Single verse: definition and examples

Rhyme is, along with meter, one of the most important aspects of the literature in verse. Each author can have existing rhyme structures or create their own. In many types of stanza not all the verses rhyme, but those that rhyme are combined with some that do not. The latter are known as single verses. In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to offer you a definition of single verse with examples so that, thus, you learn to better detect this type of poetic composition.

Depending on whether or not they rhyme, the verses can be classified as follows.

• 1. Rhymed verses: they are those that rhyme with at least one other verse, that is, some of their phonemes coincide. It can occur with vowel sounds (assonance rhyme) or with consonants (consonant rhyme).
• 2. Verses without rhyme: are those that do not rhyme with any other verse of the composition.
• 2.1. White verse: when a poem has a regular meter but none of its verses rhyme, it is spoken of white verse.
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• 2.2. Free verse: As with the white verse, there is no rhyme (or at least not with a clear structure). Also it does not have a regular metric.
• 2.3. Single verse: It also has no rhyme, but it is part of a regular scheme, interspersed with rhymed verses.

There is a great variety of types of verses in poetry and, therefore, it is important to know all of them and, thus, you can correctly perform the comment on a poem.

In some of the most used stanzas of Castilian literature we find good examples of what a single verse is, which we will represent with a script.

Third

They are stanzas of three hendecasyllable verses, of which the first and third rhyme with consonant rhyme. Therefore the metric scheme is 11A 11– 11A. Examples:

I must not be silent, even with my finger,
already touching the mouth or already the forehead,
silence warn or threaten fear.

Francisco de Quevedo

There is no extension greater than my wound,
I cry my misfortune and its ensembles
and I feel your death more than my life.

Miguel Hernandez

Couplet

They are stanzas of four eight-syllable verses, of which the second and fourth rhyme with assonance rhyme. Therefore the metric scheme is 8- 8a 8- 8a. Example:

Until the people sing them
the verses, verses are not,
and when the people sing them
no one knows its author anymore.

Manuel Machado

On the balcony for a moment

the two of us were left alone.

Since the sweet morning

from that day, we were dating.

Juan Ramon Jimenez

Romance

It is a composition that is not divided into stanzas and has a variable number of verses. These are generally eight syllables, and the even verses rhyme assonantly. Therefore the metric scheme is 8- 8a 8- 8a 8- 8a etc. Example

Green I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The boat over the sea
And the horse on the mountain.
With the shadow at the waist
she dreams on her railing,
green flesh, green hair,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon
things are looking at him
and she can't look at them.

Federico Garcia Lorca

When the dawn wakes me up
the memories of other dawns
they are reborn in my chest
which were hopes.
I want to forget the misery
that brings you down, poor Spain,
the fatal beggar
from the desert of your home.
For a moldy crust
you sell, brothers, the entrails
of blood cooked in nap
that serves as your soul.

Miguel de Unamuno

The dark swallows will return 11-

their nests to hang on your balcony, 11A

and again with the wing to its crystals 11-

playing they will call.7a

But those that the flight held back 11-

your beauty and my happiness to contemplate, 11A

those who learned our names... 11-

those... They will not return! 7a

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

Silence that is shipwrecked in silence 11-
from the closed mouths of the night. 11-
He does not stop being silent or crossed. 11-
Speak the drowned language of the dead. 11A
Be quiet.
Open deep cotton roads, 11-
gags the wheels, the clocks,11-
stop the voice of the sea, of the dove:11-
thrills the night of dreams. 11A
Be quiet.
The rainy train of loose blood, 11-
the fragile train of those who bleed out, 11-
the silent, the painful, the pale, 11-
the silent train of suffering. 11A
Be quiet.

Miguel Hernandez