相关文学知识

英诗种类概览　Poetry

Poetry is one of the three major types，or genres，of literature，the others being prose and drama．Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas．Many poems employ regular rhythmical patterns，or metres．However，some are written in free verse．Most poems make use of highly concise，musical，and emotionally charged language．Many also use imagery，figurative language and devices of sound like rhyme．Types of poetry include narrative poetry such as ballads，epics，metrical romances;dramatic poetry like dramatic monologues and dramatic dialogues;lyrics such as sonnets，odes，elegies，and love poems．

叙事诗　Narrative Poem

A narrative poem tells a story in verse．Three traditional types of narrative poems include ballads，such as Sir Patrick Spens;epics，such as Beowulf;and metrical romances，such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight．

There are some famous narrative poems in English literature，for example，Spenser's The Faerie Queene，Milton's Paradise Lost，Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner，and Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott．

抒情诗　Lyric Poem

A lyric poem expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker．Unlike a narrative poem，it presents an experience or a single effect，but it does not tell a full story．Types of lyrics include the elegy，the ode，and the sonnet．

The lyric，flourished in the songs and sonnets of the Renaissance，was revived by the Romantic poets，and remained the most common poetic form in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries．Alfred Lord Tennyson，Robert Browning，Elizabeth Barrett Browning，Matthew Arnold，William Butler Yeats，W．H．Auden，Dylan Thomas and Stevie Smith all wrote great lyric poems．

颂词　Ode

The ode is a lyric poem of some length that honors an individual，a thing，or a trait dealing with a lofty theme in a dignified manner．The form dates back to classical times and is originally intended to be sung at festivals or in plays．The English odes are generally of three types:

1)the Pindaric ode，following the pattern originated by the ancient Greek poet Pindar．

2)the Cowleyan ode，named after Abraham Cowley，an English poet of the 17th century．

3)the Horatian ode，named after the ancient Roman poet Horace．Shelley's Ode to the West Wind is of the Horatian type，i．e．with stanzas of uniform length and arrangement．Here Shelley employed the“tyerza rima”，an Italian measure first used by Dante in his well-known poem La Divina Commedia(The Divine Comedy)．Here we find a variant of the original Italian pattern:five 14-lined stanzas of iambic pentameter，each of the stanzas containing four tercets and a closing couplet．The rime scheme is aba，bcb，cdc，ded，ee．

十四行诗　Sonnet

A sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem with a single theme．Sonnets vary but are usually written in iambic pentameter，following one of two traditional patterns．

The Petrarchan or ltalian sonnet is divided into two parts，an eight-line octave and six-line sestet．The octave rhymes abba abba，while the sestet generally rhymes cde cde or uses some combination of cd rhymes．The octave raises a question，states a problem，or presents a brief narrative，and the sestet answers the question，solves the problem，or comments on the narrative．

The Shakespearean or English sonnet has three four-line quatrains plus a concluding two line couplet．The rhyme scheme of such a sonnet is usually abab cdcd efef gg．Each of the three quatrains usually explores a different variation of the main theme．Then the couplet presents a summarizing or concluding statement．

素体诗　Blank Verse

Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines．Each iambic foot has one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stressed syllable．A pentameter line has five of these feet．Blank verse usually contains occasional variations in rhythm that are introduced to create emphasis，variety，and naturalness of sound．Because blank verse sounds much like ordinary spoken English，it is often used in drama and in poetry．Great English writers of blank verse include Shakespeare，Wordsworth，Browning，and Auden．The following line come from Wordsworth's blank-verse poem Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey:

自由诗　Free Verse

Free verse is poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern or meter．Instead of having metrical feet and lines，free verse has a rhythm that suits its meaning and that uses the sounds of spoken language in lines of different lengths．Free verse has been widely used in twentiethcentury poetry．An example is The Galloping Cat by Stevie Smith:

All the same I

intend to go on being

A cat that likes to

Gallop about doing good

So

Now with my bald head I go，

Chopping the untidy flowers down，to and fro．

图画诗　Pictorialism

Pictorialism is an important poetic device characterized by efforts to achieve striking visual effects．Among its features are irregularity of line，contrast or enchantment of light，color and images．With specific images in mind，poets like E．E．Cummings not only resort to concrete images，with their color and light，for poetic treatment，but also seek to draw every ounce of picturesque value from typographical peculiarities．Other means of pictorialism include personification，juxtaposition and the matching of colors with verbs of action as shown in Sunset by E．E．Cummings with gold“swarms”，silver“chants”and rose“ring”，etc．

名人名言

People do not lack strength;they lack will．

人们缺少的不是力量，而是勇气。

——Hugo(雨果)