Unit 6
Poetry
type, format, history, examples
The Sonnet
Two Major Types
Petrarchan
Shakespearian
Two Major Types
Petrarchan
Shakespearian
The Sonnet Terms to know
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Meter – measuring device
Syllable – a unit of sound made in speech
Lines Stanzas Rhyme Scheme – The Pattern
Pentameter- This refers to the need to repeat the iamb
five times (pentameter). Example: Today I know I’ll find
my other shoe The man I love is quite illiterate
• Quatrain-Four lines of a stanza or poem. Sestet: Six lines of
a stanza or poem. Octave: Eight lines of a stanza or poem.
Rhyming couplet: Two consecutive lines that must rhyme.
“Turn” - Reemphasizes Or Redirects The Argument
• Argument – The Message Of The Poem
Petrarchan Sonnets:
Format:
- 14 lines
– Two Quatrains
– Concluding Sestet
Rhyme Scheme:
Quatrains: octave pattern of
abbaabba
Sestet: cdcdcd, cdecde, cdeed,
cddece or cdcdee
The
Sonnet
Shakespearian Sonnets:
Format:
- 14 lines
– Three Quatrains
– Couplet
Rhyme Scheme:
Quatrains: abab, cdcd, and efef
Couplet: gg
The
Sonnet
Example of a Petrarchan sonnet: William
Wordsworth's "London, 1802"
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: - A
England hath need of thee: she is a fen - B
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, - B
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, - A
Have forfeited their ancient English dower - A
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; - B
Oh! raise us up, return to us again; - B
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. - A
Octave - Introduces the theme or problem
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart; - C
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: - D
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, - D
So didst thou travel on life's common way , - E
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart - C
The lowliest duties on herself did lay. - E
Sestet - Solves the problem
XCVIII.
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Modern Poets
Bend the Forms. . .
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
(Sonnet XLIII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
The Haw Lantern
by Seamus Heaney
The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn, a small light for small people,
wanting no more from them but that they keep
the wick of self-respect from dying out,
not having to blind them with illumination.
But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes
with his lantern, seeking one just man;
so you end up scrutinized from behind the haw
he holds up at eye-level on its twig,
and you flinch before its bonded pith and stone,
its blood-prick that you wish would test and clear you,
its pecked-at ripeness that scans you, then moves on.
Assignment : Write a sonnet .
Here are the rules:
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It must consist of 14 lines.
It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH).
It must be written in one of various standard rhyme schemes.
If you're writing the most familiar kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean, the rhyme scheme is this:
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Every A rhymes with every A, every B rhymes with every B, and so forth. You'll notice this type of sonnet
consists of three quatrains (that is, four consecutive lines of verse that make up a stanza or division of lines in
a poem) and one couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines of verse).
Create an argument – problem – solution
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
The Acrostic
The Acrostic
• Definition: An acrostic is a poem or other form of
writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of
each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in
the text spells out a word or a message.
• A memory device
• A type of verbal play
• Constrained writing
• The acrostic has been a popular form of
entertainment for over 2,500 years.
The Acrostic :
Format:
- any number of lines and stanzas
– Initial letters (and sometimes final letters,
syllables or whole words) are used to spell
out a word or words or phrases.
Rhyme Scheme:
Any rhyme or no rhyme
• According to nineteenth century literary
historian Charles Vaughan Grinfield, the form
originated in ancient times and functioned to
“impress the memory, by means of alphabetic
associations with the truths or facts contained
in the verses” (iv).
Grinfield, Charles Vaughan. A Century of Acrostics.
London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1855.
History of the term:
French acrostiche
post-classical Latin acrostichis
Koine Greek ἀκροστιχίς
Ancient Greek ἄκρος "highest, topmost" and
"veστίχοςrse“
- A famous acrostic was made in Greek for the
acclamation JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD,
SAVIOUR
-(Greek: Ιησούς Χριστός, Θεού Υιός, Σωτήρ; Iesous
CHristos, THeou Yios, Soter — ch and th being each one
letter in Greek).
-The initials spell ICHTHYS (ΙΧΘΥΣ), Greek for fish.
An Acrostic
by Edgar Allan Poe
Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.
Contained in A Calendar Acrostic is another example where the initial letters
spell out the months of the year:
• JANet was quite ill one day.
