Introduction to Poetry: Honors 10 Notes
Poetry
Language arranged in lines
SOUND DEVICES:
Rhyme scheme The pattern of end rhyme in a stanza or an entire poem
Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
A
B
A
B
“Pipe a song about a Lamb.”
So I piped with merry cheer.
“Piper, pipe that song again.”
So I piped; he wept to hear.
C
D
E
D
End rhyme
(“Introduction” to Songs of Innocence - Blake)
Words rhyme at the end of each line
Internal rhyme Occurs within a line – e.g. a word in the middle and a word at the end.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,”
(The Raven – Poe)
Meter
Meter is the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.
Each unit is known as a foot. Each foot has one accented and one or
two unaccented syllables (also refers to rhythm of the poem).
Iamb (~ /) – most common – one unaccented and one accented as in
“e-nough”
Anapest (~ ~ /) – two unaccented and one accented as in “in-ter-fere”
Trochee (/ ~) – one accented and one unaccented as in “fur-ther”
Dactyl (/ ~ ~) – one accented and two unaccented as in “hap-pi-ly”
Spondee (/ /) – two accented as in “so what
Pyrrhic (~ ~) – two unaccented as in “of the”
Trimeter – three feet per line
“The Bus/-tle in/ a House
The morn/-ing af/-ter Death”
(from The Bustle in a House - Dickinson)
What is the meter of this example?
Tetrameter – four feet per line
“The time/you won/your town/the race
We chaired/you through/the mar/-ket place
(from To An Athlete Dying Young – Housman)
Pentameter – five feet per line
“In May,/ when sea/-winds pierced/ our sol/-i-tudes,
I found/ the fresh/ Rho-do/-ra in/ the woods,”
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words (musical
device):
Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
(from Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind – Crane)
Consonance Repetition of consonant sounds within and at the ends of words – gives a
rhythmic cadence and adds unity – often reinforces alliterative patterns
(musical device):
But in another wilderness,
the possibilities,
the loneliness
can strangulate like jungle vines.
(From “Lost Sister” – Song)
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds within words – gives a musical quality and
unifies stanzas and passages (musical device):
“The old crow of Cairo;”
Onomatopoeia The use of words that sound like what they mean – snarl, hoot
Anaphora
Repetition of phrases at the beginnings of lines
“One passed in a fever,
One was burned in a mine,
One was killed in a brawl,”
(from The Hill – Masters)
Repetend
A repeated word, phrase or clause through irregular appearance.
“The skies they were ashen and sober:
The leaves they were crisped and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere; (from Ulalume – Poe)
Repetition
Reiteration of a word, sound, phrase or idea; more obvious
“Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells –
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells –
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!”
Verse
Poetry that has a definite meter and a rhyme scheme
Blank Verse Poetry that has a definite meter (iambic pentameter) but no rhyme scheme (as in
Shakespeare’s plays.
Free verse
No prescribed meter; it may or may not be rhymed.
The Red Wheelbarrow – William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
What musical devices can you find in the following poem?
We Real Cool – Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players
Seven At the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
FORM OR GENRE:
Lyric Poem
Any short poem that presents a single speaker who express his or her innermost
thoughts and feelings (on love, nature or personal issues).
Sonnet
A poem consisting of 14 lines of iambic pentameter
Shakespearian or English – 3 quatrains (four lines each)
followed by a couplet: a b a b c d c d e f e f g g
Ballad
A ballad is a narrative poem that was originally meant to be sung.
Elegy
A sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditation upon
death.
Portrait
A poem that describes a person
Pastoral
A poem dealing with life in the countryside
Narrative poem Tells a story
Protest poetry Written to persuade readers to support a certain cause rather than to express feelings
Experimental poetry Explores unusual subjects, forms, and unexpected word order to create
striking effects through language
Epic
A long narrative poem on a serious subject, presented in an elevated or formal style. The hero
is a figure of high social status (Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, The Ramayana is a great epic
poem of India)
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Communicates ideas beyond the literal meanings of the words.
Extended Metaphor Metaphor sustained through a number of lines or throughout the entire
poem
Personification
Assigning human qualities to a non-human creature or object
“Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me.”
(from Because I Could Not Stop for Death – Dickinson)
What is personified?
Hyperbole
The use of exaggeration or overstatement to heighten the effect
“I love’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.” (from Hamlet - Shakespeare)
Comparison of two things unlike; using “like” or “as”
Simile
The Guitarist Tunes Up – Frances Cornford
With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as a lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.
What other elements are found in this poem?
Metaphor
Compares two things by establishing an identity between the two things
being compared – a way of speaking of the unknown in terms of the
known
Understatement
The technique of creating emphasis by saying less than is actually or literally
true.
ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE:
Speaker
The voice that “talks” to the reader, similar to the narrator in fiction.
Symbol
A person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both”
(from The Road Not Taken – Frost)
What does it symbolize?
Allusion
Reference to another piece of literature or work of art
Parallelism
The use of similar grammatical constructions to express ideas which are related or
equal in importance.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long live this, and this give life to thee.
(from Sonnet 18 – Shakespeare)
Synecdoche Using the name of a part to signify the whole
e.g. beneath the waves – meaning beneath the sea
wheels for car, threads for clothes
Metonymy
Use of one word for another with which it is closely related
e.g. crown or scepter for king
sweat represents hard labor
Imagery
Language that appeals to the senses – the total sensory suggestion of
the poetry
To a Daughter Leaving Home – Linda Pastan
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
Which details in the poem take on symbolic meaning?
Verbal Irony Occurs when someone says one thing but means another
Barbie Doll – Marge Piercy
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.
Note: In this poem the speaker is an ironic observer of a woman’s perception of
herself.
Catalog Frequent lists of people, things, and attributes
Woman Work – Maya Angelou
I’ve got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I’ve got the shirts to press
The tots to dress
The cane to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.
Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.
Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
‘Til I can rest again.
Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.
Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You’re all that I can call my own.
Tone
The attitude a writer takes toward a subject.
Love – Anonymous
There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.
Where does the tone shift and how does that shift make the poem successful?