Catalan Poetry: Metrics, Rhyme, and Rhetorical Devices

Technical Poetics

Metrics and Rhyme in Verses and Songs

The majority of Catalan poetry is based on metrics and syllabic stress (number of syllables and accent distribution).

• Syneresis: Pronouncing a single syllable of a vowel hiatus.
• Dieresis: Separating syllables in a different diphthong.
• Synalepha, Hiatus, Elisio: Members can delete contact (a, e unstressed).

Classes of Verses

• Art Major: Less than 9 syllables.
• Art Minor: 9 or more syllables.

Cesura is the break that divides the verse into two hemistiches. Hemistich: Each behaves as a verse. Verses of Art Minor do not have a caesura except for the octosyllable (4 + 4). The verses of Art Major that do not have a caesura are the eneasyllabic and Italian decasyllabic. The verses of Art Major that have a caesura are the decasyllabic caesura (Ausìas March: 4 + 6, 5 + 5, Alexandrine: 6 + 6).

Free Verse: Not subject to any metric measure or rhyme.

Blank Verse: Verse with metrics but not rhythmically regulated.

Rhyme Classes

• Consonant
• Assonant
• False (between open and closed vowels)
• Easy (based on grammatical endings: singing, talking)
• Acute or Masculine (ending in a stressed syllable)
• Flat/Esdrúixola or Female (syllable ends in an unstressed syllable)

Stanza Classes

• Tirallongues Monorrimes (Medieval epic poetry)
• Paired (Two rhyming lines followed each other in assonant or consonant)
• Tercet (3 verses with varied rhyme distribution; chain tercets: ABA BCB ...)
• Quartet (4 verses of Art Minor or Major; ABAB rhyme or chained cross ABBA)
• Quintet (5 verses of Art Minor or Major with 2 different arrangements of rhymes)
• Sextet (6-line verse with 2 or 3 rhymes)

Composition Classes

• Sestina (6 stanzas of 6 lines)
• Octave (8-verse poem with varied rhyme)
• Décima (10-verse stanza with heptasyllables, scheme ABBAACCDDC)
• Sonnet (14 verses: 2 quartets and 2 tercets)
• Romance (Composition of an unspecified number of heptasyllabic verses with assonant rhyme in pairs)
• Silva (Composition that combines decasyllabic and hexasyllabic verses)
• Corranda (Short folk song with 4, 7-syllable verses, ABBA or ABAB)
• Accommodation (Different versions of metrics)
• Haiku (Japanese composition formed by 3 short verses)
• Tanka (Also of Japanese origin, 31 syllables in 5 verses)
• Calligram, Concrete Poetry, Object Poem, Automatic Writing (Writing flowed, leaving the role as the most free and spontaneous)

Rhetorical Devices

Phonic

• Alliteration (Repetition of the same phonemes)
• Pun (e.g., BAR CEL ONA)
• Onomatopoeia
• Palindrome (A word or phrase that can be read from right to left)
• Paranomasia (Pun that juxtaposes similar words)

Morphosyntactic

• Anacoluthon (Grammatical construction in which the second part does not match the first)
• Anadiplosis (Repetition of the end of a verse at the beginning of the next)
• Asyndeton (Omission of conjunctions)
• Ellipsis (Elimination of words understood by context)
• Epithet
• Gradation (Sequence of words in ascending or descending order)
• Hyperbaton (Modification of order)
• Parallelism (Repetition)
• Polysyndeton (Many conjunctions)

Semantic

• Antithesis
• Apostrophe
• Exclamation
• Rhetorical Question
• Hyperbole (Exaggeration)
• Intertextuality (Including texts from other works)
• Irony
• Metaphor
• Metonymy (Substitution of a word for another that maintains a relationship, e.g., a Picasso (painting))
• Paradox
• Personification
• Synecdoche (Taking a part for the whole, e.g., "America wants to attack Iraq")