.

Poetic forms too can be cross-bred, subverted, made sport of, mutilated, sabotaged and rebelled against, but here is the point. If there is no suggestion of an overall scheme at work in the first place, then there is nothing to subvert or undermine: a whole world of possibility is closed off to you. Yes, you

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