WHAT’S POETRY?
A camera eye without a shutter:
some famous writers on the subject of poetry
 “the best words in their best order”
(S.T.Coleridge)
 “the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings”. (W.Wordsworth)
 “If I read a book and it makes my whole
body so cold, no fire can ever warm me, I
know that it is poetry”. (E.Dickinson)
 “Poetry is what is lost in interpretation”
(Robert Frost)
And what about you? Discussion
Which do you find is the most striking?
Look at the images by Hopper and Magritte
and tell me if you can find any connections
with the quotations?
Which of these statements is closest to your
own view of poetry?
Would you like to add your own definition?
A contemporary Italian poet….
…has recently stated: la poesia rompe le
confezioni e mette a fuoco la vita…dice le
nostre parole, quelle di sempre, ma accese
da un fuoco che investe la mente, il cuore e
l’anima, svelandoci contorni insoliti e
imprevisti del mondo in cui viviamo…
In other words: poetry focuses life; it disrupts
ordinary things and the everyday way of
thinking, pointing at the hidden implications
underneath the surface
…not experts but simply human
… Quando si ascolta o si legge
la poesia di un vero poeta, non
ci si commuove per la vita di lui
ma per la propria, che si sente
risuonare nelle parole di un
altro …
…there’s no set definition…
 Poetry is a form of literature that
expresses ideas, feelings or tells a story
in a specific form, usually using lines,
metre, rhyme schemes and stanzas.
 Poetry is usually, but not always,
written in verse. Actually, “poetic”
writing can be found in prose form.
…so what is its peculiar feature?
1. Poetry expresses the best unity between
CONTENT and FORM: the poet expresses a
thought or feeling or experience appealing to the
reader through his senses and through his
imagination and using language in a very special
way.
2. He chooses his words and imagery very carefully;
he combines them with precision in terms of their
suggestive and evocative power, their sound, their
force and rhythmical value.
Different from prose by
- Fancier language
- Punctuation
- More CONCISE/PRECISE language
ENJOY IT first, then ANALYSE
Read the poem first to enjoy it!
Read it straight on through,
preferably aloud. Then read it
again (and again) and…
…DRAW ATTENTION TO:
- SOUND (lines and metre; verse patterns;
rhythm; punctuation)
- USE OF LANGUAGE (imagery, figurative
language, colourful words, suggestive and
evocative words, connotations)
- MEANING
And how they combine to convey the
poet’s meaning and tone in order to make his
piece of writing unique!
Types of Poems: 3 main categories
Poetry has been traditionally classified in three main categories:
-
EPIC: a long narrative poem centering on a heroic figure who
represents the fate of a nation. Beowulf is an Old English heroic epic
poem of oral origin and anonymous authorship. In the poem, Beowulf,
a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists and, later in life after
becoming a king, an unnamed dragon.
-
LYRIC: a verse that expresses the personal inspiration and passion of
the poet, a flash of his own emotions in the first person. Common types
are sonnets, odes, free verse (or blank verse) and elegies.
-
DRAMATIC: a dramatic poem is a verse that relies on dramatic
elements such as monologue, or dialogue between characters invented
by the poet or taken from history or myth. Instead of the single voice of
the poet, there are a certain number of speakers. Two types of dramatic
poetry are dramatic monologue and soliloquy.
POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY
POET
The poet is the author
of the poem.
SPEAKER/NARRATOR
The speaker of the poem
is the “narrator” of the
poem.
THE VOCABULARY OF
POETRY
LAYOUT AND FORM:
How the words appear on the page (their visual form)
- LINE: words are arranged into lines, each beginning
with a capital letter. It is a group of words together on one
line of the poem.
Every poem is made up of a collection of lines, and each
line has a certain number of syllables, which can be
stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). The arrangement of
sounds into patterns of strong and weak syllables is the
metre of a poem.
LAYOUT AND FORM
2
STANZA: a group of lines arranged
together in a poem.
A stanza is formed by lines each complete
in sense and in grammatical structure with a
natural pause at the end, marked by
punctuation (end-stopped lines and selfcontained) or by lines that need the
following one to be complete in sense and
structure (run-on lines or enjambments).
