Exploring Character Relations - First Post

While my characters are still nebulously defined and their roles in creating a narrative are still uncertain, I feel that I should begin making reference to the sorts of character relationships I'll be writing about. This will inform me of further research; investigating, interviewing, and exploring the memoirs of those who've shared a similar experience to the one I'd like to capture in my writing.

Green will signify that the character is living, while blue will show that the character is deceased. The character relations will be written like this, and I may develop, alter and develop these relations, unless they're role becomes less potent or useful in comparison to others. These characters, their developments, and their relation to the larger narrative will be explored further on the blog, alongside my research.

Father and Son
The role of grief shaping a person's upbringing is arguably a massive definer as to how they respond to the world around them. The death of a parent, particularly at an early age, has a massive effect on how that person perceives themselves in relation to others. Additionally, the role of hereditary conditions can be seen to create anxiety and fatalism - if a child loses a parent to a particular heart condition, and they too are discovered to have this heart condition, the child is likely to be scared of ending up in a similar situation. This could be an interesting source of character conflict.

Sibling and Sibling
Siblings, despite humanity's shared apathy towards their own kin, are typically our first friends when growing up, and experience some of our most intimate moments by their presence. They're someone to rely on, especially as the years wind on. Losing someone with such a close (but oftentimes fraught, due to extraneous circumstances or conflicting personalities) connection can incite a miserable experience which can be explored through the mode of writing.

Grandparent and Grandchild
Often, our first experiences with death in the family come from its patriarchs or matriarchs - the heads of the families who brought up the subsequent generations, and have themselves changed from each one. A child's concept of death is typically different from that of an adult's and is something intriguing to demonstrate through poetry, as their relationship with their grandparent is likely to be vastly different from that of the previous generation.

Spouse and Spouse
Our culture places great value on marriage and its longevity in regards to creating a 'family unit'; many children grow up dreaming of finding 'the one' and develop a romantic interest. Losing a spouse has previously been treated as the end of the world, but in the contemporary culture of remarriages, partnerships, and easy access to dating, it's often thought that, after a certain amount of grieving, a person should be willing to move on and find love again: it is perceived as the pinnacle, after all. This can create tension between new partners and the deceased partner's relations, fights over the appropriate amount of time spent grieving, and suchlike. This, again, is something interesting to explore.


While these are merely four relations, different variations can yield entirely different situations and different reactions to these. Therefore, my later posts may reflect these relationship dynamics for my characters, although I may instead deviate and find other forms.

Developing Ideas

While I still intend to dedicate a good amount of time towards looking at poetry forms, I still have to consider the subject these poems discuss. While there are a variety of ideas I can explore and develop, I've found that the most prominent ideas revolve around human emotions and mortality.

Idea One

A group of strangers have become trapped in a jammed elevator at a hospital, and begin to discuss the circumstances to how they all came to be here.

Idea Two

After the suicide of a teenage girl, the poem collection deals with the various perspectives and their reactions to her death, from identifying the body to years after her death, where her memory is kept alive to those she was beloved to.

Idea Three

A group of strangers are gathered in a waiting room which is the afterlife. They discuss how they died, how they lived, and their conflicting views on why the afterlife isn't how they imagined.

Idea Four

After a funeral, a family are gathered at the wake of a deceased love one and discuss those they've lost over the years. Then, reflected on the other side, the deceased family members are having a welcoming party for the recently deceased, and discuss those they've been forced to leave behind.

As of this moment, I feel that Idea Four is the one I'm most invested in, as it approaches the topics of death and grief, to which there is a wide variety of reactions. While Idea Two has a more coherent timeline, I feel that it is deeply constrained by one specific death, and wouldn't allow me the variety that I feel I would have with Idea Four. While I still need to develop details such as a characters, settings, allegories and suchlike, I feel it offers a solid base for me to become easily inspired by other events, and draw on my own experiences.

