Brace Octave
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Type:
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Structure, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Stanzaic
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Description:
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An eight-line stanzaic form with rhyme of abbaabba
or abbacddc. No requirements on meter or length. The Italian octave is a
subgenre of this.
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Origin:
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English
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Schematic:
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abbaabba or abbacddc
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Rhythm/Stanza Length:
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8
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See Also:
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Status:
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Incomplete
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Pasted
from <http://www.poetrybase.info/forms/000/24.shtml>
My thanks to Charles
L. Weatherford for his fine Poetrybase resource.
Brace Octave ------------------------------------------
The Brace Octave has its roots in music.
The brace is the wavey symbol that joins 2 staffs of music, indicating that
both scores are played simultaneously. The verse form referred to as the Brace
Octave is a lyrical blend of meter and rhyme, the rhyme scheme almost taking
the shape of the brace. It could even be said that the octave itself acts as a
brace joining two envelope quatrains.
The Brace Octave is:
- stanzaic, written in any number of octaves (8 lines) made up of 2 envelope quatrains. When writing more than one octave, even numbered stanzas grouped in twos seems to fit best with the venue of the form.
- metric, iambic tetrameter. Some sources indicate no meter necessary but given the musical nature of the verse, it seems to me measured lines are appropriate if not a prerequisite. The best known poem utilizing the Brace Octave is Two Songs from a Play by W.B. Yeats which is written in iambic tetrameter so I guess Mr. Yeats agrees with me.
- rhymed, with an envelope
rhyme scheme abbacddc (see it does sort of look like a brace lying
down.)
Here is William Butler Yeats' poem which was published in his book The Towerin 1928. There is a footnote from Yeats "These songs were sung by musicians in my play Resurrection."
Two Songs from a Play by William Butler Yeats
I
I
saw a staring virgin stand
Where
holy Dionysus died,
And
tear the heart out of his side.
And
lay the heart upon her hand
And
bear that beating heart away;
Of
Magnus Annus at the spring,
And
then did all the Muses sing
As
though God's death were but a play.
Another
Troy must rise and set,
Another
lineage feed the crow,
Another
Argo's painted prow
Drive
to a flashier bauble yet.
The
Roman Empire stood appalled:
It
dropped the reins of peace and war
When
that fierce virgin and her Star
Out
of the fabulous darkness called.
II
In
pity for man's darkening thought
He
walked that room and issued thence
In
Galilean turbulence;
The
Babylonian starlight brought
A
fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour
of blood when Christ was slain
Made
all platonic tolerance vain
And
vain all Doric discipline.
Everything
that man esteems
Endures
a moment or a day.
Love's
pleasure drives his love away,
The
painter's brush consumes his dreams;
The
herald's cry, the soldier's tread
Exhaust
his glory and his might:
Whatever
flames upon the night
Man's
own resinous heart has fed.
My thanks to Judy
Van Gorder from PMO for the above. I
tend to agree with her conceptually about the
meter and line length, but many do not.
Below is a poem that strays from isosyllabic lines and abandons
consistent meter.
~Love Is Not
Just A State Of Mind~
(Brace Octave)
Love is a very
beautiful feeling
Can make you sappy
or happy
And at times can
give you healing
Sometimes makes us
so unhappy
You reach the stars
or hit the ceiling
Emotions makes
us sad or happy
Love is not just a
state of mind
For in your heart
love you can find
Dorian Petersen
Potter
aka ladydp2000
copyright@2011
Pasted
from <http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=1097675&sitename=ladydp2000&poemoffset=64&displaypoem=t&item=poetry>
My example poem
Short Shrift (Brace Octave)
I tell ya friend
it's quite okay
to write this way
or else append
sounds to extend
the word array
with more to say
from start to end.
© Lawrencealot -
April 20, 2014
Although I do
believe that more pleasant poetry results from utilizing meter and a consistent
line length of iambic tetrameter or longer, I have to allow any octave using
envelope rhyme to tagged with this name.
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