Poetry

66th FEFA Course (IFEC-03)

At The University of Peshawar

ROZI KHAN GPGJC SWAT

In The Name Of Allah The Compassionate And Merciful.

LET`S TEACH POETRY


Objectives:o Introductiono Types o Prosodic Featureso Stanza and Verse Formso Figurative Languageo Writing about Poetry

POETRY


Poetry (Greek " poiesis", "making") a literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to its apparent meaning.

Difficult to define conclusivelyIt is the type of thing the poet writes (Robert Frost)

Poetic texts have a tendency to:o Relative brevity (with some exceptions) o Dense expressiono Express subjectivity more than other textso Display a musical or songlike quality

Introduction


Introduction (Continued)

o Be structurally and phonologically overstructured

o Be syntactically and morphologically overstructured

o Deviate from everyday languageo Aesthetic self-referentiality ( which means

that they draw attention to themselves as art form both through the form in which they are written and through explicit references to the writing of poetry)


With all the difficulties of defining poetry it is worth remembering that poetry, especially in the form of song, is one of the oldest form of artistic expression, much older than prose, and it seems to answer- or to originate in- a human impulse that reaches for expression in joy, grief, doubt, hope, loneliness, and much more.

Introduction (Continued)


Categorizing poetry into types help us group poems together on the basis of shared characteristics which in turn facilitate the process of interpretation and understanding of the poems.

Poetry can be categorized into a number of types depending on the theme, subject matter or structure of the poem. It is useful to keep two general distinctions in mind: lyrical poetry and narrative poetry.


TYPES OF POETRY

The term “lyric” comes from “lyre,” a musical instrument that accompanied ancient Greek songs. Lyric poetry retains some of the elements of song which is said to be its origin.

o A lyrical poem is a subjective, comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents an idea, state of mind or an emotional state.

o Lyric poetry typically describes the poet's innermost feelings or candid observations and evokes a musical quality in its sounds and rhythms.


LYRICAL POETRY

Subcategories of lyric poetry: lyric poetry has different sub-types each having its own distinctive features, both in form and in content. Some famous types include: the elegy, ode, sonnet, dramatic monologue, epithalamion, epigram, limerick, and haiku.

o Elegy: It is a formal lament for the death of a particular person (for example Tennyson`s ‘In Memoriam’). More broadly defined, the term elegy is also used for solemn meditations often on questions of death, such as Grey`s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’.


LYRICAL POETRY (Continued)

o Example of Elegy – Excerpt

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyardby Thomas Gray

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.



oOde: Most popular and ancient form of poetry, practiced by the Greek and Roman poets. A long lyric poems with a serious subject, written to a set structure in an elevated style. John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode To A Nightingale" and Wordsworth`s " Hymn to Duty " are famous examples.



o Example of an Ode - ExcerptOde To A Nightingale

by John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drainsOne minute past, and Lethe-wards had

sunk:



• Sonnet: A love poem of 14 lines, dealing with the lover`s sufferings and hopes. Of Italian origin, became popular in England through Wyatt and Earl of Surrey who imitated the sonnets of Petrarch (Petrarchan sonnet). Used for topics other than love, as for religious experience (by Donne & Milton), reflections on art (by Keats & Shelley), or even the war experience (by Brooke & Owen). A series of sonnets linked by the same theme, is called sonnet cycle (for instance Petrarch, Spencer, Shakespeare) which depict the various stages of a love relationship.



o Example of Sonnets - ExcerptSonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

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:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

TYPES OF POETRY


• Dramatic monologue: A lyric poem in which a speaker, who is explicitly someone other than the author, makes a speech to a silent auditor in a specific situation and at a critical moment. Without intending to do so, the speaker reveals aspects of his temperament and character. Browning`s “My Last Duchess” and “Porphyria's Lover’ are examples of this type.

