Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End
Encyclopedia
Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End — ISBN 0-226-76343-9 — is a book by Barbara Herrnstein Smith
, which was published by the University of Chicago Press
in 1968. The division between form and content in the way the book is structured has been criticized.
— builds the expectation of continuance, and the desire for closure. Examples of how a sense of closure may be achieved include:
Wyatt's
practice of varying the final repetition of a refrain — as in the poem 'Forget not yet' — is cited as an example of the first kind.
Other examples of closure brought about by structural means include: where the last stanza repeats (or closely echoes) the first stanza, thereby 'framing' the entire poem (such as in Wyatt's 'My Lute Awake!'); where enjambent is used in blank verse
, and only at the close does a line end correspond to a full stop (the example given is from the conclusion of Book XI of Paradise Lost
).
Barbara Herrnstein Smith
Barbara Herrnstein Smith is an American literary critic and theorist, best known for her work Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory...
, which was published by the University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
in 1968. The division between form and content in the way the book is structured has been criticized.
Structure of the book
The book addresses the following topics:- Formal Structure
- Thematic Structure
- Special Terminal Features
- Problems of Closure
Structural closure
Herrnstein Smith observes that regularity — such as the regular repetition of lines of iambic tetrameterIambic tetrameter
Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs...
— builds the expectation of continuance, and the desire for closure. Examples of how a sense of closure may be achieved include:
- breaking the regularity of the repetition as in the final alexandrineAlexandrineAn alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...
of the Spenserian stanzaSpenserian stanzaThe Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene. Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'Alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is... - returning to the norm after a brief departure from it; Herrnstein Brown offers Robert HerrickRobert Herrick (poet)Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English poet.-Early life:Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith....
's brief lyric 'I dare not ask a kisse' as an example.
Wyatt's
Thomas Wyatt (poet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English lyrical poet credited with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally from Yorkshire...
practice of varying the final repetition of a refrain — as in the poem 'Forget not yet' — is cited as an example of the first kind.
Other examples of closure brought about by structural means include: where the last stanza repeats (or closely echoes) the first stanza, thereby 'framing' the entire poem (such as in Wyatt's 'My Lute Awake!'); where enjambent is used in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
, and only at the close does a line end correspond to a full stop (the example given is from the conclusion of Book XI of Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
).