FEBrile trouble came her way.
MARtyr-like, she lay in bed;
APRoned nurses softly sped.
MAYbe, said the leech judicial
JUNket would be beneficial.
JULeps, too, though freely tried,
AUGured ill, for Janet died.
SEPulchre was sadly made.
OCTaves pealed and prayers were said.
NOVices with ma'y a tear
DECorated Janet's bier.
“No Sun Shines Today”
No sun shines today; it is the blazing eye of
Unholy design that scorches the earth at our feet.
Chasing the devil’s tail, were we, when we
Let this monstrosity come to be. Nevertheless, to
Err is to be human, but to impose is to be more human,
And we know that well, for upon that one thought
Rests the fabric of all our decisions and practices.
War is when a gleaming death parcel whistling above
Explains the irony that a grain of life should become
A particle of death; the irony that our white-coat
Patriot saints should become white-faced in horror
On hearing the chorus of shrill cries at ground zero.
Nevertheless, to impose is to be human, but to
Subdue is to be most human, for that is our nature.
And where is the sport of it, when there are no
Remaining souls to subdue, values to impose, or
Errors to make in the dead vacuum of time and space?
The hubris of man is attained, realized in an
Earth-quaking spectacle, a torrent of fiery despair
Rippling across the dirt. A particle perched in the air
Reduced by half announces its explosive preamble
Over valleys and cities, and the carrion are left to
Rot as vermin in the hanging malaria of fallout.
Its high-yield payload broke records today—
So, what? We’re not any more dead, or less.
Memento mori is the lecture, but who will listen?
By Ryan
Stroud, by Paul Hansford
• Set among hills in the midst of five valleyS,
This peaceful little market town we inhabiT
Refuses (vociferously!) to be a conformeR.
Once home of the cloth it gave its name tO,
Uphill and down again its streets lead yoU.
Despite its faults it leaves us all charmeD.
Note: An example of a double acrostic.
Hockey
• Hockey is my favorite sport
On the ice or street
Cool and fun
Keep on playing
Exercise and stronger
You should try
Assignment : Write an Acrostic.
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Review examples of the form.
Brainstorm a topic, and choose a title.
Write the word of your title vertically on the page.
Add the lines of your poem to the acrostic. Your lines will
begin with the corresponding letter of that particular line.
Each line has to relate with each other line, and the
acrostic letters must also relate to each other.
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
The Ode
•
The ode is a dynamic art form which in the
beginning in ceremonial terms, praised heroic
deeds and later, during the Romantic period, in
less ceremonial forms, celebrated life.
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The ode “elevated the person, the object, to
occasion” (Strand and Boland 240).
• Began with the Greek chorus accompanied by
music.
• "Ode" comes from the Greek aeidein,
meaning to sing or chant, and belongs to the
long and varied tradition of lyric poetry.
Originally accompanied by music and dance,
and later reserved by the Romantic poets to
convey their strongest sentiments, the ode
can be generalized as a formal address to an
event, a person, or a thing not present.
• Ode
The ode is an elaborately structured lyrical
poem praising and glorifying an individual,
commemorating an event, or describing
nature intellectually rather than emotionally.
Odes originally were songs performed with a
music. Here are a couple of examples of Odes
Classic Odes
Among the ancient Greeks, odes fell into two categories:
choral odes
• choral ode, patterned after the movements
of the chorus in Greek drama, has a threepart stanza structure:
– the strophe,
– the antistrophe,
– and the epode.
• This structure marks a turn from one
intellectual position to another and then a
description of the entire ode subject. The
strophe and antistrophe have the same
metrical scheme; the epode has a different
structure. Pindar is considered the greatest
lyric poet of Greece and the best-known
writer of choral odes; portions of his work
include 45 victory odes commemorating the
ancient Olympic Games.
those to be sung by one
person
Bread,
you rise
from flour,
water
and fire.
Dense or light,
flattened or round,
you duplicate
the mother's
rounded womb,
and earth's
twice-yearly
swelling.
How simple
you are, bread,
and how profound!
You line up
on the baker's
powdered trays
like silverware or plates
or pieces of paper
and suddenly
...
Ode to Bread
Pablo Neurda
Assignment : Write an Ode.