•



o Example of Dramatic monologue - Excerpt

“My Las Duchess” by Robert Browning

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,

Looking as if she were alive. I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said

"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read

Strangers like you that pictured countenance,

The depth and passion of its earnest glance,


TYPES OF POETRY

• Epithalamium : From the Greek 'epi' meaning 'upon' and 'thalamium' meaning 'nuptial chamber'. It is a wedding poem in honour of a bride and bridegroom. The best example of Epithalamium in Greek literature is the ‘18th Idyll of Theocritus’, that celebrates the marriage of Menelaus and Helen. The famous work "Epithalamium" was written by Edmund Spenser in honor of his marriage in 1594.Dryden`s “Annus Mirabilis” and R. Graves` “A Slice of Wedding Cake” are other examples of this form. ROZI KHAN GPGJC SWAT


Example of Epithalamium Form - Excerpt

A Slice of Wedding Cakeby Robert Graves

Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girlsMarried impossible men?

Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,And missionary endeavor, nine times out of ten.



o Epigram: A very short, satirical and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet or quatrain. It derives from the Greek 'epigramma' meaning an inscription. It was cultivated in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by poets like Ben Jonson and John Donne who wrote twenty-one English epigrams.

o Example of Epigram

A Lame Beggar

By John Donne

I am unable, yonder beggar cries, To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.



A verbal representation, in verse, of a series of connected events; and propels characters through a plot.

It is always told by a narrator and the narrative may be a love story (like Tennyson`s ‘Maud’), the story of a father and son (like Wordsworth`s ‘Michael’), the deeds of a hero or heroine (like Scott`s ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’), or the story of man`s fall from Eden (like Milton`s ‘Paradise Lost’). Subcategories of narrative poetry are for example: epic, mock-epic, and ballad.


NARRATIVE POETRY

o Epic: Operates on a large scale, both in length and topic, such as the founding of a nation (Vergil`s ‘Aeneid’) or the beginning of world history (Milton`s ‘Paradise Lost’). The poet makes an invocation to a god or goddess to assist him in the enormous task. It tends to use an elevated style of language and supernatural beings take part in the action.

NARRATIVE POETRY

oMock-epic: Makes use of epic conventions, like the elevated style and the assumption that the topic is of great importance, to deal with completely insignificant occurrences. A famous example is Pope`s ‘Rape of the Lock’.


NARRATIVE POETRY

o Ballad: A song, originally transmitted orally and tells a story. They are similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. A ballad is often about love and often sung. Ballads are written in four-line stanzas of alternating tetrameter and tri-meter.

o Example of Ballad Poems - ExcerptThe Mermaid

by Unknown author

Oh the ocean waves may roll, And the stormy winds may blow,

While we poor sailors go skipping aloft And the land lubbers lay down below, below, below

And the land lubbers lay down below.ROZI KHAN GPGJC SWAT

NARRATIVE POETRY

Both lyric and narrative poetry can contain lengthy and detailed descriptions (descriptive poetry) or scenes in direct speech (dramatic poetry).

o Didactic poems are meant to teach in a restrictive (James Thompson`s ‘The Seasons’)or in a general (Popes` ‘Essay on Criticism’)way. Horace famously demanded that poetry should combine prodesse (learning) and delectare (pleasure).


DESCRIPTIVE AND DIDACTIC POETRY

Prosody: The study of speech rhythms and versification. Most poetry is rhythmical utterances, i.e. it makes use of rhythmic elements natural to a language: alternation of stress and non-stress, vowel length, consonant clusters, pauses and so on. Various rhythmic patterns have different effects on those who read or hear poetry. The central question for the analysis of metre and rhythm is to determine the function which these rhythmical elements perform in each poem.


PROSODIC FEATURES

RHYTHM :o The recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in

poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the rhythm of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth.

o Poets use rhythm to create pleasurable sound patterns and to reinforce meanings.

o Poetic metre and metrical deviations contribute to rhythm

o Relates to the variation of speed in which a poem is likely to be read.

RHYTHM


Metre: It is the measured arrangement of accents and syllables. Poetry employs the stresses that occur naturally in language utterances to construct regular patterns. Some possibilities for metrical patterns in poetry are:

o Accentual metre: same stresses but different syllables

o Syllabic metre: same syllables but different stresses

o Accentual-Syllabic metre: equal number of stressed and non-stressed syllables per line. Most common metre in English poetry.

o Free verse: irregular pattern of stress and syllables

The visual representation of the distribution of stress and non-stress in verse is called scansion. Stress syllable is denoted by ( ¹ ) and non-stress by ( º ).


