Frequently appeal is made to the ear by a similarity of sound at the beginning of words. This is known as alliteration. In early English poems this was of prime importance and subject to rigid rules, but more recently it has been used without rule, subject merely to the author’s will. This is seen to a marked degree in many writers. Here are several lines taken from Poe’s The Bells:
What a world of merriment their melody foretells,
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells.
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.
In many cases alliteration is very skilfully handled, as where Whittier uses the liquid consonants to make more smooth and harmonious to the ear the line that tells the friendliness of the brooklet whose murmurings could not be heard in winter, but—
“The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship”
during the long summer days.
The number of verses in a stanza varies from two to an indefinite number. When there are two verses the stanza is called a couplet; a three line stanza is called a tercet; a four line stanza, a quatrain. The five line stanza is not common, but six is a frequent number.
Kinds of Poetry
Poems may be classified as epic, lyric and dramatic.
The word epic is by some writers restricted in its application, but it is preferred here to use it in a broad sense to include various forms of narrative poetry, and to use the term greater, or heroic, epic to designate the smaller class of narratives which the older writers knew as epics. Thomas Arnold’s definition of the greater epic is: “The subject of the Epic Poem must be some one, great, complex action. The principal personages must belong to the high places of the world, and must be grand and elevated in their ideas and in their bearing. The measure must be of sonorous dignity, befitting the subject. The action is carried on by a mixture of narrative, dialogue, and soliloquy. Briefly to express its main characteristics, the epic treats of one great complex action, in grand style, and with fullness of detail.”