19th Century British Poetry

Read "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Exercise 1:

Paraphrase each of the four sections of this poem.

Exercise 2:

This poem is considered a "ballad". Explain what is a ballad and why this poem is a ballad.

Exercise 3:

A refrain is a repetition of words, phrases or lines at regular intervals. When refrains follow a stanza they are called terminal refrains. When refrains are within stanzas they are called internal refrains. When a refrain changes a little with each repetition it is called an incremental refrain.

What is the refrain in the poem "The Lady of Shalott"? Where is it and what type(s) is it?

Exercise 4:

Listen to Loreena McKennitt's musical adaptation of "The Lady of Shalott". Which stanzas did McKennitt leave out and which stanzas did she use? Do you think that McKennit chose most appropriate stanzas or would you have included or excluded other stanzas?

Exercise 5:

Consider the "curse" of the Lady. What do you think was this curse? What triggered it to come into effect?

Exercise 6:

Identify the "liminal spaces" in this poem, and explain why you think they are liminal.

Exercise 7:

Discuss the similarities between the Lady's Castle and Plato's Cave.



Exercise 8:

It is possible that the Lady of Shallot is an allegorical figure. What do you think the Lady symbolizes? Keeping your answer in mind, what do you think the poem is about?

Poetry lines are often grouped together. Such a group of lines are often referred to as a "verse" or a "stanza". Sometimes stanzas have very specific attributes, such as a fixed number of lines and a fixed meter. When the poem's stanzas have specific recognizable attributes, they are called closed forms. Closed forms with very specific and fixed, like the Japanese Haiku, are called fixed forms. Poems with stanzas that have no clear form are called open forms.

• Closed Forms

There are various examples of Closed Forms. Following are some of the closed forms that you may come across in this course: Blank verse, the couplet, the tercet, the quatrain, the, the Rhyme royal and the Sonnet.

Refer to the textbook (Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition) p. 1413-1415 for explanations of these forms.

• Fixed Forms
  

A fixed form is a type of closed form which is very specific in its form, for instance the amount of lines, the combination of closed forms, the meter and even the rhyme may all be "fixed". Examples of fixed forms are the haiku, the Limerick (a single stanza with five lines with often the last word in the first and second line repeating). The fixed form that you will most encounter in this course is the Sonnet.

There are three types of sonnets: The Italian Sonnet (also known as a Petrachan Sonnet), the Shakespearean Sonnet (also known as an English Sonnet, or Elizabethan Sonnet), and lastly the Spenserian Sonnet. Refer to the textbook (Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition) p. 1415-1417 for explanations of these sonnets. Note how each sonnet is combined of a different combination of closed forms. For example the Shakespearean Sonnet contains three quatrains and ends with a rhyming couplet.

• Open Forms
  

Open Form usually do not have a specific rhyme scheme or clearly identifiable meter. Althought the poet my use rhyme and meter in the poem, there doesn't seem to be a fixed pattern. Open form is sometimes also referred to as "Irregular form" or "Free Verse".

Refer to the textbook (Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 3rd Edition) p. 1419-1422 for a discussion on open forms.

Alliteration and assonance refer to the repetition of similar sounds and is therefor a form of rhyme.

Alliteration concern the recurrence of consonant sounds, for instance the [s] and [m] sounds in Keats's poem "To Autumn": "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun". Assonance refer to the recurrence of vowel sounds, for example the [i:] and [ou] sounds, from the same poem: "Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; / Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep".

Alliteration and assonance focus the reader's attention on the words where it occurs. In modern poetry, therefore, poets usually keep alliteration and assonance for special occasions, so they can point out relationships between words or ideas or bring attention to something.