METRE

Accentual metre: each line has the same number of stresses, but varies in total number of syllables. It is found in nursery rhymes and was commonly used in Old English poetry. Hopkins's sprung rhythm and modern rap poetry make use of this metre.o Example from nursery rhymes:

There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile [0101010010101]

He found a crooked sixpence beside a crooked stile [0101010010101]

He had a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse [010101010101]

And they all lived together in a little crooked house [00100100010101]

(From: Christie, ‘Crooked House’)


METRE (Continued)

Syllabic metre: It has a fixed number of syllables in each line, though there may be a varying number of stresses. Pure syllabic verse is comparatively rare in English and what there is, is imported from foreign forms of poetry, such is the Japanese Haiku. It is named according to the number of syllables per line using Greek numbers.

o William Black, for instance, liked the so-called fourteener, a line with fourteen syllables:

‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green,

Grey headed beadles walked before with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul`s they like Thames` waters flow.( Blake`s Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday)


METRE (Continued)

Accentual-syllabic metre: It is extensively used in the English poetry. In this metrical system both the number of stresses and the number of syllables between the stresses are regular, but it is often the case that a line leaves one metrical foot incomplete, thus varying the number of syllables as a whole. Each single unit of stress and non-stress is called foot. There are a large number of metrical foot measurements but the most common ones are: iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapaest, and spondee.


METRE (Continued)

Iambic (an iamb): da-DUM ( represented by º ¹ or G ' )

2 syllables: unstressed followed by stressed

Examples:

That time / of year /thou mayst / in me / behold [ G ' G ' G ' G ' G ' ]

When ye / llow leaves, / or none, / or few / do hang [ G ' G ' G ' G ' G ' ]

( Shakespeare`s sonnet: LXXII )

The cur/few tolls /the knell /of part/ing day, [ G ' G ' G ' G ' G ' ]

The low/ing herd /wind slow/ly o`er/ the lea, [ G ' G ' ' ' G ' G ' ]

The plow/man home/ward plods /his wea/ry way [ G ' G ' G ' G ' G ' ]

And leaves /the world /to dark/ness and /to me. [ G ' G ' G ' G G G ' ]( Thomas Grey`s “Elegy written in a country churchyard”)ROZI KHAN GPGJC SWAT

METRE (Continued)

Trochaic ( trochee): DUM-da ( represented by ¹ º or ' G )

2 syllables: stressed followed by non-stressed

Examples:

Double , double, toil and trouble [' G ' G ' G ' G ]

( Shakespeare`s “Macbeth” )

Go and catch a falling star [' G ' G ' G ' ] catalexis of the final foot.

Get with child a mandrake root [' G ' G ' G ' ]( John Donne “ Song” )

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together;

Youth is full of pleasance age is full of care;( Shakespeare`s “The Passionate Pilgrim” )


METRE (Continued)

Dactyl: DUM-da-da ( represented by ¹ º º or ' G G )

3 syllables: One stressed followed by two non-stressed

Examples:

Woman much missed how you call to me, call to me [' G G ' G G ' G G ' G G ]

( Thomas Hardy`s “The Voice” )

Cannon to the right of them

Cannon to the left of them

Cannon in front of them

Volley`d and thunder`d ( Tennyson`s “Charge of the Light Brigade” )


METRE (Continued)

Anapaest: da-da-DUM ( represented by º º ¹ or G G ')

3 syllables: Two non-stressed followed by one stressed

Examples:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, [G G ' G G ' G G ' G G ' ]

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; [G G ' G G ' G G ' G G ' ]

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea. [G G ' G G ' G G ' G G ' ]

( Byron`s “The Destruction of Sennachrib” )

But lo the old inn, and the lights, and the fire

And the fiddler`s old tune and the shuffling of feet;( William Morris` “ The Message of the Wind”

)


METRE (Continued)

Spondee: DUM-DUM ( represented by ¹ ¹ or ' ')

2 syllables: Stressed followed by another stressedo Often used as a substitute as whole poem cannot be

written in it. It slows down the pace of line and give emphasis to words and phrases.

Examples:

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

( Shakespeare`s sonnet cxxx)

Its eyes closed, pink white eyelashes

Its trotters stuck straight out.( Ted Hughes`s “View of a Pig” )

METRE (Continued)


Pyrrhus: da-da ( represented by º º or G G )

2 syllables: non-stressed followed by another non-stressed

o Like the spondee it is also used as a substitute metre and serves to speed up the pace of a line.

