The Romantic Stanza is named for the poem Venus the Star by Maksim Bahdanovic, Belarus 1891-1917. The poem was originally titled "Romance" 1912 until it was published as lyrics to a song in 1930. It is distinguished by the use of a rentrament, the first phrase of L1 repeated as a refrain in L4 similar to the French Rondeau. The difference is that each quatrain has its own rentrament.
Romantic stanza
Type:
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Structure, Metrical Requirement, Repetitive Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
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Description:
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Alternating quatrains of basically dactylic meter where lines one and three have eleven syllables, line two has ten, and line four is the first seven syllables of line one.
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Attributed to:
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Maksim Bahdanovic, stanza so named by Bob Newman
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Origin:
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Belarus
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Schematic:
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Rhyme: (Ba)baB
Meter: Xxx Xxx Xxx Xx Xxx Xxx Xxx X Xxx Xxx Xxx Xx Xxx Xxx X |
Starting Point:
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With each quatrain, start with the first/last line, since that line establishes your rhymes.
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Pasted from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/005/516.shtml>
Notes
The form was named Romantic Stanza by Bob Newman
- written in any number of quatrains.
- accentual syllabic, dactylic with L1, L2, and L3 either tetrameter and L4 is dimeter or trimeter.
- rhymed, rhyme abab cdcd etc.
- written with each quatrain employing the first phrase of L1 as a rentrament, repeated as L4.
Note: Part of this info was cut and pasted from the work of Judi Van Gorder, aka Tinker on PoetryMagnumOpus, which is linked from this blog.
Example Poem
Our
Genesis (Romantic Stanza - 11/10/11/7 Version)
Clustering,
combining dust aggregating
assembling
Hydrogen just as it must.
Assembling
atoms, Helium's a-making,
Clustering,
combining dust.
Billions of
our years gone by with life absent.
Galaxies
born, made from stars as they die.
Pressures of
their dying create content .
Billions of
our years gone by.
Busting
outward from that blast, all elements
required for
biologic life at last.
All living
things sprung from stars' final events,
bursting
outward from that blast.
(c) Lawrencealot - January 27, 2013
Visual Template(s)
Ah...correct the format below to aa/10/11/7 not 5!
You see there is some discrepancy in the specs, so I have provided a tetrameter template
