Why does poetry sometimes refrain

As you watch the video of the speech here , notice that the repetition of "Yes we can" invites the audience to participate by repeating the line after he does. Obama never explicitly tells the audience that they may do this—it's the very structure of the refrain that stirs the audience into participation, which speaks to the rhetorical power of the refrain. The refrain is a versatile literary device that takes many forms and has many purposes.

Writers, musicians, and orators use refrains in songs, speeches, and poems in order to drive a point home, aid a reader or listener's memory, establish central themes, and create structure. Repeated words or phrases stick more easily in a reader or listener's mind and accentuate the structure and rhythm of what's being said—a repeated line like "I have a dream," for example, establishes the central theme of change and progress, and creates a rhythm within which progress feels as inevitable as the speech's structure.

Sometimes refrains are used simply to condense and repeat the central subject of a poem or song, as in Henley's "Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights" and Ja Rule's "Always on Time," both excerpted above. Refrains can also organize the content of a speech, song, or poem by providing a memorable rhetorical framework.

This is particularly useful in poems or songs that move quickly and wildly between divergent images and ideas, as in Ginsberg's poem "Howl. Refrain Definition. Refrain Examples. Refrain Function. Refrain Resources. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play.

Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this entire guide PDF. Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Editions can help. Refrain Definition What is a refrain? Some additional key details about refrains: Refrains can be one or more lines, though in some cases they can be as short as a few words or even a single word.

Although refrains generally use the same language every time they're repeated in a poem, the language may vary slightly between repetitions. A poem may have more than one refrain. Generally speaking, refrains repeat at regular intervals throughout a poem, such as at the end of every stanza.

Some poems, however, may repeat the refrain more sporadically. How to Pronounce Refrain Here's how to pronounce refrain: re- frayn Refrains in Depth Refrains first became popular in poetry because of their importance to the lyric poetry forms of the middle ages, which were often recited or sung with musical accompaniment. Poetic Forms That Include Refrains Although refrains can be used in any type of poetry, some fixed forms of poetry require the writer to include a refrain.

Ballad: A ballad is a type of poem that tells a story and was traditionally set to music. English language ballads are typically composed of four-line stanzas that follow an ABCB rhyme scheme. They often use a refrain, but not always. Ballade: A ballade is a form of lyric poetry that originated in medieval France.

Ballades follow a strict rhyme scheme and typically have three eight-line stanzas followed by a shorter four-line stanza called an envoi. The last line of each stanza is a refrain. Sestina: A sestina is a poem consisting of six six-line sestets and a final three-line tercet. In the sestina, no lines are actually repeated in full, but specific words are repeated throughout the poem according to a prescribed pattern, making this form a variation on more conventional refrains.

Villanelle: A villanelle is a type of poem that consists of five tercets followed by one four-line quatrain. A poet can also use the repeated line to control meter throughout the work, by virtue of the more structured style that refrain in poetry naturally creates. Even in a blank or free verse poem, repetition of one line creates a sense of meter between those repeated lines.

There are some types of poems in which this repetition is essential to the very structure of the poem. Villanelles, for example, use refrain in poetry to create ongoing repetition throughout the poem. Refrain is a verse , a line, a set, or a group of lines that appears at the end of stanza , or appears where a poem divides into different sections.

However, sometimes, this repetition may involve only minor changes in its wording. It also contributes to the rhyme of a poem and emphasizes an idea through repetition. Refrain is a type of repetition, but it is somewhat different from repetition. Refrain is repetition of usually a line, a phrase , two or three lines, or even words in a poem. It is believed that the repetition may in fact lessen the importance of the phrase and make the poem seem redundant and predictable.

The majority of writers and readers of poetry believe that the repetition instead acts more as an enjoyable break within the work that can also add anticipation and eagerness to reveal the change in meaning behind the repeated line with each stanza. While a refrain repeats words, phrases, or whole sentences, it does not have to repeat the exact same words every time. In some refrains, one or two words may be replaced. In this instance, it is important that the repeated line maintains the same metric rhythm.