• Review examples of the form.
• Brainstorm a topic, and choose a title. (An ode
poem is a poem that is about only one specific thing
that you think is truly amazing and praiseworthy. This
type of poem can be centered upon an object, an
idea, or even a person.)
• Write your ode in any form
• Review your poem and fix any errors.
• Type
• Edit
• Place in your portfolio
The Riddle Poem
• What Is A Riddle?
• A riddle is a statement or a question with a
hidden meaning that forms a puzzle to be
solved.
• A “riddle rhyme” is a riddle that is written in
the form of a poem.
• Riddles are often set out in short verse, and
have been found across the world throughout
history; in Old English poetry, Norse
mythology, Ancient Greek literature, and the
Old Testament of the Bible!
Riddles are of two types:
• enigmas, which are problems generally
expressed in metaphorical or allegorical
language that require ingenuity and careful
thinking for their solution.
• conundra, which are questions relying for
their effects on punning in either the question
or the answer.
One of the most famous examples is
the riddle of the Sphinx (a creature
with the body of a lion and the
head of a human being). According
to the story, if you could answer the
riddle you were free to pass, but if
you failed, the monster would eat
you! Can you solve it?
What goes on four legs in the morning,
On two legs at noon,
and on three legs in the evening?
The answer is A Human – who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult,
and uses a stick to support them when they’re old! The ‘morning’, ‘noon’ and ‘evening’ are
metaphors for these times in a man’s life
• Riddles occur extensively in Old English
poetry, drawing partly on an Anglo-Latin
literary tradition whose principal exponent
was Aldhelm (c. 639-709), himself inspired by
the fourth- or fifth-century Latin poet
Symphosius
He has no feet, yet travels far;
literate, but no scholar he;
no mouth, yet he clearly speaks.
If you know him, you are wise.
Subhasitaratnabhandagara
(Sanskrit riddle poem)
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail, never clinking.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
At the back of every Igloo,
And the middle of the Moon,
Always running around in Loops you’ll find me,
If you look inside the Room.
What am I?
We are little airy Creatures,
All of diff’rent Voice and Features,
One of us in Glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in Jet,
T’other you may see in Tin,
And the fourth a Box within,
If the fifth you should pursue
It can never fly from you.
-Jonathan Swift
There is one that has
a head without an eye,
And there’s one that has
an eye without a head.
You may find the answer if you try;
And when all is said,
Half the answer hangs upon a thread.
-Christina Rossetti
The beginning of eternity,
The end of time and space,
The beginning of every end,
And the end of every place.
The Guess Book
(c. 1820)
I have streets but no pavement,
I have cities but no buildings,
I have forests but no trees,
I have rivers yet no water.
What am I?
He has no feet, yet travels far;
literate, but no scholar he;
no mouth, yet he clearly speaks.
If you know him, you are wise.
Subhasitaratnabhandagara
(Sanskrit riddle poem)
A letter
Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail, never clinking.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Fish
Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.
-J.R.R. Tolkien
Wind
At the back of every Igloo,
And the middle of the Moon,
Always running around in Loops you’ll find me,
If you look inside the Room.
What am I?
oo
We are little airy Creatures,
All of diff’rent Voice and Features,
One of us in Glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in Jet,
T’other you may see in Tin,
And the fourth a Box within,
If the fifth you should pursue
It can never fly from you.
-Jonathan Swift
Vowels
There is one that has
a head without an eye,
And there’s one that has
an eye without a head.
You may find the answer if you try;
And when all is said,
Half the answer hangs upon a thread.
-Christina Rossetti
Pins and needles
The beginning of eternity,
The end of time and space,
The beginning of every end,
And the end of every place.
The Guess Book
(c. 1820)
The letter e
I have streets but no pavement,
I have cities but no buildings,
I have forests but no trees,
I have rivers yet no water.
What am I?
A Map
Assignment : Write a Riddle Poem .
Review examples of the form.
start with the answer-choose something to write about (objects or animals are good
for beginners).
think of the clues that will lead someone to guess it. Imagine you are that thing, and
describe yourself – creatively
You can use sentences such as:
I look like…
I sound like…
You find me…
I have…
I am…
I feel…
The Rules
Don’t give away the answer by using the exact word in your riddle.
