• It refers to a couplet consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter and written in an elevated style.
• Whan that /Aprille/ with his /showers/ swoote. • The drought/ of Marche/ hath per/ced to/ the root, • And bathed every vein in such licour, • Of which vertu engendered is the flour; • Whan Zephyrus eke with his sweete breath • Inspired hath in every holt and heeth • The tender croppes, and the young sun • Hath in the Ram his halfe course I-run, • And small fowles make melody, • That sleepen all the night with open eye. － • So pricketh them nature in their corages— • Then longe folk to go on pilgrimmages,
• And also did good Scarlett, • And Much, the miller's son. • Every inch of his body • Was worthy of a man.
--------from The Geste of Robin Hood
Heroic Couplet
• It was persistently experimental. Stream of consciousness, the use of myth as a structural principle, and the primary status given to the poetic image, all challenged traditional representation.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wonder'st in his shadow, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Spenserian stanza
• It is a stanza with eight lines of iambic pentameter and a concluding Alexandrine with the rhyme pattern abab bcbc c.
Sonnet
Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day, Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, The summer's lease hath all too short a day: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And ofter is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natrue's changing coutse untrimmed;
line stanzas, with the second and fourth lines
rhymed. • “the Geste of Robin Hood”
• Stop and listen, everybody, • This story's pretty good. • It's all about a bold outlaw, • His name was Robin Hood.
• Robin was a wise outlaw. • While he walked on ground, • So courteous an outlaw • Was seldom ever found.
• Robin stood in thest a tree, • And by him stood Little John, • A good yeoman was he.
• Generally speaking, this new desire in craftsmanship and skill was one of the hallmarks of the early decades of the 20th century.
Traditional Forms
• Ballad(民谣) A ballad is a story told in song, usually in 4-
• The distinctive feature of literary modernism was its strong and conscious break with traditional forms, perceptions, and techniques of expressions, and its great concern with language and all aspects of its medium.