For example: try to define these lines
Farewell; farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
(from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by
S.T.Coleridge)
RUN-ON LINES can be used to create a
flowing effect, to emphasize certain words,
to create an impression of urgency
KINDS OF STANZAS
Couplet
Triplet (Tercet)
Quatrain
Quintet
Sestet (Sextet)
Septet
Octave
=
=
=
=
=
=
=
a two line stanza
a three line stanza
a four line stanza
a five line stanza
a six line stanza
a seven line stanza
an eight line stanza
The SOUND of POETRY
RHYTHM
- The BEAT created
by the sounds of the
words in a poem.
- Rhythm can be
created by metre,
rhyme scheme,
alliteration, assonance
and refrain.
METRE
1
 A pattern of stressed (strong) and unstressed syllables (weak).
Metre is measured in feet (a small group of syllables).
 Metre occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the
words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern.
In English, the RHYTHM is created through the use of stress,
alternating between unstressed and stressed syllables. An
English unstressed syllable is equivalent to a classical short
syllable, while an English stressed syllable is equivalent to a
classical long syllable.
Ex: the English word “trapeze” is made up of two syllables
(“tra—peze”) and is pronounced with the stress on the second
syllable (“tra—PEZE”, rather than “TRA—peze”).
…METRE
2
Content words (such as nouns, adjectives,
adverbs, verbs) are usually stressed or
accented.
Grammatical words (such as prepositions,
auxiliaries, articles, pronouns, etc.) are
usually unstressed.
RHYME
The lines of a poem can be rhymed or
unrhymed: unrhymed verse is called
blank verse.
Words sound alike because they share the
same vowel and consonant sounds at the end
of the line.
Ex. lamp / stamp share the short “a” vowel
sound and the consonant sound “mp”
END RHYME
A word at the end of one line rhymes with a
word at the end of another line.
Hector the Collector
Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
INTERNAL RHYME
A word inside a line rhymes with another
word on the same line.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered weak and weary.
by Edgar Allan Poe
RHYME SCHEME
1
A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually
end rhyme, but not always).
Alternate rhyme is the rhyme scheme of the stanza
form: abab
Enclosed rhyme is abba
According to the number of end-rhymes in a
stanza, we speak of couplets (aa bb cc, etc.) or of
triplets (aaa bbb ccc, etc.) or of terza rima
(aba bcb cdc etc.)
From The Canterbury Tales
It happened in that season that one day
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay
Ready to go on pilgrimage and start
For Canterbury, most devout at heart
(by Geoffrey Chaucer)
Example of couplets (aabb)
a
a
b
b
RHYME SCHEME
2
When rhyming sounds are identical we speak
of perfect rhymes: ex. fleet / street
When rhyming sounds are not identical we
speak of half (or imperfect) rhymes:
ex. restor’d / word
Words that look alike but actually sound
different are called eye rhymes
ex. remove / love
Give the rhyme scheme of the lines
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory
(by Alfred Tennyson)
ALLITERATION
The repetition of the same (usually initial)
sound in two or more words of the same
line.
“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being”
(Shelley, Ode to the West Wind)
ASSONANCE
The repetition of vowel sounds, followed by
different consonants.
“Slow the low gradual moan came in the
snowing.” (John Masefield)
“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep.”
- William Shakespeare
REPETITION
The repetition of whole words to create
rhythmic effects.
“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around”
(S.T. Coleridge)
ONOMATOPEIA
Words that imitate the sound of what is
described. The sense of the word is
suggested by the sounds of the words used.
And murmuring of innumerable bees
(Alfred Tennyson)
REFRAIN
A sound, word, phrase or line repeated
regularly in a poem.
The USE of LANGUAGE
CHOICE of WORDS
Poetry is mainly based on economy of
language, remembering that words have
both denotations and connotations.
Denotation refers to the specific, literal meaning
of a word independent of the possible
associations, images, echoes or impressions it
may arouse.
Connotation refers to the implications and
associations that words may carry with them.
For example:
The word “yoke” (giogo). If you look it up
in the dictionary, you read that it is “the
device worn by some animals, by which
their master can direct them”. This is
denotation.
But when “yoke” is used in a poetic context, it
takes on deeper meanings and refers to the
particular condition of man in terms of
dependence and subjection. This is
connotation.
G.K. Chesterton
“The aim of good prose words is to mean what
they say. The aim of good poetical words is to
mean what they do not say.”