Try not to use more than 5 or 6 lines, because a riddle should be easy to remember.
It doesn’t have to rhyme, but it can if you like.
Finish with the line ‘What am I?’
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
Villanelle
• The villanelle is a poem of nineteen lines and six
stanzas.
– The first five stanzas are made of three lines and carry a
rhyme scheme of aba,
– and the last stanza is made of four lines and carries a
rhyme scheme of abaa.
• The poem has two refrains.
– The first line of the first stanza repeats as the last line of
stanzas two and four and line three of stanza six.
– The third line of the first stanza repeats as the last lines
of stanzas three and five and the last line in stanza six.
Villanelle:
Format:
- 19 lines
- 6 Stanzas
- 5 triplets
- 1 quatrain
– 2 refrains
Rhyme Scheme:
5 triplets : octave pattern of aba
quatrain: abaa
• The form started as a simple ballad-like song
with no fixed form; this fixed quality would
only come much later, from the poem
"Villanelle (J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle)" (1606)
by Jean Passerat.
• This form has become increasingly popular
among poets writing in English. An excellent
example of the form is Dylan Thomas’s “Do
not go gentle into that good night":
Do not go gentle into that good night":
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
• Contemporary poets have not limited
themselves to the pastoral themes originally
expressed by the free-form villanelles of the
Renaissance, and have loosened the fixed
form to allow variations on the refrains.
Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art" is another wellknown example; other poets who have
penned villanelles include W. H. Auden, Oscar
Wilde, Seamus Heaney, David Shapiro, and
Sylvia Plath.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. A
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. B
I learn by going where I have to go. A
We think by feeling. What is there to know? A
I hear my being dance from ear to ear. B
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. A
Of those so close beside me, which are you? C
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, D
And learn by going where I have to go. A
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? E
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; D
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. A
Great Nature has another thing to do C
To you and me; so take the lively air, D
And, lovely, learn by going where to go. A
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. A
What falls away is always. And is near. B
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. A
I learn by going where I have to go. A
The Waking
By Theodore Roethke 1908–1963
Drip- drip-splash, blue puddles - Spring.
Mix and mash and plant the seeds
Sugar snaps, carrots, lettuce greens.
Blue birds posting and crows convene
I dance ‘round and weed the weeds.
Drip- drip-splash, blue puddles - Spring.
Bending low a mushroom ring
Magic grow and perlite beads
Sugar snaps, carrots, lettuce greens.
Weatherman watch the wren do sing
Of retreating winter a-rattling
Drip- drip-splash, blue puddles - Spring.
One, four, nine, sixteen
Drip drip drops a-pattering
Sugar snaps, carrots, lettuce greens.
Rising sunshine all aglow
Here and now is all I know
Drip- drip-splash, blue puddles - Spring.
Sugar snaps, carrots, lettuce greens.
Spring Garden
By Amy Craig Beasley © 2013
Assignment : Write a Villanelle.
Review examples of the form.
The Rules
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
The Elegy
• The elegy began as an ancient Greek metrical
form and is traditionally written in response to
the death of a person or group.
• The elements of a traditional elegy mirror three stages of loss.
– First, there is a lament, where the speaker expresses grief and sorrow,
– then praise and admiration of the idealized dead,
– and finally consolation and solace.
• These three stages can be seen in W. H. Auden’s classic "In Memory of
W. B. Yeats,"
• Many modern elegies have been written not out of a sense of
personal grief, but rather a broad feeling of loss and metaphysical
sadness. A famous example is the mournful series of ten poems in
Duino Elegies, by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The first poem
begins:
• If I cried out who would hear me up there among the angelic orders?
And suppose one suddenly took me to his heart I would shrivel Other
works that can be considered elegiac in the broader sense are James
Merrill’s monumental The Changing Light at Sandover, Robert Lowell’s
"For the Union Dead," Seamus Heaney’s The Haw Lantern, and the
work of Czeslaw Milosz, which often laments the modern cruelties he
witnessed in Europe.
• Many modern elegies have been written not
out of a sense of personal grief, but rather a
broad feeling of loss and metaphysical sadness.
