A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
CHAPTER V
P OETRY
Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of
literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition
to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete
poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.
Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry,
such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and
comedy. Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition and rhyme, and
emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose. From the mid-20th
century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act
using language.
Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning
of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance,
alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or
incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic
elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations.
Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate
images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred
forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or
rhythm.
Some forms of poetry are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to
the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed
to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being
written in rhyming lines and regular meter, there are traditions, such as those of Du Fu
and Beowulf, that use other approaches to achieve rhythm and euphony. In today's
globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures
and languages.
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
There are several elements which make up a good poem. In brief, they are
described below.
1.
Figurative language
2.
Imagery
3.
Rhythm
4.
Rhyme and alliteration
5.
Tone
Some important elements of poetry are:
5.1 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Figurative language is wording that makes explicit comparisons between unlike
things using figures of speech such as metaphors and similes.
5.1.1 SIMILE
Simile: direct comparison between two unlike things usually delivered with the
word "like," "as," or "so.". A simile so common as to be a cliché indicates great haste
with the expression "like a bat out of hell": When Marcia's parents came home early, Bill
went flying out the back door like a bat out of hell.
The words indicating simile are: like, as, so, appear, seem and more than.
O my love, is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O my love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
(Robert Burns)
Emily Dickinson’s There is no frigate like a book
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry:
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
Note: frigate=kapal perang gerak cepat, courses=kuda-kuda yang lari cepat,
rancing=berjingkrak-jingkrak.
5.1.2 METAPHOR
Metaphor: a figurative analogy or comparison between two things where the
comparison is indicated directly, without the "like" or "as" customary in similes.
Metaphors suggest literally that one thing is something else which it clearly is not in
reality.
In the sentence, "He is like a tiger," the expression "like a tiger” is a metaphorical
expression meaning "having a bravery or courage like a tiger" or in the sentence, "Mr.
Johnson yelled out the back door, 'Bill, I'm going to kick your butt from here clear into
the next county!'" the expression "kick your butt" is a metaphor: Mr. Johnson means that
he will cause physical harm to Bill, but not necessarily by applying his foot to Bill's
backside.
Robert Herrick’s A Meditation For His Mistress (kekasih) .
You are a tulip seen today
But, dearest, of so short a stay (tak berumur panjang)
That were you grow scarce man can say
You are a lovely July-Flower,
Yet one rude wind or ruffling shower (hujan gerimis yang mengganggu)
Will force you hence, and in an hour.
5.1.3 HYPERBOLE
Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration, such as in the expression "from here clear
into the next county" in the previous example, or the expression "after hell freezes over"
in the sentence, "Bill, you'll be welcome in my house again about ten minutes after hell
freezes over!"
1. . Why, man, if the River were dry, I am able to fill it with tears.
2. For a falling in love couple the attack of tsunami is just like a splash of water.
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
3. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten the smell of bloods in this little hand.
5.1.4
PERSONIFICATION
Personification: a figurative comparison endowing inanimate things with human
qualities.
Example: The stars above wept and the pale moon sighed as Bill trudged across
the Andersons' yard with the cries of Marcia's father echoing through the night. Stars
are personified as weeping here, and the moon is said to sigh, things humans can do
but not inanimate bodies in the heavens.
Personification is the attribution of personal nature or character to inanimate
objects or abstract entities.

The old train crept along the narrow path

Flames ate the house

That leaves look pale, dreading (takut oleh)the winter’s near (Shakespeare)
5.1.5 APOSTHROPE
figure of speech in which some absent or nonexistent person or thing is addressed
in a dialogue or conversation as if present and capable of understanding.
John Donne’s Holy Sonnet
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee (you)
Mighty and dreadful, for you art(are) not so.
5.1.6 PARADOX
An apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true (Perrine :1974:649)

and death shall be no more: death thou shall die

The world’s laziest workaholic.

