What Does regular verse Mean
Verse is called the set of words that are subject to a certain measure and that maintain a cadence. The verses constitute the first ordered unit of the poems. Regular , meanwhile, is that which conforms to the rules or is measured.
The regular verses exhibit the same number of syllables in each verse , respecting the rhyme . This means that, if we analyze the stanza of a poem that has four lines, and the four lines are made up of twelve syllables, it is about regular lines.
For example:
I am not afraid of loneliness
I like loneliness
I hope to live in solitude
Yes, I really want that
As can be seen in this example , the stanza is made up of four verses ( "I am not afraid of loneliness / I like loneliness / I hope to live alone / Yes, I really want that" ). Each of the verses, on the other hand, is made up of nine syllables. In this way, we can affirm that the stanza in question is composed of regular verses.
It is important to establish and be clear that the regular verses are if they meet the characteristics that we have exposed, regardless of whether they belong to what is known as major art or minor art.
Another example that we can use to understand what regular verse is is the following. It belongs to the work entitled "I looked at the walls of my homeland", which is a sonnet by the great writer of the Spanish Golden Age Francisco de Quevedo. Specifically, it is the first quartet of the same and allows us to realize that all the verses that form it are hendecasyllable and also have an assonance rhyme:
"I looked at the walls of my homeland,
if a strong time, already crumbled,
from the race of tired age,
for whom his courage expires."
However, there are many examples of great authors to understand the type of versification that concerns us. Thus, we can also find it in the poem by San Juan de la Cruz entitled "Dark Night".
Different is the case of irregular verses , which present a different number of syllables . The stanza "I feel that I am a bird / Quick, free / Capable of reaching the sky / With him who loves me" presents verses with different numbers of syllables: they are, therefore, irregular verses.
This type of versification, as we have mentioned, is absolutely free both in terms of the number of metric syllables and the kind of rhyme. In addition to the one already exposed, we can use as an example part of the poem entitled "Wine, first, pure" that belongs to the Huelva writer and Nobel Prize for Literature (1956) Juan Ramón Jiménez:
"And he took off his tunic,
and appeared naked all ...
Oh, passion of my life,
naked poetry , mine forever."
The regular verses, in short, allow the development of the so-called regular versification , which is composed of equal rhythmic units.