Readers, writers and texts practice questions.

Which poetic form is a formal lament composed to mourn the dead or meditate on loss?

• Ode
• Elegy
• Villanelle
• Ballad

Answer: Elegy

An elegy centres on mourning and reflection on death; Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' is a classic example.

An ode is best described as a poem that:

• Mourns a specific death and offers formal consolation for the loss
• Addresses and celebrates a subject in an elevated, serious tone
• Tells a folk story in short stanzas
• Follows a strict 19-line pattern

Answer: Addresses and celebrates a subject in an elevated, serious tone

Odes are lyric poems of praise or serious meditation, often addressing their subject directly, as in Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale'.

The ghazal, a form rooted in Arabic and Persian traditions, is composed of:

• Fourteen lines split into an octave and sestet
• Three-line stanzas of 5-7-5 syllables
• Autonomous couplets often sharing a refrain and unified by mood rather than plot
• One single unbroken stanza written in unrhymed free verse with no fixed metre or refrain

Answer: Autonomous couplets often sharing a refrain and unified by mood rather than plot

A ghazal is a series of thematically independent couplets, frequently linked by a repeated refrain (radif) and a rhyme (qafia).

A traditional haiku is characterised by:

• Fourteen lines and a volta
• Three lines of roughly 5-7-5 syllables, often evoking a season or moment in nature
• Rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter
• A fixed refrain line that is repeated at the close of every successive stanza throughout

Answer: Three lines of roughly 5-7-5 syllables, often evoking a season or moment in nature

The haiku is a compressed three-line Japanese form, classically tied to a seasonal reference (kigo) and a moment of perception.

Which rhyme scheme belongs to the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet's octave?

• ABABCDCD
• ABBAABBA
• ABABCDCDEFEFGG
• AABBCCDD

Answer: ABBAABBA

The Petrarchan octave rhymes ABBAABBA and poses a problem; the sestet that follows responds to it.

The Shakespearean (English) sonnet is structured as:

• Three quatrains and a concluding couplet
• An eight-line octave followed by a six-line sestet
• Five tercets and a quatrain
• Two septets

Answer: Three quatrains and a concluding couplet

The English sonnet's three quatrains (ABAB CDCD EFEF) develop an idea, and the final couplet (GG) delivers a turn or summary.