Related pages:
Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms and related topics. How to Write Poetry. Essays on how to write specific forms:
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Las formas de la poesía en Español:
El Poema Concreto. | ||
Books of Poetry Form. | ||
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The Rubáiyát Verse Form
by Ariadne Unst
History. Form. Examples. Your Composition. References.
The Rubáiyát is a Persian form of several quatrains. Its name derives from the Arabic plural of the word for "quatrain," Rubá'íyah. This, in turn, comes from the Arabic Rubá, meaning "four."
These are the attributes of the Rubáiyát:
a a - 2nd line rhymes with the first. b a - 4th line rhymes with the first and second. |
This leads to a form like this example with three stanzas; note that the Rubáiyát" is allowed an unlimited number of stanzas, so extend the pattern as needed:
a a - 2nd line rhymes with the first. b a - 4th line rhymes with the first and second. b - 1st line rhymes with the third in the previous stanza. b - 2nd line rhymes with the first. c b - 4th line rhymes with the first and second. c - 1st line rhymes with the third in the previous stanza. c - 2nd line rhymes with the first. a - 3rd line rhymes with the first in the opening stanza. c - 4th line rhymes with the first and second. |
These are some of the favorite quatrains from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam translated by Edward Fitzgerald:
Wake! For the Sun who scattered into flight The Stars before him from the Field of Night, Drives Night along with them from Heaven and Strikes The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light. [Stanza 1] Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring The Winter garment of Repentance fling; The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly - and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. [Stanza 7, 1st edition] A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread -- and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness -- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! [Stanza 12] The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. [Stanza 71] |
Some poems that have been written in English have the form of the Rubáiyát, or a close approximation. An example is Robert's Frost Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, which begins:
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. |
Ezra Pound composed a Rubáiyát that he included on the last page of his Canto LXXX (p. 516 in the New Directions edition of The Cantos); it begins:
Tudor indeed is gone and every rose, Blood-red, blanch-white that in the sunset glows Cries: "Blood, Blood, Blood!" against the gothic stone Of England, as the Howard or Boleyn knows. |
Here are some steps to take in creating a Rubáiyát:
Just because you start with the intention of writing a Rubáiyát, you do not have to keep your poem in that form if it does not work for you and your collaborators. Your attempt to write a formal poem may help you find words that you would not have found otherwise. And you may decide that you choose to end up with a poem in a different form.
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Related pages:
Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms and related topics. How to Write Poetry. | ||
Copyright
© 2002-2016 by Ariadne Unst.
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