Leaving Italy: The Terza Rima

The Terza Rima is a classic Italian form, made famous by Dante in his Divine Comedy. It’s a highly syllabic form, which makes it easier to write in Italian than English, or so I heard in college, since Italian and similar Romantic languages have more rhyming words than our mish-meshed English.

Terza rima is written in iambic tercets, meaning a three-line grouping with a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (looks like xX; or, oh SHIT, not OH shit, with the emphasis on the second syllable). It can be iambic pentameter, but in my opinion, since that’s more famously an English form (thank Shakespeare), it’s not strictly essential. The rhyme scheme is supposed to interlock, looking like aba bcb cdc and so forth as long as you want. Hey, Dante wrote an entire freaking book that way. Apparently, you can end the poem with a couplet, but, again, nothing strict on this. Another source, http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Handbook/terzarima.html, asserts that the ending can look like this: xyx yzy z. Personally, I like that one, but its open. If a couplet works better, use it. For more on the terza rima, check out http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5794.

The terza rima sonnet is a fourteen-line version, sort of a cross between the English sonnet and the terza rima. This would lend itself more to iambic pentameter, if one were so inclined. Also called the diaspora sonnet, the same meter (ohSHIT) applies, as does the stanza length, as in the longer big sister terza rima. All that changes is the length, so the complete rhyme scheme looks like: aba bcb cdc ded ee.

In contrast, the Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet has a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdecde, while the English or Shakespearean sonnet looks like abab cdcd efef gg, so the terza rima sonnet is like the love child of the English sonnet and big sister terza rima. Can’t wait to see what happens if the terza rima and infinite gloss ever fool around. On the other hand… (fierce shudder.)

Happy poeting.

Italian Poetry Again: The Barzelletta

Another Italian form, the barzelletta began in the fifteenth and sixteenth century with a group called the frottola composers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frottola. The form precedes the madrigal and likely descends from the ballata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballata, a fourteenth-century poetic form. As the frottola became the barzelletta, the difference in the forms occurred when lessons began to be inserted into the form.

The barzelletta form isn’t a set form. To see the full argument on PoetryBase, go here: http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/17.shtml The frottala was a kind of carnival song with irregular meter and rhyme so that theme has carried over into the barzelletta. It can have lines of seven or eight, even up to twelve, syllable lines written as couplets, or can be in blank verse with pentameter or hexameter syllables. It can rhyme or not, be full of poetic device, internal rhyme, etc. A more formal version of barzelletta can have a set rhyme scheme with a ripresa (reprise) of abba, and a stanza of cdcdda or cdcddeea, although massive variation exists on this rhyme scheme. (Seems to be a poetic theme, doesn’t it?) The stanzas are usually two lines in length and continue as in the above rhyme scheme.

For an example of the barzelletta, I went to http://books.google.com/books?id=ijIS3E4OB-MC&pg=PA330&lpg=PA330&dq=Barzelletta+poems&source=bl&ots=B1eO5Xktis&sig=pnjg1UN62FoEvMQqG8EpNEwDWY8&hl=en&ei=UNLFS5KkNIG09QTcvLGXDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCEQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=Barzelletta%20poems&f=false. Type that four times fast. This is a simple barzelletta and the site says it should have “lines of even length and simple, unvarying rhyme scheme.” This suggestion comes from the online book Musical humanism and its legacy: essays in honor of Claude V. Palisca by Claude V. Palisca, Nancy Kovaleff Baker, and Barbara Russano Hanning. Find it at http://books.google.com/books?id=ijIS3E4OB-MC&lpg=PA330&ots=B1eO5Xktis&dq=Barzelletta%20poems&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=Barzelletta%20poems&f=false

Barzelletta – Author Unknown

L’amor donna ch’io te porto

Volentier voria scoprire

E’l mio affanno voira dire

Che per te sempre suporto

L’amor donna ch’io te porto

Volentier voria scoprire.

