ETI 309Introduction to Contemporary Western Literature

A poem should not mean but be.

Archibald MacLeish

What is poetry?• The word poetry is derived from the Greek "ποίησις“

(poiesis) which means "making" or "creating“.

• It might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.

• It is the most condensed and concentrated form of literature, saying most in the fewest number of words.

What is poetry?• Particular forms and conventions are used to expand

the literal meaning of the words, and/or to evoke emotional or sensual responses.

• In order to achieve musical effects, devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm might be used.

• The use of ambiguity, symbolism, figures of speech and other stylistic elements of poetic diction makes a poem open to several different interpretations.

Elements of poetry• Rhythm: any wave like recurrence of motion or sound

• Meter: the kind of rhythm we can tap our foot to– Metrical rhythm involves precise arrangements of

stresses or syllables into repeated patterns called feet within a line

• Foot: metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured (usually consists of one stressed (') and one or two unstressed (-) syllables

Elements of poetryName of Foot Name of Meter Measure Iamb Iambic - ' Trochee Trochaic ' – Anapest Anapestic - - ' Dactyl Dactylic ' - - Spondee Spondaic ' ' Pyrrhus Pyrrhic - -

Elements of poetryThe number of metrical feet in a line:

• dimeter — two feet • trimeter — three feet • tetrameter — four feet • pentameter — five feet • hexameter — six feet • heptameter — seven feet • octameter — eight feet

Ex: In English-language iambic pentameter, each line has five metrical feet, and each foot is an iamb, or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Determine the meter of the following:

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep - ' - ' - ' - ' - ' (iambic pentameter)

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall ' - ' - ' - ' -

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall ' - ' - ' - ' - (trochaic tetrameter)

Elements of poetry• Stanza: consists of a group of lines whose

metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem (couplet, triplet, quatrain, quintain, sestet, octet, etc.)

• Rhyme: identical (hard-rhyme) or similar (soft-rhyme) sounds placed at the ends of lines or at predictable locations within lines (internal rhyme)– Languages vary in the richness of their rhyming structures

(e.g. Italian has rich rhyming structure whereas English is less rich in rhyme)

Patterns of Traditional Poems • Ballad: a long singing poem that tells a story (usually

of love or adventure), written in quatrains

• Blank Verse: made up of unrhymed iambic pentameter lines

• Elegy: a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead

• Epigram: a brief, pointed, and witty poem of no prescribed form

Patterns of Traditional Poems • Free Verse: poems with no identifiable meter,

although the lines may have a rhyme-scheme

• Haiku: an unrhymed poem of seventeen syllables derived from Japanese verse; it is made up of three lines (5-7-5 syllables)

• Heroic Couplet: two lines of rhyming iambic pentameters

• Limerick: a five-line poem rhymed as aabba

Haiku• Haiku poems date from 9th century Japan to the

present day.• Haiku is more than a type of poem; it is a way of

looking at the physical world and seeing something deeper, like the very nature of existence.

• A haiku poem consists of three lines, with the first and last line having 5 moras, and the middle line having 7.

An old silent pond...A frog jumps into the pond,splash! Silence again.

Haiku

Autumn moonlight—a worm digs silentlyinto the chestnut.

Over the wintryforest, winds howl in ragewith no leaves to blow.

Limerick• A limerick is a short, humorous, often nonsense poem,

especially one in five-line anapestic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (aabba), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The form can be found in England as of the early years of the 18th century. It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century.

There was an old man with a beardWho said, “it’s just how I feared! Two owls and a hen Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard.”

Limerick

There once was a fellow named Tim whose dad never taught him to swim. He fell off a dock and sunk like a rock. And that was the end of him.

Patterns of Traditional Poems• Lyric: a poem of emotional intensity and expresses

powerful feelings

• Ode: a poem of indefinite length, divided in 10-line stanzas, rhymed, with different schemes for each stanza - ababcdecde, written in iambic meter

• Parody: a humorous imitation of a serious poem

• Ruba'i: a four-line verse (quatrain) practiced by Arabian and Persian poets

Patterns of Traditional Poems• Sestina: consists of thirty-nine lines divided into six six-line stanzas

and a three-line concluding stanza

• Sonnet: a fourteen line poem; the English sonnet, developed by Shakespeare, has three quatrains and a heroic couplet, in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababcdcdefefgg

• Terza Rima: a poem in which each stanza has three lines, with the first and third rhyming, and the second line rhyming with the first and third lines of the next stanza (a-b-a / b-c-b / c-d-c, etc.)