A famous example is the mournful series of ten
poems in Duino Elegies, by German poet Rainer
Maria Rilke. The first poem begins:
• If I cried out who would hear me up there among the
angelic orders? And suppose one suddenly took me to his
heart I would shrivel
This is what our dying looks like.
You believe in the sun. I believe I can’t love you.
Always be closing, Said our favorite professor before
He let the gun go off in his mouth. I turned 29 the
way any man turns In his sleep, unaware of the earth
Moving beneath him, its plates in Their places, a
dated disagreement. Let’s fight it out, baby. You have
Only so long left—a man turning In his sleep—so I
take a picture. I won’t look at it, of course. It’s His bad
side, his Mr. Hyde, the hole In a husband’s head, the O
Of his wife’s mouth. Every night, I take a pill. Miss
one, and I’m gone. Miss two, and we’re through.
Hotels Bore me, unless I get a mountain view, A room
in which my cell won’t work, And there’s nothing to
do but see The sun go down into the ground That
cradles us as any coffin can.
Another Elegy
by Jericho Brown
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cESxOdu
xOQ4
Assignment : Write an Elegy.
Review examples of the form.
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
The Pantoum
• The pantoum originated in Malaysia in the
fifteenth-century as a short folk poem,
typically made up of two rhyming couplets
that were recited or sung.
• As the pantoum spread, and Western writers
altered and adapted the form, the importance of
rhyming and brevity diminished.
• The modern pantoum is a poem of any length,
composed of four-line stanzas in which the
second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as
the first and third lines of the next stanza.
• The last line of a pantoum is often the same as
the first.
• The pantoum was especially popular with
French and British writers in the nineteenthcentury, including Charles Baudelaire and
Victor Hugo, who is credited with introducing
the form to European writers.
How to Write a Pantoum
Stanza 1:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
Stanza 2:
Line 5 (repeat of line 2 in stanza 1)
Line 6 (new line)
Line 7 (repeat of line 4 in stanza 1)
Line 8 (new line)
Stanza 3/Last Stanza (This is the format for the last stanza regardless of how many preceding stanzas exist):
Line 9 (line 2 of the previous stanza)
Line 10 (line 3 of the first stanza)
Line 11 (line 4 of the previous stanza)
Line 12 (line 1 of the first stanza)
• One exciting aspect of the pantoum is its subtle
shifts in meaning that can occur as repeated
phrases are revised with different punctuation
and thereby given a new context.
• Consider Ashbery's poem "Pantoum," and how
changing the punctuation in one line can radically
alter its meaning and tone: "Why the court,
trapped in a silver storm, is dying." which, when
repeated, becomes, "Why, the court, trapped in a
silver storm, is dying!"
• Mark Strand and Eavan Boland explain in The
Making of a Poem, "the reader takes four
steps forward, then two back," making the
pantoum a "perfect form for the evocation of
a past time."
It's All In The Canvas
By Terrie Relf
Naked in front of a full-length mirror,
you roll and press those folds of flesh,
think about Rubens' women, and
how the critics call them art.
You roll and press those folds of flesh,
relishing yet another mocha.
How the critics call them art,
inspires a new perspective.
Relishing yet another mocha,
think about Rubens' women;
inspire a new perspective
naked in front of a full-length mirror.
Notice the slight
differences in the
repetitions
• four-line stanzas (Quatrains)
• the second and fourth lines of each stanza
serve as the first and third lines of the next
stanza.
• The last line of a pantoum is the same as the
first.
How To Write A Pantoum
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDmWLtl
7WYY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz795gKRsY
Examples
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVNTJp2X6g
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv_U2ybR
VpY
Parent’s Pantoum
Carolyn Kizer, 1925
Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses
More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.
They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
They beg us to be dignified like them
• A good example of the pantoum is Carolyn
Kizer’s "Parent's Pantoum," the first three
stanzas of which are excerpted here:
Quiz
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How many lines?
How many stanzas?
How are the stanzas structured?
What is the rhyme scheme?
What lines repeat?
• What is the mood of this poem?
• How would you describe it?
Pantoum
Format:
- 12 or more lines
- 3 or more stanzas
- All quatrains
– regular repetitions
Rhyme Scheme:
varies
Assignment : Write a Pantoum .
Review examples of the form.
