Volta (literature)

The volta, or turn, is a rhetorical shift or dramatic change in thought and/or emotion. Turns are seen in all types of written poetry. In the last two decades, the 'volta' has become conventionally used as a word for this, stemming supposedly from technique specific mostly to sonnets. 'Volta' is not, in fact, a term used by many earlier critics, when they address the idea of a 'turn' in a poem, and they generally are not discussing the sonnet form. It is a common Italian word more often used of the idea of a time or an occasion than a turnabout or swerve. The turn in poetry has gone by many names. In "The Poem in Countermotion", the final chapter of How Does a Poem Mean?, John Ciardi speaks thus of the "fulcrum" in relation to the non-sonnet poem "O western wind" (O Western Wind/when wilt thou blow/The small rain down can rain//Christ! my love were in my arms/and I in my bed again): 'The first two lines are a cry of anguish to the western wind (in England, the wind of spring). The lament issues without any statement of cause for the speaker's anguish. The second two lines snap off that generalized lament and utter an angry and specific protest. The poet's tone has undergone an emphatic change.' Ciardi does not use the term "volta". In The Poet's Art, M.L. Rosenthal employs two different terms for different kinds of turns: "gentle modulations, or at the furthest extreme, wrenching turns of emphasis or focus or emotional pitch (torques)". Hank Lazer primarily refers to the turn as a "swerve", asking, "Is there a describable lyricism of swerving? For those poems for which the swerve, the turn, the sudden change in direction are integral, can we begin to articulate a precise appreciation? Is there a describable and individualistic lyricism of swerving?" What Leslie Ullman calls the "center" of a poem largely is the poem's turn. Author and historian Paul Fussell in a book in which he never uses the word 'volta' talks generally of the poetic turn as "indispensable".

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Concepts associés (2)

Volta (literature)

Poésie

upright=0.8|thumb|Manuscrit du poème Les Assis d’Arthur Rimbaud recopié par Paul Verlaine. La poésie est un genre littéraire très ancien, aux formes variées, écrites généralement en vers mais qui admettent aussi la prose, et qui privilégient l'expressivité de la forme, les mots disant plus qu'eux-mêmes par leur choix (sens et sonorités) et leur agencement (rythmes, métrique, figures de style). Sa définition se révèle difficile et varie selon les époques, au point que chaque siècle a pu lui trouver une fonction et une expression différente, à quoi s'ajoute l'approche propre à la personnalité de chaque poète.