Five Formal Causes of Beauty in Poetry
shape: the body of the poem and its figure on the page
line: the length of the poetic line left to right margin, as well as the grammar of its sentences
music: all aspects of form, such as voice and repetition, that contribute to the sound of the poem
a. voice: the narrative voice of the poem, including its informality or formality, its emotion, its pace, its accent, its dialect, its vowel pitch, its consonant percussion, its volume, its intensity, its length of sound, and other audible qualities
b. repetition: all that repeats in the poem, including sound, rhythm, and line
comparison: the similarities depicted in the poem via analogy, including metaphor, personification, simile, and other forms of comparison
balance: the correspondence between and the harmony of form and content in art, also known as aesthetic unity
Aspects of Shape: the body of the poem and its figure on the page
image: a concrete, pattern, or shape poem is composed to visually depict the subject of the poem
length: the degree to which a poem is short or long on the page, as well as its corresponding emotional impact; that is, a short poem may be more inviting than a long poem
regularity/irregularity: the degree to which a poem is consistently shaped; that is, a consistently shaped poem will have a different aesthetic impact than an inconsistently shaped poem
open space: the absence of text, both the framing of the poem on the page, and the white space between letters, words, lines, stanzas.
stanza: unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines (“verse paragraph”)
width: the degree to which a poem is narrow or wide on the page, as well as its corresponding emotional impact; that is, a narrow poem may be more inviting than a wide poem initially, though a wide poem will have its satisfactions as well.
Aspects of Line: the length of the poetic line left to right margin, as well as the grammar of its sentences
enjambment: the continuation of a sentence or clause over a line-break
punctuation: use of punctuation to highlight sentence grammar and to control the pace of line and poem
syntax: the grammar of a sentence from the simplest grammatical units (fragments, phrases, clauses, simple sentences) to the more complex forms (compound, complex, compound-complex), and each with modifying phrases
Aspects of Music: all aspects of form, such as voice and repetition, that contribute to the sound of the poem
Aspects of Voice
formality/informality: the degree to which the quality of the voice indicates distance or familiarity
narrative perspective: the point of view: first, second, third-person, singular or plural, including the degree to which narrator is omniscient or limited in knowledge and reliable or unreliable
volume: the degree to which the voice is loud or soft
pace: the rate at which the voice moves
pitch: the degree to which the vowel sound is high or low, forward or backward in the mouth
percussion: the degree to which the consonant sound is fluid or crisp, hard or soft
length: the degree to which the sound is short or sustained
dialect: the recognizable accent of the voice that contributes to the character and location of the narrator
Aspects of Repetition in Sound, Rhythm, and Line
Aspects of Repetitive Sound
alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words
anaphora: the repetition of the first word or phrase in lines or sentences
assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds
polysyndeton: the repetition of conjunctions in a list or other series in a line to emphasize the connectedness or piling up of ideas or concepts
rhyme: the repetition of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse
slant rhyme (off rhyme, half rhyme, imperfect rhyme): the repetition of terminal sounds formed with words with similar but not wholly identical sounds
Aspects of Repetitive Rhythm
meter: measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse
stress: greater amount of force used to pronounce one syllable over another
iambic (iamb): a metrical foot containing two syllables—the first is unstressed, while the second is stressed
iambic pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)
Aspects of Repetitive Lines
blank verse: lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter
couplet: a pair of lines, usually rhymed
free verse: lines with no externally prescribed pattern or structure, though the structure is still evident in support of the poem’s topic or emotional purpose
heroic couplet: a pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (tradition of the heroic epic form)
quatrain: four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse
Aspects of Comparison
metaphor: comparison between essentially unlike things, or the application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable
personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with human qualities
simile: comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as “like," “as," or “as though”
symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself
Aspects of Balance
aesthetic unity: the choices in the language material and the emotional world that demonstrate harmony and balance
container and contained: a comparison used to describe the correspondence between and the harmony of form (the container) and content (the contained)
content: the emotional world depicted by the author
form: the choices made by the author in the language material
freedom: the feeling that arises from balance
happiness: the feeling that arises from freedom