According to Chesterton, this is the essence of poetry:
l’intuizione che le cose non sono soltanto le cose. Gale (his
detective-poet) argues with the scientist, turned out to be
the murderer that “would have looked at an angel with the
eye of an ornithologist: “most people don’t look at flowers
in a wall, but only in a wall-paper. If you generalize them,
they are dull, but if you simply see them they are always
startling”. (GKC, The Poet and the Lunatics, pg. 73).
IMAGERY
If the poet wants to create in the mind of his
reader pictures that give a three-dimensional
quality to his poem, one of his device is imagery:
the language that appeals to the senses and evokes
sensory associations in the reader’s mind.
Most images are visual, but they can also appeal to
the senses of sound, touch, taste or smell.
I walked in the garden. The
Garden smelled of roses.
The lilies’ green throats opened
To yellow trumpets…
SYNTAX and SENTENCE
STRUCTURE
The word order in sentences can be
manipulated to create special effects or to
give importance (emphasis) to particular
words or concepts.
The sentence pattern used – short simple
sentences, long compound sentences,
questions and exclamations – help convey
the meaning, the tone and the mood as well.
SIMILE
A direct and explicit comparison between
two things or two actions introduced by a
connective word such as: “like; as;
as/so…as; such; more…than; resembles” to
enforce or clarify the meaning.
Somehow the change wore out like a
prescription (Robert Frost)
METAPHOR
An implicit comparison between two dissimilar
things. It transfers the qualities and
associations of one thing to another but with
NO connective words to create striking effects.
All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players. (W.
Shakespeare)
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
[…] it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
(W. Shakespeare)
EXTENDED METAPHOR
A metaphor that goes several lines or the
entire length of a work to create emphasis
and vivid effects that add to meaning.
IMPLIED METAPHOR
The comparison is hinted at, but not clearly
stated in order to encourage the reader to fill
in the gap and for an understatement
purpose.
HYPERBOLE and LITOTES
A figure of speech used for emphasis is
HYPERBOLE, which attributes
exaggerated qualities to a person or a thing.
The reverse of the hyperbole is LITOTE or
understatement, which states something by
the use of a negative or dubitative sentence.
(ex.: “he’s no genius” = “he’s stupid”).
It’s often ironic.
PERSONIFICATION
An animal given human-like qualities or an
object given life-like qualities.
MEANING
What’s the point in analysis?
Examination of the poet’s technique, of his
use of language, of symbols,of the form and
tone should increase enjoyment of the poem
through more complete understanding.
There is no other point in doing so!
The various elements of sound and use of
language work together as a whole to
develop the theme, to bring out the tone
and to express the poet’s meaning.
SYMBOLISM
When a person, place,
thing, or event that has
meaning in itself also
represents, or stands
for, something else.
Lamb =
Innocence
Dove =
Peace
A PLANE IN A WHITE SKY
Because a poem sits in the very middle of
the page surrounded by the enormity of
white margins, each word of it, each
comma carries an enormous burden of
allusions and significances. Its words are
simply overloaded, especially those at the
beginning and end of the line. It ain’t prose.
It’s like a plane in a white sky and each
bolt and rivet matter greatly.
(by Joseph Brodsky )
SOME TYPES OF POETRY
LYRIC
A short poem usually written in first person
point of view. It expresses an emotion or an
idea or describes a scene rather than telling
a story.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
A fourteen line poem with
a specific rhyme
scheme.
The poem is written in
three quatrains and ends
with a couplet.
The rhyme scheme is
abab cdcd efef gg
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
NARRATIVE POEMS
A poem that tells a
story.
Generally longer than
the lyric styles of
poetry b/c the poet
needs to establish
characters and a plot.
Examples of Narrative
Poems
“The Raven”
“The Highwayman”
“Casey at the Bat”
“The Walrus and the
Carpenter”
FREE VERSE POETRY
Unlike metered poetry,
free verse poetry does
NOT have any
repeating patterns of
stressed and
unstressed syllables.
Does NOT have
rhyme.
Free verse poetry is
very conversational sounds like someone
talking with you.
A more modern type
of poetry.
BLANK VERSE POETRY
from Julius Ceasar
Written in lines of
iambic pentameter, but
does NOT use end
rhyme.
Cowards die many times before their
deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but
once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have
heard,
It seems to me most strange that men
should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.