EPITAPH

*a short piece of poetry or prose lauding a deceased person

*originally used in reference to an inscription over a tomb

*oldest examples appear inscribed on Egyptian sarcophagi 

definition borrowed from encarta.msn.com

EPIGRAM

*a terse, pointed frequently witty observation often composed in verse

*a short satire composed in verse

*originally used in reference to inscriptions on tombs or statues

definition borrowed from encarta.msn.com

ELEGY

*from the Greek elegos

*poem of mourning

*reflection on death or sorrowful circumstances

definition borrowed from oed.com

COUPLET

*two successive lines of verse that form a single unit because they rhyme

*two successive lines of verse that form a complete thought/form a separate stanza

*English couplets tend to be decasyllabic (ten syllables)

*couplets often appear at the conclusion of English sonnets

*HEROIC COUPLET: two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter

*CLOSED COUPLET: meaning and grammatical structure are complete within two lines

definition borrowed from encarta.msn.com

Defined words, not yet mapped.

Copia-"Plenty, a plentiful supply." 'a copious vocabulary.'

Emblem-"A picture of an object (or the object itself) serving as a symbolic representation of an abstract quality, an action, state of things, class of persons."

Ciceronian Style-"imitation of Cicero as a model of Latin style and diction."

Invention-"The finding out or selection of topics to be treated, or arguments to be used."

Encomium-"A formal or high-flown expression of praise."

All definitions taken from the Oxford English Dictionary. 

"The organization that can be discerned in stories about space in everyday culture is inverted by the process that has isolated a system of geographical places. The difference between the two modes of description obviously does not consist in the presence or absence of practices (they are at work everywhere), but in the fact that maps, constituted as proper places in which to exhibit the products of knowledge, form tables of legible results." 

           Quote taken from "The Practice of Everyday Life" (121)  by Michel de Certeau 

Topographia

Many related words are listed in the dictionary: topographic,topographical, topographically, topography . . .
As best as I could determine, topographia should be taken to mean a description of a place.

Quatrain

From the Oxford English Dictionary: a stanza of four lines, esp. one having alternate rhymes; four lines of verse.

Pastoral

"Pastoral" (from pastor, Latin for "shepherd") refers to a literary work dealing with shepherds and rustic life. Pastoral poetry is highly conventionalized; it presents an idealized rather than realistic view of rustic life.
Source: (http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/pastoral.html)

Ottava rima vs. rhyme royal vs. terza rima

Here is a relevant quote from the 1990 spring issue of Poetry Review: Poetic comedy needs strong form, needs a momentum sufficient to get the form bedded in the reader's subconscious, the heroic couplet of the Augustans, the ottava rima of Byron and Auden.
Ottava rima is a form of poetry consisting of stanzas of eight lines of ten or eleven syllables rhyming abababcc.
Rhyme royal is that form of verse which consists of stanzas of seven ten-syllable lines, riming a b a b b c c.

Terza riman is an Italian form of iambic verse, consisting of sets of three lines, the middle line of each set riming with the first and last of the succeeding (a b a, b c b, c d c, etc.).
Definitions were taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.

The ode is usually lengthy and deals with serious subject matter in a formal style. An example is Milton's Ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity", composed in 1629, consisting of twenty-seven stanzas. The first I quote here:
This is the Month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav'ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

ode

Ode-

1. a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion.

2. (originally) a poem intended to be sung.

"ode." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 15 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/.

Complaint

Complaint:1. The action of complaining; the utterance of grief, lamentation, grieving.

Example:

1667 MILTON P.L. x. 131 Whose failing..I should not expose to blame By my complaint.

(http://0-dictionary.oed.com.shoen.iii.com)

Ode

1. a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion.
2. (originally) a poem intended to be sung.

Source
"ode." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 13 Oct. 2008. .

Argument

"An argument is a connected series of statements or propositions, some of which are intended to provide support, justification or evidence for the truth of another statement or proposition. Arguments consist of one or more premises and a conclusion. The premises are those statements that are taken to provide the support or evidence; the conclusion is that which the premises allegedly support."

-The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Apology

Apology:

1. The pleading off from a charge or imputation, whether expressed, implied, or only conceived as possible; defence of a person, or vindication of an institution, etc., from accusation or aspersion.

2. Less formally: Justification, explanation, or excuse, of an incident or course of action.

3. An explanation offered to a person affected by one's action that no offence was intended, coupled with the expression of regret for any that may have been given; or, a frank acknowledgement of the offence with expression of regret for it, by way of reparation.


Example: 1588 SHAKES. L.L.L. V. i. 142 His enter and exit shall bee strangling a Snake; and I will haue an Apologie for that purpose.

(Source:http://0-dictionary.oed.com.shoen.iii.com)

Lyric

Having the form and musical quality of a song, and esp. the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry.

Source:
"lyric." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 13 Oct. 2008. .

Rhetoric

"The art of using language so as to persuade or influence others; the body of rules to be observed by a speaker or writer in order that he may express himself with eloquence.

1481 CAXTON Myrr. I. ix. 34 The therde of the vii sciences is called Rethoryque."

-Oxford English Dictionary

Invocation

in·vo·ca·tion

1. the act of invoking or calling upon a deity, spirit, etc., for aid, protection, inspiration, or the like; supplication.
2. any petitioning or supplication for help or aid.
3. a form of prayer invoking God's presence, esp. one said at the beginning of a religious service or public ceremony.
4. an entreaty for aid and guidance from a Muse, deity, etc., at the beginning of an epic or epiclike poem.

Source
"invocation." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 13 Oct. 2008. .
.

Heroic Poem

a poem written in an epic style using lines of iambic pentameter.

Or
a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds

[Origin: 1685–95]

"Heroic Poem." WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. 13 Oct. 2008. .

Blank Verse

Blank Verse: A verse that contains no rhyme scheme but is usually set in Iambic Pentameter.

Example: Robert Frost's poem "The Mending Wall"
(http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html)

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Encomium

Encomium: glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise ; also : an expression of this
Etymology- Latin, from Greek enkōmion, from en in + kōmos revel, celebration

-Marriam Webster Online

Epithalamion

ep·i·tha·la·mi·um

A lyric ode in honor of a bride and bridegroom.

Source:
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 13 Oct. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Epithalamion

Ecologue

The English ecologue draws from Classical pastoral poetry, most notably the poetry of Virgil and of the Greek poet Theocritus. Apparantly Dante popularized a false etymology of the word as deriving from aix (goat) and logos (speech), thus goat herder or shepherd's tales. "The Renaissance was the heydey of the ecologue."

Spenser's Shepheard's Calendar is an example of an ecologue.

Pierce. Cuddie.

CVddie, for shame hold vp thy heauye head,
And let vs cast with what delight to chace:
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead?


Sources: Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger

Iambic Pentameter

Iamb: A foot containing a syllable that is unaccented and also a syllable that is accented.

According to Harmon and Holman, the Iamb was "the most common rhythm used in English verse for many centuries." (A Handbook to Literature 10th Ed. pg. 266).

Pentameter: A line of verse that contains five feet of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Example: Shakespearean Sonnets (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html)

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

A Garden of Eloquence

Writers in Early Modern England valued rhetorical skill and eloquence. Following this post, add rhetorical elements relevant to our reading and use an example. We can add examples to the posts by clicking on "edit post" as the term progresses. The Garden of Eloquence was a stylistic rhetoric text first published by Henry Peacham in 1577.

Early Modern Literature, Cartography, and Printing

This blog will be a digital space for our class to post discussions, pool information, and share images.


















-- frontispiece from The Compost of Ptolemy