ange1gur1 asked:
Well, the basic rhyme scheme and meter is iambic pentameter:
ABABABCC for sailing to Byzantium.
Well, the basic rhyme scheme and meter is iambic pentameter:
ABABABCC for sailing to Byzantium.
What is the effect of the meter and rhyme scheme on this poem?
Craig
Actually, this is an unbelievable poem. The rhyme scheme is something called ottava rima, which was popular among low comics in Italy who would make up silly poems on the spot– it is much easier to rhyme in Italian. Byron brought the rhyme scheme into English in his epic poem Don Juan, which has perhaps 2500 of these octaves. It is quite difficult to find three rhymes in English, and part of the persistent joke is the poet’s struggle to find rhymes– for example, once he hyphenates a word across lines to make a middle syllable rhyme, and he repeatedly mispronounces foreign words, and peoples’ names, to make fun of them.
It is actually surprisingly difficult to write serious ottava rima– Yeats is perhaps the only poem to write a famous serious poem in this scheme. The main effect is actually the inobtrusiveness of the triple rhyme, which is an explicit challenge to Lord Byron. It turns out the effect, when not obtrusive, is beautifully sonorous.
I hope this helps.
Comment by Hypocorism — December 3, 2007 @ 3:17 pm