Understanding
poetry
I. Four basic types of verse
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Accentual 重读诗
The accents determine the length of the line of poetry.
• It can be found mainly in the works of the earlier poets, from
the 8th century.
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Syllabic 音节诗
The French developed a way of counting the number of syllables
to establish the length of the lines of verse.
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Accentual-syllabic 重读/音节诗
It came into being when the counting of accents and the
counting of syllables in a line occurred ate the same time.
It often rhymes; has meter and usually moves with a predictable
regularity.
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Free verse 自由诗
It has no fixed metrical pattern: it is free from counting,
measuring, and meter.
II. Stanza
Types of stanzas:
Couplets
Quatrains
Sextets
Octets
2 -line stanzas
4 -line stanzas
6 -line stanzas
8 -line stanzas
III. Foot and meter
U = unstressed
/ = stressed
Find the pattern
U / = iambic
/ U = trochaic
U U / = anapestic
/ U U = dactylic
/ / U = spondaic
Example 1
• Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?
• Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables
makes up a unit called a foot. The line contains
five feet in all, as shown next:
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2
3
4
5
• Shall I.|..comPARE.|..thee TO.|..a SUM.|..mer’s
DAY?
You need to know that each pattern is a foot!
types of meter and the line length
..Monometer
One Foot
..Dimeter
Two Feet
..Trimeter
Three Feet
..Tetrameter
Four Feet
..Pentameter
Five Feet
..Hexameter
Six Feet
..Heptameter
Seven Feet
..Octameter
Eight Feet
Five types of feet
Iamb (Iambic)
Unstressed + Stressed
2 Syllables
Trochee(Trochaic)
Stressed + Unstressed
2 Syllables
Spondee(Spondaic) Stressed + Stressed
2 Syllables
Anapest(Anapestic) Unstressed+Unstressed+Stressed
3 Syllables
Dactyl (Dactylic)
3 Syllables
Stressed+Unstressed+Unstressed
Example 2
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IAMBIC (U /) :
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
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TROCHAIC (/ u):
Tell me not in mournful numbers
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SPONDAIC (/ /):
Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
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Meters with three-syllable feet are
ANAPESTIC (u u /):
And the sound of a voice that is still
DACTYLIC (/ u u):
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock
(a trochee replaces the final dactyl)
Example 3
• iambic pentameter (5 iambs, 10 syllables)
• That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold
• trochaic tetrameter (4 trochees, 8 syllables)
• Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers
• anapestic trimeter (3 anapests, 9 syllables)
• And the sound | of a voice | that is still
• dactylic hexameter (6 dactyls, 17 syllables; a trochee replaces
the last dactyl)
• This is the | forest pri | meval, the | murmuring | pine and
the | hemlocks
IV. Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of the same or similar sounds often
occurring at set intervals in a poem.
Kinds of rhyme
Alliteration
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
Assonance
seat, weak
Consonance
luck, lick
Half-rhyme (approximate rhyme)
soul: oil; firth: forth; trolley: bully
V. Figurative Language
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Contrast
Irony
Hyperbole or overstatement
Understatement
Metonymy
Metaphor
Simile
Synecdoche
Symbolism
Onomatopoeia 拟声
Oxymoron 矛盾修饰法
Synesthesia 通感
Transferred epithet 转类形容词
Allegory 寓言
Apostrophe 顿呼
Conceit (outrageous metaphor) 奇喻
Conceit:
a metaphor that goes beyond the original
vehicle to other tenors and vehicles.采用迥异寻常的喻旨(tenor)
和喻体(vehicle)。
• A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (John Donne)
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If they be two, they are two so
As stiff with compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Oxymoron:
Living death; mute cry; “no light, but darkness visible”
Synesthesia (通感):
It takes one of the five senses and creates a picture or
image of sensation as perceived by another.
“the golden cry of the trumpet”;
a fly’s “blue, uncertain stumbling buzz”
Symbolism:
Ocean—eternity
• Similes and metaphors are used to make us take a closer
look at a subject or to look at a subject in a new light.
• Symbols and allegory, in contrast, force us to look
beyond the literal meaning of the poem’s statement or
action.