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio
The Ekphrasis
• Ekphrasis or ecphrasis, from the Greek
description of a work of art, possibly
imaginary, produced as a rhetorical
exercise,[1] and is a graphic, often dramatic,
description of a visual work of art. In ancient
times, it referred to a description of any thing,
person, or experience. The word comes from
the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak'
respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or
call an inanimate object by name.
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Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries
to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so,
relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness. A descriptive work of prose
or poetry, a film, or even a photograph may thus highlight through its rhetorical vividness what is
happening, or what is shown in, say, any of the visual arts, and in doing so, may enhance the
original art and so take on a life of its own through its brilliant description. One example is a
painting of a sculpture: the painting is "telling the story of" the sculpture, and so becoming a
storyteller, as well as a story (work of art) itself. Virtually any type of artistic medium may be the
actor of, or subject of ekphrasis. One may not always be able, for example, to make an accurate
sculpture of a book to retell the story in an authentic way; yet if it's the spirit of the book that we
are more concerned about, it certainly can be conveyed by virtually any medium and thereby
enhance the artistic impact of the original book through synergy.
In this way, a painting may represent a sculpture, and vice versa; a poem portray a picture; a
sculpture depict a heroine of a novel; in fact, given the right circumstances, any art may describe
any other art, especially if a rhetorical element, standing for the sentiments of the artist when
she/he created her/his work, is present. For instance, the distorted faces in a crowd in a painting
depicting an original work of art, a sullen countenance on the face of a sculpture representing a
historical figure, or a film showing particularly dark aspects of neo-Gothic architecture, are all
examples of ekphrasis.
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Plato's Forms, the beginning of ekphrasis
Plato discusses forms in the Republic, Book X, by using real things, such as a bed, for example, and calls each way a bed has been made, a "bedness".
He commences with the original form of a bed, one of a variety of ways a bed may have been constructed by a craftsman and compares that form
with an ideal form of a bed, of a perfect archetype or image in the form of which beds ought to be made, in short the epitome of bedness.
In his analogy, one bedness form shares its own bedness - with all its shortcomings - with that of the ideal form, or template. A third bedness, too,
may share the ideal form. He continues with the fourth form also containing elements of the ideal template/archetype which in this way remains an
ever-present and invisible ideal version with which the craftsman compares his work. As bedness after bedness shares the ideal form and template of
all creation of beds, and each bedness is associated with another ad infinitum, it is called an "infinite regress of forms".
From form to ekphrasis
It was this epitome, this template of the ideal form, that a craftsman or later an artist would try to reconstruct in his attempt to achieve perfection in
his work, that was to manifest itself in ekphrasis at a later stage.
Artists began to use their own literary and artistic genre of art to work and reflect on another art to illuminate what the eye might not see in the
original, to elevate it and possibly even surpass it.
Plato and Aristotle
For Plato (and Aristotle), it is not so much the form of each bed but the mimetic stages or removes at which beds may be viewed, that defines
bedness [1]:
a bed as a physical entity is a mere form of bed
any view from whichever perspective, be it a side elevation, a full panoramic view from above, or looking at a bed end-on is at a second remove
a full picture, characterising the whole bed is at a third remove
ekphrasis of a bed in another art form is at a fourth remove
Socrates and Phaedrus
In another instance, Socrates talks about ekphrasis to Phaedrus thus:
"You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting.
The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive,
but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence.
It is the same with written words; they seem to talk
to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything
about what they say, from a desire to be instructed,
they go on telling you just the same thing forever".[2]
Okinami – mighty in the open ocean
off Kanagawa—Two fisherman’s boats climb
The mountain, Fuji .
Blue and blue and blue and white
Rowing, reeling, rising roar
Okinami – mighty in the open ocean
Centered solid permanent
Wall of water
The mountain, Fuji.
Beautiful
Ominous
Okinami – mighty in the open ocean
Capped in white
And a white spray
The mountain, Fuji.
Rising cloud in pinkish sky
The guard whispers,
“Closing time.”
Okinami – mighty in the open ocean
The mountain, Fuji.
The Great
Wave
By Amy Craig
Beasley
Assignment : Write a Ekphrasis.
Review examples of the form.
Review your poem and fix any errors.
Type
Edit
Place in your portfolio