Further Poetry: Forms of Sonnets

As discussed in my previous post, there are a variety of poetry forms that I still haven't explored (and those I have covered haven't been given an in-depth analysis as of yet) and included in this are the various forms of sonnet. This website, composed by Nelson Miller, describes a few of the varying forms. In English, all sonnet forms are composed of iambic pentameter, or tetrameter or occasionally hexameter. This fact is thusly present (and addressed if otherwise) and doesn't need mentioning in the following descriptions. I also looked at this website for further forms that weren't discussed in the initial site.

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet

• Divided into two sections: octave and a setset, by different rhyming schemes.
• The octave has eight lines and the rhyme is: abbaabba
• The setset is six lines and can have the rhymes: cdcdcd or cddcdc or cdecde or cdeced or cdcedc

Shakespearean/English Sonnet

• Has three quatrains of alternating rhyme and a couplet
• abab cdcd efef gg
• It can be considered one of the simplest couplet forms
• The volta is typically placed in line nine.

Spenserian Sonet

• It is an outgrowth of the stanza pattern used in The Faerie Queene (ababbcbcc)
• Has the rhyme scheme: ababbcbccdcdee
• The three quatrains share similar ideas, while other forms of poetry typically discuss different ideas in their differing quatrains.

Curtal Sonnet

• 10 lines, two stanzas
• Often recognised as a more "masterful" form or the Petrarchan sonnet.

Miltonic Sonnet

• Eight line/Six line sonnet
• Simplified rhyme scheme of abbaabba-cdcdcd

Terza Rima Sonnet

• Four quatrains and a rhyming couplet
• Has the Terza Rima rhyme scheme of aba/bcb/cdc/ded

I feel that after looking at these varied types of poems by form, I should begin looking at ones previous composed, from archaic to contemporary poets. However, I still have an interest in investigating other poetry forms, as I wish to draw from the widest variety I can.

Comparision of Narrative Composition

Being that I'd like to compose a variety of poems from differing character perspectives, I feel that I should be observing different narrative-based poems. This would be the investigation from narrative epics to collections and compositions, as the disparity between them (and noting the similarities) should sufficiently inspire and interest me. Hopefully, this should help me develop my idea.

The first poem I liked at was Beowulf, which is arguably the most famous example of Anglo-Saxon poetry, written by an unknown poet. I looked at Seamus Heaney's translation as he is acclaimed for keeping the metre consistent and utilising fluently-interpreted kennings. However, while I still haven;t solidified my definite idea, I don't think I will indulge in the genre of epics, as Beowulf itself is tightly revolving around the titular character. However, while the idea of mythology being incorporated into the plot is one for consideration, I feel that perhaps it will need to be carefully handled as the vague ideas I have relate to interpersonal relationships and human emotion, rather than that of valour and honour.


Another poem which I feel is closest to what I want to create is The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, whose carefully-crafted work deals with the different stories of the pilgrims on their travels to Canterbury. Not only does it utilise the differing thoughts and feelings of these characters (which the narrator occasionally sets the scene and suchlike) but features different poetry forms - I intend to have this in my EPQ. Therefore, despite there being other texts that have inspired me (which will be discussed below), I feel that The Canterbury Tales' core structure is one I'd like to adopt.


Furthermore, I feel that I can take inspiration from Dante Alighieri's Inferno, which acts as an allegory and tells of Dante's journey through Biblical Hell. The epic poem is one of the greatest-known in Italian literature and has had a massive impact on the popular culture representations of Hell, alongside John Milton's Paradise Lost, whose evocative scenes described in blank verse chart Satan's tragic fall from Heaven, and his conspiring against God in the bowels of the brimstone Hell. Both deal with figures of Biblical scripture and tell them in the form of epic poetry, although perhaps deal with subjects so grandiose and magnificent that perhaps, unless I too use allegory, do not conform to the simple Human form.


While his poetry form was referenced in my "Detour to Poetry Forms", I think that Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, even if by its form alone, I feel could be an inspiration to my EPQ. Its allegorical elements, coupled with its closeness to its characters (who vary depending on the theme of the book they are within) make for an interesting point of reference, although I don't think it entirely fits.