Examples:

And often is his gold complexion dimmed

( Shakespeare`s sonnet XVIII )

Iamb and anapaest are called the rising rhythm as the move from non-stressed to stressed, while, trochee and dactyl are called the falling rhythm because the move from stressed to non-stressed.

PROSODY (Metre)


In accentual-syllabic verse; lines are named according to the number of accents (feet) they contain, using Greek numbers:

1 accent monometre

2 accents dimetre

3 accents trimetre

4 accents tetrametre

5 accents pentametre

6 accents hexametre, and so on…

METRE (Continued)


In naming the metre of a poem we combine the term giving the stress pattern and the number of feet per line. For example, a line written in the iambic metre and having four feet per line is called iambic tetrameter:

Had we but world enough, and time

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love`s day.

( From Marvell`s “To His Coy Mistress” )


METRE (Continued)

• Beside meter and metrical variations the variations in speed in which a poem is read is essential to rhythm. Speed is particularly influenced by:

o Pauseso Elisions & expansionso Vowel lengtho Consonant clusterso Modulation in speech

RHYTHM


Much of the effects of poetry depend on various patterns of repetition. One such repetition most people associate with poetry is the repetition of sounds.

Repetition of sounds which create extra meaning include:

o Rhyme (rime)o Alliterationo Assonanceo Onomatopoeia

SOUND PATTERNS


Rhyme: The repetition of identical or nearly identical sounds that usually occur in the last syllable or syllables of two or more lines.

o The repetition normally involve the stressed vowel sound and any subsequent sounds that follows: shakes – lakes, going – blowing.

SOUND PATTERNS


o Exact or perfect rhyme: Identical sounds in which the consonant preceding the last stressed vowel of two words is different:

night – delight, power – flower,

flying – dying, roam – home.

o Slant or off rhyme: Only the final consonants are identical; the vowel sounds are approximate:

Clear – scar, river – forever, reader – rider,

home – come, poppet – profit.

Rhyme (Continued)


o Masculine rhyme: It is a one-syllable repetition of identical sounds:

street – meet, man – ban,

galaxy – merrily, thing – spring.

o Feminine rhyme: It consists of two or more syllables. The first accented syllable of the group is the rhyming syllable and is followed by identical sounds:

straining – complaining, going – blowing, slowly – holy.

Rhyme (Continued)


o End rhyme: It occur at the end of a line, as in the following couplet:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring. (Pope, Alexander)

o Internal rhyme: It has at least one of the rhyming

syllables within the line, while the other may be at

the end, as in:The splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story;

The long light shakes across the lakes, (Tennyson)

Rhyme (Continued)


o ALLITERATION: The repetition of neighboring consonant sounds, usually at the beginning of words. (e.g., the fair breeze blew/The white foam flew, snowy summits, long light)

o It can also apply to stressed syllables within words, as in (Elfland faintly)

SOUND PATTERNS


• ASSONANCE: Repetition of identical or

similar stressed vowel sounds followed by

different consonants, as in:

(lake – fate, kill – kiss, snowy – old,).

SOUND PATTERNS


o CONSONANCE: The repetition of the same consonant sounds (usually at the end of the words) after different accented vowel sounds.

Example:

Clear – scar, river – forever

SOUND PATTERNS


• ONOMATOPOEIA: Use of words whose

sounds imitate, echo or suggest natural

sounds or their meanings. Some general

examples include: tweet, chirp, cluck,

clink, and quack etc.

SOUND PATTERNS


o Sequence of lines within a poem are often separated into sub-unit, called stanza.

o It is a group of lines in a poem that follow an established pattern in meter, rhyme, and length and number of lines.

o A stanza form is always used to some purpose, it serves a specific function in each poem.

o Well-known stanza forms stand in a certain tradition, such as: sonnet or ballade.

