Stanza Form--Canterbury Tales

[Donelda]

I need help understanding stanza forms.

In the Instructor's Guide, The Fox and the Grapes is listed as a "twelver" and The Wolf and the Lion is listed as an octave. That makes sense to me. The stanza form is based on the length of the stanza, even though these poems are made up of couplets. But the stanza form for Canterbury Tales and The Knight is shown as heroic couplets. I understand that these poems are made up of heroic couplets, but why isn't the stanza form based on the number of lines. In this case, Canterbury Tales would be an "eighteener" and The Knight would be an octave.

BTW, my daughter is really enjoying this book. Thank you!

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

You are right in what you have written. Completely.

The trouble is that our favorite children have many different names for different occasions, nick names, professional names, names that only you use, names at school, etc.

In the case of The Canterbury Tales it is a collection of lines written (as we labeled it) in Heroic Couplets. That means that the collection as a whole is written in Heroic Couplets. (But you knew that).

You may furthermore (if you choose) classify individual stanzas, like The Knight, as an octave.

That is rarely done because names are only given when they serve a function, and classifying The Knight as an octave doesn't seem to serve any purpose for anyone (however right the classification might be.)

When we look at The Canterbury Tales, the most fascinating aspect is not that the prologue is this or that long or that The Wife of Bath is this or that long. Usually those structural observation only have interest is we are dealing with symmetrical aspects, such as Dante's Divine Comedy where each of the three parts contain 33 Cantos and each canto contains the same number of lines, and all the numerology is in 3s, including each stanza being in lines of three with enclosed rhymes.

In other words, our labeling of stanzas is only relevant in so far as the labeling brings about a structure that we recognize as part of a greater whole. If the stanza length seems accidental or not well thought out, we merely note it and move on to the interesting parts of the poem, those areas where we in terms of content or style or arrangement find repetitions or symmetries that enhance our artful appreciation of the poem.

I am so glad your daughter is enjoying the book. Poetry is my favorite form of literature. There is so much to be gleaned from it.

Lene

[Donelda]

Your explanation helps, but my very logical daughter will ask how she can possibly know the correct answer for stanza form if it depends on the situation! (Okay, my logical brain is asking the same thing.) With that logic, why isn't The Fox and the Grapes called a couplet? It doesn't seem like the length is very important for that piece either.

I'm sure that it would help if I knew where all of this was headed, but unfortunately, everything I know about poetry, I've learned in your Beginning Poetry book!

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Perhaps the big mistake is the looking for the "correct answer". This is not math. It's poetry.

There isn't ONE correct answer.

That's like asking me my name. Are you asking because you're an Air Force Recruiter who is enlisting me? In that case I present my full name, full spelling, no abbreviations.

Are you asking as a new friend I just met at church? Then I give my first name.

Are you asking because you are a young child? I might only offer Mrs. J. or Mrs. Jaqua.

All of the above are "my name", each one suited to the occasion and the person who asked.

In the case of your stanza analysis, the answers you have come up with (assuming that you did it right) are all correct answers. In the the Fable poem you mentioned you have couplets. So the stanza form is that the poem is x lines long (I don't remember how many off the top of my head) and it also consists of so and so many couplets.

As close to a 'correct' answer as you can come is to be exhaustive and give ALL the answers you discern about the stanza: Number of lines, how they rhyme (or not), whether the meter varies, and also whether the stanza has an internal symmetry of figures, internal rhymes or other remarkable aspects to its structure .

For example, a Shakespearean sonnet contains 14 lines, that makes it a fourteeneer, right?

Here is one

William Shakespeare - Sonnet #18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

But it is also divided into four parts.

1: 4 lines that rhyme

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

another 4 lines that rhyme:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

another 4 lines that rhyme:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

And finallly a couplet

As long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

So all we say about the sonnet is true, fourteneer, three quatrains and a couplet, etc. It is part of the analysis to observe as much as possible about the poem and then learn to discern with time which pieces of information enlighten us as to how the structure of the poem (of which the stanza form is part-in-parcel) 'informs' the message that the poet is trying to get across.

This is art, not mathematics. Assessing all the details can be done in a logical and structured manner, but making use of the details that have been assessed so as to venture an interpretation of the meaning of the poem is, like writing, an art. That art is learned by doing analysis. And that starts with Poetry for Beginners, but it doesn't end there... we offer the tools and hints, but poetry is a long journey, plodding along, analyzing, imitating, interpreting.

Does that still muddle the waters?

Lene

[Donelda]

Is it that obvious that I am a "mathy" person? I do like having one right answer!

Your reply was wonderful and I think I get it. The problem is that I just don't know enough about the different stanza forms yet. But I'm determined to learn it!

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

Great!! ;D ;D

Being a mathy person is a wonderful thing for a classical education because you are systematic and sequential. (My graduate school major was physics, and so I relate to the 'mathy' tendencies. I did nothing but program long lines of algebra for about seven years.)

I believe it is easier to add a bit of 'art' and humanities flex to a mathy person and come out with a really good and global thinker than it is to add a bit of 'math' to an artsy sort of scattered person, so I really think you're on a very solid track here.

Lene