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Poetic Closure: A Study Of How Poems End





STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The book addresses the following topics:
  • Formal Structure

  • Thematic Structure

  • Special Terminal Features

  • Problems of Closure



STRUCTURAL CLOSURE

Herrnstein Smith observes that regularity — such as the regular repetition of lines of Iambic Tetrameter — builds the expectation of continuance, and the desire for closure. Examples of how a sense of closure may be achieved include:
  • breaking the regularity of the repetition as in the final Alexandrine of the Spenserian Stanza

  • returning to the norm after a brief departure from it; Herrnstein Brown offers Robert Herrick 's brief lyric ' I Dare Not Ask A Kisse ' as an example.

  • Wyatt's practice of varying the final repetition of a refrain — as in the poem 'Forget not yet' — is cited as an example of the first kind.


Other examples of closure brought about by structural means include: where the last stanza repeats (or closely echoes) the first stanza, thereby 'framing' the entire poem (such as in Wyatt's ' My Lute Awake! '); where enjambent is used in Blank Verse , and only at the close does a line end correspond to a full stop (the example given is from the conclusion of Book XI of '' Paradise Lost '').


THEMATIC CLOSURE



NOTES