Non me fido a mandar messo

Per che temo esser gabato

S’io te passo per apresso

Tut e volti in altro lato.

The love, my lady, that I bear you

I would gladly disclose,

And my anguish I would tell

Which I always suffer because of you.

The love, my lady, that I bear you

I would gladly disclose.

I dare not send a messenger,

For I fear to be deceived.

If I pass close to you

You turn away.

So yeah, not real fun today. On the up side, I’m only spending one more day on Italian poetry and then we get on to a healthy mix of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and other forms; Dada poetry; some classic forms like the sonnet and sestina; and, maybe, if time permits, some focus on the poets themselves, focusing on their inspiration and motivation, their unique approach to poetry, and whatever other fun facts come up.

Italian Poetry Continues: The Madrigal

A madrigal is close to a canzone. The form originated in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods (really sound cool now, don’t I? Somehow throwing the word ‘Baroque’ around adds professor-ism, so cool), and started as secular form, set to music. The music was written to underline the sentiment behind each line of text in the poem. The madrigal took on various aspects of other types of poems, and one type of madrigal eventually developed into the aria and into the opera. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal_%28music%29 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrigal_%28poetry%29 (If I’m lying, blame Wikipedia.) Love is usually the theme or topic of a madrigal.

So nuts and bolts of the form. Lines consists of seven or eight syllables and come in sets of triplets, three line stanzas. These triplet stanzas usually run with two or three per poem, followed by one or two rhyming couplets. Here’s a sample rhyme schematic: aba bcb cdc dd ee, though the triplets have no set rhyme scheme.

Apparently, the best example of the form is poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649). Here is one of his madrigals:

Madrigal: My Thoughts Hold Mortal Strife
William Drummond (of Hawthornden)

My thoughts hold mortal strife,
I do detest my life,
And with lamenting cries,
Peace to my soul to bring,
Oft calls that prince which here doth monarchize;
But he, grim-grinning king,
Who caitiffs scorns and doth the blest surprise,
Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.

http://www.poemhunter.com/

Curious about what a madrigal sounds like?

Italian Poetry: The Canzone

The canzone is an Italian poetic form, along with canzone II. This week is devoted to Italian poetry, at least for now, so get used to it. :p

The canzone it a type of ballad, originating in the Provencal region of Italy. It’s typically closer to song lyrics and originated in the Middle Ages, meant to be recited to music. Dante and Petrarch utilized the form and helped make it popular. The most famous example, according to Wikipedia, so take this with a grain of salt or six, is “Voi che sapete” by Mozart.



The form itself has seven to eleven syllables per line with seven to twenty lines per stanza, with anything from one to seven stanzas per poem. It’s called similar to a sonnet on one website, http://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_obscure_canzone_make.html , only easier to write. Another example of the form, this one by Dante. Dante’s rhyme scheme is quite complicated, but you can use whatever you like, even rhyming couplets. Webexibits also has a great explanation of how to layout the poem, define the subject, address the theme, etc. But if you don’t like that, the other suggestion comes from my combination of PoetryBase and Wikipedia. Together, those seem to indicate that the first two stanzas are usually similar in rhyme scheme, while the third is different, and the form usually addresses itself to someone, usually illustrious, but I assume this isn’t necessary. There is no set stanza structure, but, that said, the stanzas should have a pattern of similarity or dissimilarity. In the third stanza, the poem usually closes with a farewell of some kind.

The canzone II has five verses of twelve lines, each line with seven to eleven syllables, with a five line coda, or sixty-five lines. A coda is just a fancy way of saying ending, a way of wrapping up the poem. The rhyme scheme, however, is far more complex. It looks like this:
abaacaaddaee
eaeebeeccedd
deddaddbbdee
cdcceccaacbb
bcbbdbbeebaa
aedcb
Or:
-----------a
---------b
---------a
----------a
---------c
---------a
Etc.

The rhyme scheme looks to be based on Dante’s work, so read the work, know the rules, and then feel free to break them.