Silent scream
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
5.1.7
SYNECDOCHE
Is a part is used to designate the whole.
He has many mouth to feed ”ia 35ember makan banyak mulut”
A hundred wings (birds) flashed by.
5.1.8 SYMBOL
Something that means more than what it is (Perrine: 1974:628)
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Note:
*harness=pakaian kuda
5.2 IMAGERY
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
As applied to poetry, imagery is the use of words to convey vivid, concrete sensory
experiences. The word "image" suggests most obviously a visual image, a picture, but
imagery also includes vivid sensory experiences of smell, sound, touch, and taste as well.
Imagery goes beyond mere description to communicate an experience or feeling so
vividly that it encourages the creation of images in the mind of the reader and readers
experiences for themselves the specific sensations that the poet intends.
5.2.1 VISUAL IMAGERY
Visual imagery: visual descriptions so vivid they seem to come to life in the
reader's mind's when they are read, as in the description of a very old fish in Elizabeth
Bishop's poem titled "The Fish":
Here and there
His brown skin hung in strips
Like ancient wall-paper,
And its pattern of darker brown
Was like wall-paper:
Shapes like full-blown roses
Strained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
Fine rosettes of lime,
And infested
With tiny white sea-lice,
And underneath two or three
Rags of green weed hung down. (9-21).
5.2.2 AUDITORY IMAGERY
Auditory imagery: descriptions of sound so vivid the reader seems almost to hear
them while reading the poem. For example, Alexander Pope contrasts the gentle sounds
of a whispering wind and a soft-running stream with the harsher sound of waves
crashing on the shore in "Sound and Sense":
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently bows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flow;
But when the loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. (365-69)
For another example see "What the Motorcycle Said," on pp. 970-71 in our Norton
text. This poem opens, "Br-r-r-am-m-m, rackety-am-m, OM, Am: / All-r-r-room, r-r-ram,
ala-bas-ter" (1-2).
5.2.3 OLFACTORY IMAGERY
Images of smell (olfactory imagery): descriptions of smells so vivid they seem
almost to stimulate the reader's own sense of smell while reading, as in the poem, "Root
Cellar," by Theodore Roethke:
And what a congress of stinks!—
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. (5-11).
5.2.4 TACTILE IMAGERY
Tactile or "physical" imagery: descriptions conveying a strong, vivid sense of touch
or physical sensation that the reader can almost feel himself or herself while reading, as
in Robert Frost's description of standing on a ladder in "After Apple Picking": "My instep
arch not only keeps the ache, / It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. / I feel the
ladder sway as the boughs bend" (21-23). Or in the sensation of touch (and possibly
taste) in the fourth stanza of Helen Chasin's poem, "The Word Plum":
The word plum is delicious
pout and push, luxury of
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
self-love, and savoring murmur
full in the mouth and falling
like fruit
taut skin
pierced, bitten, provoked into
juice, and tart flesh. (1-8).
5.3 RHYTM
The term rhythm refers to any wave like recurrence of motion or sound. Meter is the
kind of rhythm we can tap our foot to. Metrical language is called verse; non metrical
language is prose.
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactylic trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The foot is the metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured; it usually consists of
one stressed or accented ( ' ) and one or two unstressed or unaccented syllables ( - ).
Name of Foot Name of Meter Measure
Iamb
Iambic
-'
Trochee
Trochaic
'-
Anapest
Anapestic
--'
Dactyl
Dactylic
'--
Spondee
Spondaic
''
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
Pyrrhus
Pyrrhic
--
The secondary unit of measurement, the line, is measured by naming the number of
feet in it. A line that ends with a stressed syllable is said to have a masculine
ending and a line that ends with an extra syllable is said to have a feminine ending. A
pause within a line is called a caesura and is identified by a double vertical line (||). A
line with a pause at its end is called end-stopped line, whereas a line that continues
without a pause is called run-on line or enjambment. The following metrical
names are used to identify the lengths of lines:
Length
Name
one foot
Monometer
two feet
Dimeter
three feet Trimeter
four feet
Tetrameter
five feet
Pentameter
six feet
Hexameter
seven feet Heptameter
eight feet Octameter
The third unit, the stanza, consists of a group of lines whose metrical pattern is
repeated throughout the poem.
The process of measuring verse is referred to as scansion. To scan a poem we do these
three things: 1. we identify the prevailing meter, 2. we give a metrical name to the
number of feet in a line, and 3. we describe the stanza pattern or rhyme-scheme.
Basic elements of Rhythm
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
1. Syllable (suku kata)
2. Foot (pola syllable)
3. Verse (verse)
4. Stanza (bait)
Syllable
One syllable: I, go
Two syllables: sym-bol, slen-der
Three syllables: yes-ter-day, re-vol-ver
Elements of syllable recitation:
Loudness (keras-lembut suara)
Duration (panjang-pendek suara)
e.g: I will neeeeeeeever do it again.
It soooooo awesome!
It read it whoooooooooole night
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A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 2014
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