Overall, I feel that The Canterbury Tales, as referenced above, has the most useful structure that can be adapted to my ideas, which I feel also need discussion.

A Detour To Poetry Forms

As I have decided that my artifact will be a series of poems of differing forms (which reflect differing characters) that constructs a narrative, it therefore makes sense to broaden my knowledge of poetry and its diverse forms. While writing free-verse isn't something to be scorned, I feel that I would like to challenge myself by writing in the constrains that poets have been using for centuries.


This website article on Writer's Digest, composed by Robert Lee Brewer two years previously, gives an extensive list of fifty poetry forms, their previous usage, and an example that he has composed to provide a contemporary example. While each method is undoubtedly interesting and sparks ideas, I feel it best to limit myself - it would be unrealistic to believe I could compose fifty coherent, decent poems that all create a compelling narrative. These are the notes I made on them.

Villanelle

• Five tercets

• Quatrain

• Line length of 8-10 syllables

• The first and third lines of the stanza repeat throughout the poem

• A(1)bA(2)/abA(1)/abA(2) etc

Triversen

• Each stanza equals a sentence

• Each sentence/stanza breaks into three lines (Each line is a separate phrase in the sentence)

• There is a variable foot of 2-4 beats per line

• The poem should be 18 lines/six stanzas

"The Roundabout"

• Four stanza poem

• Five lines per stanza

• Written in iambic and the lines follow the foot pattern: four feet, three feet, two feet, three feet

• It comes full circle; abccb/cdaad/dabba

Rondeau

• 15 lines

• Three stanzas

• Word or phrase from the first line is represented as a refrain, which is usually 1 to 3 words long

• The 'a' and 'b' lines are 8 or 10 syllables throughout

Rispettos

Rispetto #1

• Two quatrains

• Written in iambic tetrameter

• Four metrical feet

• 8 syllables

Rispetto #2

• 8 hendecasyllabic (11 syllable) lines

• Usually one stanza

Palindrone

• Also known as a 'mirror poem'
• Must use the same words in the first half as the second half
• Must reverse the order of the words in the second half
• A word in the middle acts as a bridge

Odes

Horation Ode

• One stanza pattern that repeats throughout the poem
• Usually is 2-4 lines in length

Pindaric Ode

• Three stanzas known as triads
• The first (strophe) and second (anti-strophe) should be metrically identical
• The third (epode) wanders off on its own path

Nonet

• Nine line poem
• 9 syllables in the first line, 8 in the second, 7 in the third, and this is continued until there is one final syllable in the ninth line

Luc Bat

• Consists of alternating lines of 6 and 8 syllables
• Its rhyme scheme renews on every eighth-syllable line
• Rhymes on the sixth-syllable line on both times
• xxxxxA/xxxxxAxB/xxxxxB/xxxxxBxC/xxxxxC/xxxxxCxD

Haiku

• Five syllables
• Then seven syllables
• Then five syllables
• Its theme is often overtly related to nature

Gwawdodyn

• Quatrain
• Has a 9/9/10/9 syllable pattern
• Matching rhymes on the first, second and fourth lines.
• Either has an internal rhyme on the third line completely OR an internal rhyme on the third that rhymes with the internal rhyme on the fourth line.

Cinquain

• 2 syllables in the first line, 4 in the second line, 6 in the third line, 8 in the fourth line, and 2 in the fifth line.

Cascade

• Each line from the fist poem is made the final line of each stanza afterwards
• ABC/abA/cdB/efC OR ABCD/abcA/defB/ghiC/jklD

Bref Double

• Three quatrains and one couplet
• Four stanzas
• Three rhymes; A and B appear twice in the first three stanzas and once at the end of each couplet
• The C rhyme is the final rhyme of the quatrains

"The Bop"

• 3 stanzas followed by a refrain
• First stanza is six lines long and presents a problem
• Second stanza is eight lines and explores/expands the problem
• Third stanza is six lines long and presents a solution or a failed attempt to solve the problem

However, this wasn't my only endeavour to poetry; I later decided to investigate the composure of Anglo-Saxon Poetry from this blog (its article written by Jack Garigliano) as I was reminded of my fondness for Beowulf. The article itself is written in a rather informal tone and its author isn't listed for producing anything else, its information conforms to what I'd previously learnt about the poetry, from my English Literature teacher.

