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The term ashtakam (Sanskrit : अष्टकम् aṣṭakam), also often written astakam, is derived from the Sanskrit word aṣṭā, meaning "eight". In context of poetic compositions, 'ashtakam' refers to a particular form of poetry, written in eight stanzas.
The stanzas in an "ashtakam" are a rhyming quartet with four lines, i.e. end lines rhyme as a-a-a-a. Thus, in an ashtakam generally thirty-two lines are maintained. All these stanzas follow a strict rhyme scheme. The proper rhyme scheme for an astakam is: a-a-a-a/b-b-b-b….. (/ represents a new stanza). The rhyme designs are both ear-rhymes and eye-rhymes. Ear-rhyme where the end letters rhyme in sound and audibility, and eye-rhyme where the end letters appear similar. This rhyme sequence sets the usual structure of the astakam. astakam rhyme consists of identical ("hard-rhyme") or similar ("soft-rhyme") sounds placed at predictable locations, normally the ends of lines for external rhyme or within lines for internal rhyme.
In music, a quartet or quartette is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers; or a musical composition for four voices or instruments.
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
Sanskrit language exhibits high richness in sustaining rhyming structures. Thus Sanskrit ashtakams are capable of carrying a limited set of rhymes all over a lengthy composition.
Several times in an ashtakam, the quatrains (sets of four lines) conclude abruptly or in other cases, with a couplet (a pair of lines). In the body quatrains the poet establishes a theme and then may resolve it in the final lines, called the couplet, or may leave them unsolved. Sometime the end couplet may contain self-identification of the poet. The structure is also bound by rules of meter for enhanced suitability for recital and classical singing. However, there are several ashtakams that do not conform to the regular structure.
The conventions associated with the ashtakam have evolved over its literary history of more than 2500 years. One of the best known ashtakam writers was Adi Sankaracharya, who created an ashtakam cycle with a group of ashtakams, arranged to address a particular deity, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual ashtakams. He wrote more than thirty astakams in stuti [dedication] to various deities.
Ashtakams were a very popular and generally accepted genre of devotional and general poetry during the golden period of Sanskrit literature, and also that of Vedic Indian Literature.
In poetry, metre (British) or meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study and the actual use of metres and forms of versification are both known as prosody.
Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem.
Rubāʿī is the term for a quatrain, a poem or a verse of a poem consisting of four lines. It refers specifically to a form of Persian poetry, or its derivative form in English and other languages
Chain rhyme is the linking together of stanzas by carrying a rhyme over from one stanza to the next.
The kyrielle is a poetic form that originated in troubadour poetry.
Urdu poetry is a rich tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the cultures of South Asia. Meer, Dard, Ghalib, Anees, Daag Dehlvi, Dabeer, Iqbal, Zauq, Josh, Akbar, Jigar, Faiz, Firaq, Shakeb Jalali, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Shair, Mohsin, Faraz, Faizi and Allama Muhammad Iqbal are among the greatest poets of Urdu. The language of Urdu got its pinnacle under the British Raj, and it received official status. All famous writers of Urdu language including Ghalib and Iqbal were given British scholarships. Following the Partition of India in 1947, it found major poets and scholars were divided along the nationalistic lines. However, Urdu poetry is cherished in both the nations. Both the Muslims and Hindus from across the border continue the tradition.
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A terzanelle is a poetic form combining aspects of the villanelle and the terza rima. It is nineteen lines total, with five triplets and a concluding quatrain. The middle line of each triplet stanza is repeated as the third line of the following stanza, and the first and third lines of the initial stanza are the second and final lines of the concluding quatrain; thus, seven of the lines are repeated in the poem. The rhyme scheme and stanzaic structure are as follows (a capitalized letter indicates a line repeated verbatim):
Briggflatts is a long poem by Basil Bunting published in 1966. The work is subtitled "An Autobiography." The title "Briggflatts" comes from the name of Brigflatts Meeting House in a Quaker Friends meeting house near Sedbergh in Cumbria, England. Bunting visited Brigflatts as a schoolboy when the family of one of his schoolfriends lived there, and it was at this time that he developed a strong attachment to his friend's sister, Peggy Greenbank, to whom the poem is dedicated. It was first read in public on 22 December 1965 at the Morden Tower, and published in 1966 by Fulcrum Press. Bunting also wrote another poem with "Briggflatts" in its title, the short work "At Briggflatts meetinghouse" (1975).
Poetry has been featured extensively in Thai literature, and constituted the near-exclusive majority of literary works up to the early Rattanakosin period. Most of imaginative literary works in Thai, before the 19th century, were composed in poetry. Consequently, although many literary works were lost with the sack of Ayutthaya in 1767, Thailand still has a great number of epic poems or long poetic tales -- some with original stories and some with stories drawn from foreign sources. The Siamese poetical medium consists of five main forms, known as khlong, chan, kap, klon and rai; some of these developed indigenously while others were borrowed from other languages. Thai poetry dates to the Sukhothai period and flourished under Ayutthaya, during which it developed into its current forms. Though many works were lost to the Burmese conquest of Ayutthaya in 1767, sponsorship by subsequent kings helped revive the art, with new works created by many great poets, including Sunthorn Phu (1786–1855). Prose writing as a literary form was introduced as a Western import during the reign of King Mongkut (1851–68) and gradually gained popularity, though poetry saw a revival during the reign of King Vajiravudh (1910–25), who authored and sponsored both traditional poetry and the newer literary forms. Poetry's popularity as a mainstream form of literature gradually declined afterwards, although it is still written and read, and is regularly employed ceremonially.
Sonnet 125 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
Fixed verse forms are a kind of template or formula that poetry can be composed in. The opposite of Fixed verse is Free verse poetry, which by design has little or no pre-established guidelines.
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity is a nativity ode written by John Milton in 1629 and published in his Poems of Mr. John Milton (1645). The poem describes Christ's Incarnation and his overthrow of earthly and pagan powers. The poem also connects the Incarnation with Christ's Crucifixion.
Decasyllabic quatrain is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB. Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language, as Geoffrey Chaucer created the heroic couplet and used it in The Canterbury Tales. The alternating form came to prominence in late 16th-Century English poetry and became fashionable in the 17th Century when it appeared in heroic poems by William Davenant and John Dryden. In the 18th Century famous poets such as Thomas Gray continued to use the form in works such as "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". Shakespearean Sonnets, comprising 3 quatrains of iambic pentameter followed by a final couplet, as well as later poems in blank verse have displayed the various uses of the decasyllabic quatrain throughout the history of English Poetry.
Classical Chinese poetry forms are those poetry forms, or modes which typify the traditional Chinese poems written in Literary Chinese or Classical Chinese. Classical Chinese poetry has various characteristic forms, some attested to as early as the publication of the Classic of Poetry, dating from a traditionally, and roughly, estimated time of around 10th–7th century BC. The term "forms" refers to various formal and technical aspects applied to poems: this includes such poetic characteristics as meter, rhythm, and other considerations such as vocabulary and style. These forms and modes are generally, but not invariably, independent of the Classical Chinese poetry genres. Many or most of these were developed by the time of the Tang Dynasty, and the use and development of Classical Chinese poetry and genres actively continued up to until the May Fourth Movement, and still continues even today in the 21st century.
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