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Distich
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. Background The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's '' Arcadia '' in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called ''heroic couplets''. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Line (poetry)
A line is a unit of language into which a poem or play is divided. The use of a line operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence or single clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is '' verse'', that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally. A line break is the termination of the line of a poem and the beginning of a new line. The process of arranging words using lines and line breaks is known as ''lineation'', and is one of the defining features of poetry. A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a ''stanza''. A title, in some poems, is considered a line. General conventions in Western poetry Conventions that determine what might constitute line in poetry depend upon different constraints, aural characteristics or scripting conventions for any given language. On the whole, where relevant, a line is generally determined either b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and a shorter form in the Gospel of Luke when "one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John the Baptist, John taught his disciples. Regarding the presence of the two versions, some have suggested that both were original, the Matthean version spoken by Jesus early in his ministry in Galilee, and the Lucan version one year later, "very likely in Judea". The first three of the seven petitions in Matthew address God; the other four are related to human needs and concerns. Matthew's account alone includes the "Your will be done" and the "Rescue us from the evil one" (or "Deliver us from evil") petitions. Both original Greek language, Greek texts contain the adjective ''epiousios'', which does not appear in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Sinophone, Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () as the Spring (season), spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the Chinese New Year. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, observances traditionally take place from Chinese New Year's Eve, New Year’s Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February. Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and has strongly influenced Lunar New Year celebrations of its 5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Couplet
In Chinese poetry, a duilian () is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules (see below). Outside of poems, they are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes or as hanging scrolls in an interior. Although often called Chinese couplet or antithetical couplet, they can better be described as a written form of counterpoint. The two lines have a one-to-one correspondence in their metrical length, and each pair of characters must have certain corresponding properties. A duilian is ideally profound yet concise, using one character per word in the style of Classical Chinese. A special, widely seen type of duilian is the chunlian (), used as a New Year's decoration that expresses happiness and hopeful thoughts for the coming year. Requirements A duilian must adhere to the following rules: #Both lines must have the same number of Chinese characters. #The lexical category of each character must be the same as its corresponding character. #The tone pat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Marks Door
Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of various ethnicities in contemporary China ** Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in the world and the majority ethnic group in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Singapore ** Ethnic minorities in China, people of non-Han Chinese ethnicities in modern China ** Ethnic groups in Chinese history, people of various ethnicities in historical China ** Nationals of the People's Republic of China ** Nationals of the Republic of China ** Overseas Chinese, Chinese people residing outside the territories of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan * Sinitic languages, the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family ** Chinese language, a group of related languages spoken predominantly in China, sharing a written script (Chi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version, and was written in dactylic hexameter. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The ''Iliad'' is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature. The ''Iliad'', and the ''Odyssey'', were likely written down in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. Homer's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome, Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the ''Iliad''. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Ancient Rome, Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous ''pietas'', and fashioned th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heroic Couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ''Legend of Good Women'' and the ''Canterbury Tales'',Hobsbaum, Philip. ''Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form''. Routledge (1996) p.23 and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the Restoration Age and early 18th century respectively. Example A frequently-cited example illustrating the use of heroic couplets is this passage from ''Cooper's Hill'' by John Denham, part of his description of the Thames: History The term "heroic couplet" is sometimes reserved for couplets that are largely ''closed'' and self-contained, as opposed to the enjambed couplets of poets like John Donne. The heroic couplet is often identified with the English Baroque works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, who used the form for their tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonnet 18
"Sonnet 18" is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. In the sonnet, the speaker asks whether he should compare the Fair Youth to a summer's day, but notes that he has qualities that surpass a summer's day. He also notes the qualities of a summer day are subject to change and will eventually diminish. The speaker then states that the Fair Youth will live forever in the lines of the poem, as long as it can be read. There is an irony being expressed in this sonnet: it is not the actual young man who will be eternalized, but the description of him contained in the poem, and the poem contains scant or no description of the young man, but instead contains vivid and lasting descriptions of a summer day, which the young man is supposed to outlive. Structure Sonnet 18 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet, having 14 lines of iambic pentameter: three quatrains followed by a couplet. It also has the characteri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespearean
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhyme Royal
Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing influence on English verse in more recent centuries. Form The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCC. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a tercet and two couplets (ABA BB CC) or a quatrain and a tercet (ABAB BCC). This allows for variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative poems. Thanks to the form's spaciousness compared to quatrains, and the sense of conclusion offered by the couplet of new rhyme in the sixth and seventh lines, it is thought to have a cyclical, reflective quality. History Introduction and success Chaucer first used the rhyme royal stanza in his long poems ''Troilus and Criseyde'' and the ''Parlement of Foules'', wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The tales (mostly written in verse (poetry), verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the The Tabard, Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. It has been suggested that the greatest contribution of ''The Canterbury Tales'' to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer's time, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries—John Gower, W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