Anglo-Saxon Poetry

• Four stressed syllables with a caesura, followed by two stressed syllables after
• The first stressed syllable after the caesura alliterates  with both stressed syllables before the caesura.

Kenning

It substitutes a noun with two other nouns that are compounded together to describe the noun substitute. An example from the website would be Beowulf's 'battle-torch' which substitutes sword - a sword that is polished brightly enough could be described as shining, much like a torch. While it might be cumbersome to include, I think that perhaps Anglo-Saxon poetry could apply to an older character (being that this form goes back further than those I've researched) or to a character who is contrary; Anglo-Saxon poetry relies on alliteration to convey itself, while many other, newer (and at times, Latinate) forms rely on a rhyme scheme.

Another poetry form that piqued my interest is known as the 'Spenserian Stanza', popularised and named after Edmund Spenser, author of the fantastical allegory The Faerie Queene which showcased the turbulent clashes between virtues and vices in mortals, and in its allegorical aspects finds a peaceful future for England by uniting its present and past (as Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne when it was written, and swore herself married to the country than a man and thusly wasn't producing and heir - the future of England was at stake) by having King Arthur seek out the titular Faerie Queene. While my first encounter with the poem form was at a Higher Education Plus meeting, I decided to consolidate my knowledge from the information provided at this website, which is written by Robert Smith, gives details of the poem's composure, a brief on its history, and other poets who have utilized its form (I was rather surprised to see that Shelley was one of them).

Spenserian Stanza

• Eight lines of iambic pentameter
• Followed by an alexandrine (12 syllable line)
• The final line is followed by a caesura after the first three feet.
• The rhyme scheme is: ababbcbcc

While these are just a handful of poems forms I could explore (I haven't even touched on the vast variants of sonnets), I feel that they are worth investigating further and attempted. As I search for others, I will continue to formulate my idea for the poem collection's narrative.

Pitching

In the EPQ development, my ACE group had a session where we pitched our ideas and good feedback on whether they seemed to be sustainable ideas for the project. As the previous post 'Three Concepts' had a rather extensive list of potential titles for my EPQ, I decided narrow down my pitches to two definitive ideas:

• Exploring the links between Romanticism and Gothic Literature, and essay.

• An artifact; collection of poems in differing styles which reflect different character voices, whose perspectives build a narrative.

The first idea combines my interests in Romanticism and Gothic Literature for an essay, as they share similar origins and authors, which makes it a subject that can have great breadth and depth for comparison and contrasting. The second is the artifact idea which I feel has a great level of variety and can explore a variety of themes - once I have decided on it, that is.

The feedback I was given from my peers is as follows:

• The artifact idea is too broad; it should be focused on one specific idea (which is something I intended to do regardless)

• The artifact has a lot of mileage and options

• The artifact is a balance between academic and creative in its aspects

• Artifact "sounds very Hardy" in reference to Thomas Hardy.

• The essay is broad

From this feedback I can infer that there is an interest in my artifact idea, which is one I have personally favoured due to the amount of diversity that can be achieved with it. Therefore, I will begin thinking of some scenarios for the narrative.

Three Concepts

I have narrowed down my spiralling spider diagram to three premises that I believe would be something worthwhile, relevant and enjoyable.

Essay 1

Gothic Literature

• Evolution of Gothic Literature

• Does the culture the text originates from affect its status as Gothic Literature?

• The extent of death and mortality's role in Gothic Literature?

Essay 2

Romanticism

• Exploring the disparity between Romantic authors and poets

• To what extent does the landscape and origins of the author affect the piece of Romantic Literature/Poetry?

• Atheism and Romanticism

Artifact 

Poetry

• A collection of poems in differing styles - which reflect different character voices - whose perspectives build a narrative centred around a particular event/person.