• Villanelle: a fixed form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas

• Ghazal: common in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Bengali poetry, the ghazal has from five to fifteen rhyming couplets that share a refrain at the end of the second line

Other forms of poetry• acrostic poetry: letter patterns create multiple messages

• concrete poetry: uses word arrangement, typeface, color or other visual effects to complement or dramatize the meaning of the words used

• free verse: poem based on the irregular rhythmic cadence or the recurrence of phrases, images, and syntactical patterns instead of the conventional use of meter

• prose poetry: a hybrid genre that shows attributes of both prose and poetry; it qualifies as poetry because of its conciseness, use of metaphor, and special attention to language

Reading Poetry• Read a poem several times • Frequently consult the dictionary• Poetry is written to be heard: meanings are conveyed

through sound as well as through printed word; read to hear the sounds of the words in your mind

• Practice reading poems aloud• Pay close attention to what the poem is saying; every

word is important• Ask yourself the following questions:– Who is the speaker and what is the occasion? – What is the central purpose of the poem? – How (by what means) is the purpose of the poem

achieved?

Robert Frost (1874-1963)• American poet, teacher, lecturer• Suffered great many losses in his life; had a life-long love of

nature, outdoors, and the countryside; and enjoyed farming, tending to trees and chickens

• Exposed to the world of books early on with both parents being teachers

• His poetry is bittersweet at times, ironic at others, simply marveling at his surroundings

• First published poem: “My Butterfly: An Elegy” in 1894 • Moved to London in 1911; his first collection of poetry

published while in England• Won his first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, second in 1931,

third in 1936, and fourth in 1943• Famous for his definition of poetry as “that which is lost in

translation”• His gravestone reads ‘I Had A Lover’s Quarrel With The World’

“Design” by Robert FrostI found a dimpled spider, fat and white,On a white heal-all, holding up a mothLike a white piece of rigid satin cloth --Assorted characters of death and blightMixed ready to begin the morning right,Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?What brought the kindred spider to that height,Then steered the white moth thither in the night?What but design of darkness to appall?--If design govern in a thing so small.

Diction in “Design”• Many things go on at once in this poem. The title is

of quite high diction. • It’s a philosophical word that recalls what is known in

philosophy as the “argument from design,” one of the traditional proofs of God’s existence which claims that, given the wonderful design of creation, it must have had a creator.

• It is also an aesthetic word, evoking the very notion of pattern, of design, in the work of art.

Diction in “Design”• Yet, the poem’s diction is taken from very different

spheres than the high philosophical or high aesthetic. Just to mention a few:

• “Dimpled” is a word associated with children• “Assorted characters ... mixed ready to begin the

morning” is a whole phrase that could be drawn from a recipe book, or from an advertisement for breakfast cereal.

• “Paper kite” again a child’s phrase.• All of these suggest the world of childlike play or

everyday experience.

Diction in “Design”• And we must ask: what are these words of low

diction doing in a poem that announces itself in its title as a text of high seriousness, a poem not about childlike play but rather about divine or artistic design?

Diction in “Design”• But of course that is what the poem is about, as its

final couplet (the last two rhyming lines) emphasizes.

• “What but design of darkness to appall” is a line of high dignity and diction, one of formal elevated language and syntax (this line would not be spoken in ordinary conversation).

• Its dignity extends as well into the image pattern.

Diction in “Design”• Darkness/appall is a sophisticated wordplay of

contradiction. • It puts together darkness and light—appall means to

make pale, to whiten—in a contradictory pattern that is called an oxymoron, but the last line returns to the world of ordinary language and small things, challenging both the high discourse and grand claims of design.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Simile and Metaphor “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

• The poem opens with a simile (lonely as a cloud). The first two lines set up the first terms of comparison: an “I” who wanders like a “cloud” But people wander and clouds drift (comparison of clouds to people). The comparison seems to have to do with movement, a kind of undirected leisurely motion. Another comparative term introduced through “lonely” is used. The cloud, like the poet, is one, alone. But only a humanbeing can feel, one can presume, such solitariness as loneliness. Only humans can feel lonely.

Simile and Metaphor “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

• The next lines introduce a metaphor: the daffodils are compared to a crowd, or host—a group of people. Here number (in contrast to lonely) seems to be the main point: there are many daffodils, all close together. The image chosen for this group is a human one (a crowd or host, rather than a bunch, or bouquet of flowers) so there’s also some sense that the flowers seem alive and human. Then the last line, very gently, suggests further metaphorical comparisons. “Fluttering” normally applies to flags, or butterflies, or perhaps, to hearts, when they become excited.

Simile and Metaphor “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

• Yet fluttering also applies to flowers since it merely implies a light, waving movement that can describe petals, too.

• “Dancing” however is more clearly metaphorical. Flowers dance only if you’re comparing them to people. Here the motion of flowers is definitely likened to a human activity.