STANZA AND VERSE FORMS


o Some main stanza forms in English poetry are:

o Stichic verse: It is a continuous run of lines of the same length and the same meter. Mostly used in narrative verse.

o Blank verse: It is usually stichic, non-rhyming iambic pentameter. It is widely by Shakespeare for English dramatic verse, but it is also used, under the influence of Milton, for non-dramatic verse.



o Couplet: A two-line unit with end-rhyme, having any meter or line length. It`s usually a self-contained complete thought unit.

o A heroic couplet is a two line unit of iambic pentameter. It is marked with end-stopped lines, balanced syntax, and epigrammatic expression, as in:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason`s spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. (Pope)



o Tercet or triplet: It is a stanza with three lines of same rhyme (aaa) or two rhyming lines embracing a line without rhyme (axa).

o Terza rima is a variant of tercet with chain rhyme (aba bcb cdc etc.), used by Dante in his Divine Comedy. This type of rhyme is also used by Shelly in his “Ode to the West Wind”.



o Quatrain: A four-line stanza with various rhyme patters most commonly used in the English verse.

o When written in iambic pentameter and rhyming abab it is called heroic quatrain.

o A quatrain with embracing rhyme abba used by Tennyson in “In Memoriam” has derived its name from this poem.

o A quatrain with alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lens is called ballad stanza. The rhyme scheme is usually abcb or abab.



o Rhyme Royal: A seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter which rhymes ababbcc, named after King James-I of Scotland. Chaucer had also employed this stanza in “Troilus and Criseyde”.

o Ottava rima: An eight-line stanza, like the terza rima based on the Italian model, and rhyming abababcc. This stanza form is used by Byron in “Don Juan”.



o Spenserian stanza: A nine-line stanza rhyming ababbcbcc, used by Edmund Spenser in the “Faerie Queene”. The first eight lines are iambic pentameter, the last line is an alexandrine, which breaks the slight monotony of the pentameter and is often employed to emphasize a point.



o Sonnet: A lyric poem of usually fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, in the close form. Two sonnet forms have been widely used: the Italian ( or Petrarchan) sonnet and the English ( or Shakespearean) sonnet.

o The Italian sonnet is divided in an octave and a sestet. The octave rhyme abbaabba, and the sestet rhyme cdecde or cdccdc.



o The English (or Shakespearean) sonnet is composed of three quatrains and a couplet, with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

o An important variant of the English sonnet is the Spenserian sonnet which links the quatrains with rhymes: abab bcbc cdcd ee. This sonnet type is used by Edmund Spenser in his sonnet cycle “Amoretti”



• Villanelle: A French verse form with a rather intricate verse and rhyme pattern. It has five tercets rhyming aba and a final quatrain rhyming abaa. The tercet provide a kind of refrain, as the first line of the first tercet is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth, and the third line of the first tercet is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth. The first and last line of the first quatrain form the last two lines of the concluding quatrain. A famous example is Dylan Thomas`s poem “Do not go gentle into that good night”.



o Limerick: A short sometimes bawdy, humorous poem consisting of five Anapestic lines. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of a it have seven to ten syllables and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven syllables and also rhyme with each other. Edward Lear is famous for his Book of Nonsense which included the poetry form of Limericks.

o Example of Limericks

Limerick from the Book of Nonsenseby Edward Lear

There was an Old Man with a gong,Who bumped at it all day long;But they called out, 'O law!You're a horrid old bore!'So they smashed that Old Man with a gong.



o Haiku: A poetry type of Japanese origin composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. It originated in the sixteenth century and reflects on some aspect of nature and creates images.

o Example of Haiku Poetry Type

None is travellingby Basho (1644-1694)

None is travelling Here along this way but I,

This autumn evening.



Free verse ( verse Libra ): It does not use any particular pattern of stress or number of syllables per line. Though, such poems are without regular metre, rhyme or stanza form, but they are not without rhythmic effects and organization. It can be organized around syntactic units, word or sound repetitions, or the rhythm created by a line break.o Example:

It is time to explain myself– let us stand up.

What is known I strip away,

I launched all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.

The clock indicates the moment – but what does eternity indicate?

(Walt Whitman)



The form of speech artfully varied from common usage.

o Figurative language is divided into two main groups:

1) Rhetorical schemes: arrangement of individual sounds, words, and syntax.

2) Rhetorical tropes: figurative language, representing a deviation from common or main significance of a word or phrase (semantic figures) or include specific appeal to the audience ( pragmatic figures).

