Brave (2012 Film)

In order of ascending line length, the QUATRAIN comes next. The QuatrainThe QUATRAIN is HEROIC and profoundAnd glories in the deeds of noble days:Pentameters of grave and mighty sound,Like rolling cadences of brass, give praise.Alas! its ELEGIAC counterpartBemoans with baleful woe this world of strife:In graveyards and in tears it plies its artLamenting how devoid of hope is life.In equal form the COMIC QUATRAIN’s made,But free to say exactly what it thinks;It’s brave enough to call a spade a spadeAnd dig for truth however much it stinks. There is, of course, no formal difference between those three samples, they are merely produced to show you that quatrains in abab have been used for all kinds of purposes in English poetry. Gray’s вЂElegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ is probably the best-known elegiac use quatrains have been put to. Its lines have given the world classic book and film titles (Far from the Madding Crowd and Paths of Glory) as well as providing some memorably stirring phrases:Forbade to wade4 through slaughter to a throne,And shut the gates of mercy on mankind; A cross-rhymed quatrain (perhaps obviously) allows for fuller development of an image or conceit than can be achieved with couplets:Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;Full many a flower is born to blush un seen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air. (Gray’s repetition of вЂFull many’ is an example of a rhetorical trope called anaphora, in case you are interested, in case you care, in case you didn’t already know, in case of too much anaphora, break glass ...»