Genre Studies - Unit -III Free Verse
Free Verse (20th Century)
·
Free
from limitations of regular meter and rhythm, does not rhyme with fixed forms.
·
Do
not follow rhyme scheme rules. Do not have any set of rules.
·
There
will be simile, personification, metaphor, onomatopoeia, assonance etc.
·
Poem
Lines from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song
of Alfred Prufrock”
“Let us go then, You and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky”
·
Popular
poets used this type of verse are, Ezra
Pound, D.H. Lawrence and Walt Whitman (father of Free verse)
Free Verse
Definition
Free Verse is also known as “vers libre”
is modern literary device adopted by 19th and 20th
century poets. It is called “free verse” because here the poets are free to use
the words as they like. They are not bound by any fixed norms of writing
poetry. Robert Frost once commented that writing free verse was like “Playing
tennis without a net”.
Walt Whitman, an American poet is
considered as the Father of Free Verse in English Poetry. He published ‘Leaves
of Grass’ in 1855 which contained free verse poetry. In traditional poetry, the
poets used to make use of various meters and rhyming patterns in order to bring
rhythm and melody in poetry. But 19th century onwards, the modern
poets started using free verse in their poetry.
Traditional Poetry
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.”
Modern Poetry
“A
touch of cold in the Autumn night-
I
walked abroad,
And
saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like
a red-faced farmer...”
Features
·
No
regular meter
·
No
rhyming pattern
·
Use of
natural rhythmic words and phrases
Examples
Carl Sandburg’s poem ‘Fog’
“The fog comes
On little cat
feet.
It sits looking
Over harbour and
city
On silent
haunches
And then moves
on.”
Major Exponents
Walt Whitman,
T.E. Hulme, f.S. Flint, Sylvia Plath, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound etc.
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