ABSTRACT
Features of stanzaic closure may impress the reader more strongly than openings because they delimit stanzas ex posteriori. It is essential to realize that retrospective patterning is not only performed between several stanzas but also within individual stanzas. The simplest phonetic closure would seem to occur in rhyme clusters at the end of stanzas, which make the reader aware of identical ‘harmonic groups’. The ostensible structural monotony is frequently intended to direct the reader’s attention to the non-identical elements, which may contain the essential facets of meaning. The stanza from ‘Vertue’ represents the terminal point of a development: both preceding stanzas teem with allusions to transience and death. The initial and closural devices discussed so far cooperate in various ways to bring about stanzaic unity. Strophic frames divide stanzas very clearly into three parts which are less obvious in stanzas exhibiting different opening and closural devices.
