Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

Activity 16.1
Unit 16 Rhyme and sound patterning
Section 4 Poetic form

These are the final two stanzas of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1609):

When I bethinke me on that speech whyleare,

Of Mutability, and well it way:

Me seemes, that though she all unworthy were

Of the Heav’ns Rule; yet very sooth to say,

In all things else she beares the greatest sway.

Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle,

And loue of things so vaine to cast away;

Whose flowring pride, so fading and so fickle,

Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.

Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more Change shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to Mutabilitie:

For, all that moueth, doth in Change delight:

But thence-forth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:

O thou great Sabbaoth God, graunt me that Sabaoths sight.

1 Identify the rhyme scheme of the stanzas. Identify masculine versus feminine rhymes, and say whether you think there is any significance or pattern to the choice of one or the other.

2 Identify the examples of alliteration in the text. Is a specific type of alliteration used here, or a mixture?

3 Which key words in the stanzas participate in alliteration (or rhyme), and which key words do not? Can this be explained?

4 Discuss the ways in which the author uses sound patterning (rhyme and alliteration) to indicate that the last few lines of the poem are indeed the final lines of the poem.

Reading

Fabb, N. (1997) Linguistics and Literature, Oxford: Blackwell.

Furniss, T.E. and Bath, M. (1996) Reading Poetry: An Introduction, London: Longman, Chapter 4.

Leech, G. (1969) A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, London: Longman, Chapter 6.