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Heroic Couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ''Legend of Good Women'' and the ''Canterbury Tales'',Hobsbaum, Philip. ''Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form''. Routledge (1996) p.23 and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the Restoration Age and early 18th century respectively. Example A frequently-cited example illustrating the use of heroic couplets is this passage from ''Cooper's Hill'' by John Denham, part of his description of the Thames: History The term "heroic couplet" is sometimes reserved for couplets that are largely ''closed'' and self-contained, as opposed to the enjambed couplets of poets like John Donne. The heroic couplet is often identified with the English Baroque works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, who used the form for their tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines English literature more narrowly as, "the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles (including Ireland) from the 7th century to the present day. The major literatures written in English outside the British Isles are treated separately under American literature, Australian literature, Canadian literature, and New Zealand literature." However, despite this, it includes literature from the Republic of Ireland, "Anglo-American modernism", and discusses post-colonial literature. ; See also full articles on American literature and other literatures in the English language. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Angl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include '' Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated '' The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue '' The History of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pale Fire
''Pale Fire'' is a 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional poet John Shade, with a foreword, lengthy commentary and index written by Shade's neighbor and academic colleague, Charles Kinbote. Together these elements form a narrative in which both fictional authors are central characters. Nabokov wrote ''Pale Fire'' in 1960–61, after the success of ''Lolita'' had made him financially independent, allowing him to retire from teaching and return to Europe. It was commenced in Nice and completed in Montreux, Switzerland. ''Pale Fire'' has spawned a wide variety of interpretations and a large body of written criticism, which Finnish literary scholar estimated in 1995 as more than 80 studies. The Nabokov authority Brian Boyd has called it "Nabokov's most perfect novel", and the critic Harold Bloom called it "the surest demonstration of his own genius ... that remarkable tour de force". It was rank ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. Nabokov's 1955 novel ''Lolita'' ranked fourth on Modern Library's list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 2007 and is considered one of the greatest 20th-century works of literature. Nabokov's ''Pale Fire'', published in 1962, was ranked 53 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courser (horse)
A courser is a swift and strong horse, frequently used during the Middle Ages as a warhorse. It was ridden by knights and men-at-arms. Etymology Coursers are commonly believed to be named for their running gait,Oakeshott, Ewart. ''A Knight and his Horse'', Rev. 2nd Ed. USA:Dufour Editions, 1998 (from Old French ''cours'', 'to run'''Oxford English Dictionary'', 10th Ed, 1999). However, the word possibly derived from the Italian ''corsiero'', meaning 'battle horse'. Hyland, Ann. ''The Warhorse 1250-1600'', UK: Sutton Publishing, 1998 Coursers in warfare The courser was more common than the destrier, Prestwich, Michael. ''Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, and preferred for battle as they were light, fast and strong. They were valuable horses, but less expensive than the highly prized destrier. Gravett, Christopher. ''English Medieval Knight 1300-1400'', Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002, p 59 Another horse commonly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', and fashioned the ''Aeneid'' into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the lege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetic Closure
Poetic closure is the sense of conclusion given at the end of a poem. Barbara Herrnstein Smith Barbara Herrnstein Smith (born 1932) is an American literary critic and theorist, best known for her work ''Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory''. She is currently the Braxton Craven Professor of Comparative Lit ...'s detailed study—'' Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End''—explores various techniques for achieving closure. One of the most common techniques is setting up a regular pattern and then breaking it to mark the end of a poem. Another technique is to refer to subject matter that in itself provides a sense of closure: death is the clearest example of this. Further reading * Barbara Herrnstein Smith: ''Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End'', University of Chicago Press 1968. * D.H. Roberts, F.M. Dunn, D. P. Fowler: ''Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature''. Princeton 1997. * Vincent, John Emil. ''Queer L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tercet
A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. Examples of tercet forms English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem. A poetic triplet is a tercet in which all three lines follow the same rhyme, AAA; triplets are rather rare; they are more customarily used sparingly in verse of heroic couplets or other couplet verse, to add extraordinary emphasis. Other types of tercet include an enclosed tercet where the lines rhyme in an ABA pattern and terza rima where the ABA pattern of a verse is continued in the next verse by making the outer lines of the next stanza rhyme with the central line of the preceding stanza, BCB, as in the ''terza rima'' or ''terzina'' form of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. There has been much investigation of the possible sources of the Dantesque ''terzina'', which Benedetto Croce characterised as "linked, enclosed, disciplined, vehement and yet calm". William Baer observes of the tercets of terza rim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the ''Iliad'', ''Odyssey'' and ''Aeneid''. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, Ovid's ''Metamorphoses,'' and the Hymns of Orpheus. According to Greek mythology, hexameter was invented by Phemonoe, daughter of Apollo and the first Pythia of Delphi.Pliny the Elder, 7.57 __TOC__ Classical Hexameter In classical hexameter, the six feet follow these rules: * A foot can be made up of two long syllables (– –), a spondee; or a long and two short syllables, a dactyl (– υ υ). * The first four feet can contain either one of them. * The fifth is almost always a dactyl, and last must be a spondee. A short syllable (υ) is a syllab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandrine
Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French ''Roman d'Alexandre'' of 1170, although it had already been used several decades earlier in ''Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne''. The foundation of most alexandrines consists of two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each, separated by a caesura (a metrical pause or word break, which may or may not be realized as a stronger syntactic break): o o o o o o , o o o o o o o=any syllable; , =caesura However, no tradition remains this simple. Each applies additional constraints (such as obligatory stress or nonstress on certain syllables) and options (such as a permitted or required additional syllable at the end of one or both hemistichs). Thus a line that is metrical in one tradition may be unmetrical in another. Where the alexandrine has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lamia And Other Poems
"Lamia" is a narrative poem written by the English poet John Keats, which first appeared in the volume ''Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems'', published in July 1820. The poem was written in 1819, during the famously productive period that produced his 1819 odes. It was composed soon after his "''La belle dame sans merci''" and his odes on Melancholy, on Indolence, on a Grecian Urn and to a Nightingale and just before "To Autumn". The poem tells how the god Hermes hears of a nymph who is more beautiful than all. Hermes, searching for the nymph, instead comes across Lamia, trapped in the form of a serpent. She reveals the previously invisible nymph to him and in return he restores her human form. She goes to seek a youth of Corinth, Lycius, while Hermes and his nymph depart together into the woods. The relationship between Lycius and Lamia, however, is destroyed when the sage Apollonius reveals Lamia's true identity at their wedding feast, whereupon she s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Jorge Luis Borges named his first encounter with Keats an experience he felt all his life. Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular " Ode to a Nightingale", "Od ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
