PROSODY
I. SUBSTANCE (CONTENT):
*Social Background about the Poet
A social background about the poet is required throughout a summery
about his life, education, career and the environment in which he lived.
Such information is needed to demonstrate the circumstances or context
which leads to writing his experience into a form of poetry. It is simply a
biographical information on the poet's life that should include
something about time, place, and (where relevant) the social, religious,
or philosophical background of the poet.
*Social Background about the Poem
Under this title information about the age in which the poem was written
is required. This perspective or cultural background of the poem is
needed to clear the poetic theme through the historical, cultural, and
social background of the selected poem. Each poem can reflect certain
characteristics which in their turn indicate a certain poetic era. Since,
for study purposes only, poetry was divided into five poetic ages; the
Jacobean age, the Neoclassical, the Romantic, the Victorian, and the
Modern age.
*Paraphrase
The most direct meaning of the word is: Write it in your own words. On
the other hand, the dictionary defines it as; 1- A restatement of a text or
passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning. 2- The
restatement of texts in other words as a studying or teaching device.
After all, the term paraphrase simply indicates a literal change of poetry
into prose form or the restatement of a poem using words that are
different but as equivalent as possible.
II. FORM
1- Structural Devices
* Illustration
Every poem reflects a certain picture just like a portrait or a painting.
While the painter uses his brush to draw this certain picture, the poet
uses words. For that, to make an illustration of a poem, the poets own
words should be used to demonstrate the picture of the poem. The
strategy reflects the poet's own success in his use of words.
*Repetition
Sometimes an idea or a theme is repeated within the poem to emphasize
its meaning. This repetition is detected through the use of the same
poetic line or words over and over due to their importance.
*Contrast
The term is indicative of an opposition within the poem. The poet tends
sometimes to use contrast as a way to emphasize a previous idea (With
contrast things unique).
2- Sense Devices
This item simply indicates the figures of speech used in the poem. The
figures of speech are so many, but here are some of the most detectable
figures that can be found in a poem.
Simile: a comparison using "as" or "like".
Metaphor: a comparison not using as or like when one thing is said
t
to be another.
Personification: attribution of human motives or behaviors to
impersonal agencies.
Synecdoche: it is the part when used to refer to the whole.
Metonymy: a name of one thing is used to refer to an associated
s
something else.
Rhetorical Question: a question expecting no answer.
Apostrophe: an address to a person absent or dead or to an abstract
entity.
Hyperbole: exaggeration for dramatic effect.
Onomatopoeia: "sound echoing sense"; use of words resembling
the sounds they mean.
Oxymoron: a seeming contradiction in two words put together.
Euphemism: the presentation of something unpleasant or offensive
in a softened form.
Bathos (Anti-Climax): working up to a climax using very serious
words then unexpectedly coming down with a less
important conclusion.
Ambiguity: it is the case when a word, a phrase, or a sentence has
more than one meaning.
Irony: saying the opposite of what one feels by implying that very
opposite as a misrepresentation of truth.
3- Sound Devices
These devices consider the sounds or the music of the poem, and under
this title there are:
*Stanza
If a poem is divided into stanzas; a sort of verse paragraph, the length of
every stanza is required. This length is determined by how many lines
every stanza consists of.
*The Length of the Line
A line is: the sequence of words printed as a separate entity on the page.
And the length of the line is determined through meter. The term meter
comes from the Greek word for "measure," refers to the pattern of
stressed and unstressed syllables or the units of stress pattern. Meter
has two functions. First, it makes poem pleasurable because it is
intrinsically delightful. In addition to making a poem enjoyable, meter
makes it more meaningful. It is a part of the total meaning. The metrical
pattern of a poem depends not only on the poem's most commonly used
foot, but on the number of feet per line. The following lines are the ones
most commonly used in English poetry:
-Metric Lines
A line named according to the number of feet composing it:
Monometer: one foot
Dimeter: two feet
Trimeter: three feet
Tetrameter: four feet
Pentameter: five feet
Hexameter: six feet
Heptameter: seven feet
Octameter: eight feet Stressed words are ( n- v- adj- adv)
*The Rhyme Scheme
It is a repetition of same sounds at the end of every line. Rhyme can be a
perfect one once the repetition of the sounds extends from the last fully
accented vowel to the end of the word. To detect the rhyme scheme of a
poem, a new letter of the alphabet is used to each new ending sound of
each line: (a b a c, d d, e f e). Sometimes a rhyming occurs between
words within the same line and is called internal rhyme.
*The Kind of Lines
There are two kinds of the poetic line;
Masculine Ending Line: is the one that ends in a stressed syllable.
Feminine Ending Line: is a line ending in a slack or unstressed syllable.
*The Type of Line
A poetic line can be either a run-on line or an end-stopped one.
Run-on Lines: suggest an invitation of the poet to continue reading in
order to complete the syntactic meaning. A run-on line is one in which
the sense of the line hurries on into the next line. It is a line without
punctuation at the end.
End-stopped Lines: are the type of lines which have a clear pause at the
end; most of times end with a period or semicolon, or are the ones in
which their end correspond with a natural speech pause.
*The Different Kinds of Pauses
Pauses: Periods and commas create pauses, and so does the normal
flow of the poetic line.
Caesuras: are pauses that occur within the lines; either grammatical or
rhetorical. And sometimes they are used to place emphasis or
most of times a stop for a breath.
*Alliteration: the deliberate repetition of consonant sounds at the
beginning of the word; (such – sweet).
*Assonance: deliberate repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds
within the same line; (cleft – devil).
*Consonance: repetition of the same consonant sounds within the
same line; (get – root).
4- Sound Pattern
Sound pattern is a connecting point between the music of the poem and
the poet's emotions. Certain sounds may outnumber to reflect the
emotional state of the poet; emotions of anger, relief, sadness or joy.
For example, if the much used sounds in a line are stops (t, d, g, k, p, b,
n, and m), then the poet expresses his anger. Fricatives, on the other
hand, express a feeling of relief; (th, s, z, f, v, h), long vowels are for
feelings of sorrow and sadness; (o:, a:, ou, i:, au, u:), while the short
ones express joy (a, o, i, e, u).