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


Metaphor: A figure of similarity, in which a word or phrase expresses, describes, or defines one thing as though it were another thing. It is an implicit or covert comparison that adds a new dimension of meaning to the original expression or thing.

Example:

The Bird of time has but a little way

To flutter, and the Bird is on the wing.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


Simile: A comparison of one thing to another in order to make a point about the first thing. It is an overt comparison and uses particles of comparison (as, like).

Examples:

My heart is like a singing bird

(Christina Rossetti, “A Birthday”)

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather.(Shakespeare, “The Passionate Pilgrim”)

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


Paradox: A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense. A paradox reduced to two words is called Oxymoron, as:

Seriously Joking, Living dead, eloquent silence, and inertly strong

For example:

John Donne ends his sonnet "Death, Be Not Proud" with the paradoxical statement "Death, thou shalt die."

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


Symbol: Anything that stands for something else. It may be a person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance. In literature, symbols can be cultural, contextual, or personal.

o Keats starts his ode with a real nightingale, but quickly it becomes a symbol, standing for a life of pure, unmixed joy; then before the end of the poem it becomes only a bird again.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


• Personification: A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things. Personification offers the writer a way to give the world life and motion by assigning familiar human behaviors and emotions to animals, inanimate objects, and abstract ideas. For example:

In Keats’s "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the speaker refers to the urn as an "unravished bride of quietness."

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


• Pun: A play on words that relies on a word’s having more than one meaning or sounding like another word. Shakespeare and other writers use puns extensively, for serious and comic purposes:

• In Romeo and Juliet (III.i.101), the dying Mercutio puns, "Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man."

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


Imagery: It is the "mental pictures" that readers experience within a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. It is not limited to visual imagery; it also includes auditory (sound), tactile (touch), thermal (heat and cold), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), and kinesthetic sensation (movement).

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


• Allusion: A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. It imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the work supplies an emotional or intellectual context

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE


• Apostrophe: It is Addressing an abstraction or thing, present or absent, or addressing an absent person or entity.

Examples:

(1) Frailty, thy name is woman.–William Shakespeare.

(2) Hail, Holy Light, offspring of heaven firstborn!–John Milton.

(3) God in heaven, please help me.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The essential skills that may be useful for writing about poetry and giving some ideas about how to tackle questions on poetry.

o Key words and phrases:

Not all questions will be phrased in the same way, so look carefully at the key words to help you work out what you need to write about in your answer.

WRITING ABOUT POETRY


For example: • Comment on the ideas and attitudes in the poem• How do particular words and phrases bring out the poet's ideas? • What is the effect of the poem on you and why? • What was the poet's intention in writing this poem and how do

you know? • How does the poet use words to capture sensations such as

sound, smell, sight and touch?

o You may be asked to comment on specific features of the poem such as:

• Imagery and symbolism • Form and structure (including rhythm and rhyme)

WRITING ABOUT POETRY Key words and phrases Continued


Getting to know the poem

Subject Matter: What? Where? When? What's the story of the poem?

Answering these questions is a good starting point to help you make sense of a poem, and it can usually be done fairly easily.



o Language: There are certain features of language that you can look out for in poetry and write about. Try and find examples of them in the text and think about what effect they have.

• Why did the poet use that particular feature? What was s/he trying to convey?

• The choice of adjectives (describing words). They might be simple or complex.

• Any images or symbols that convey particular ideas. • The use of any techniques such as simile, metaphor or

onomatopoeia.



o Sound: Some people find writing about sound difficult because you need to read the poem aloud to hear what it sounds like. Here are some questions that you should try and answer when you are considering the sound of a poem:

• Does the poet use rhyme or echoing sounds to bring certain words together and reinforce the meaning?

• Does the poet use repetition to emphasize certain words? • Does the poet use a definite rhythm throughout the poem,

or in part of the poem, which reinforces the meaning?



o Form: You should try and understand the form of the poem (the way it is constructed).

• Look at the number and the length of the lines and stanzas - are they regular? Irregular?

• Do the lines have a similar length or do they look random?

• Are there any very short, direct, lines?



Personal response: developing a viewpoint o Ideas and attitudes: When you've got to

know the poem, you can begin to see what ideas and attitudes are in there.

• What else is happening in the poem? • What are the feelings of the poet and/or the

speaker(s)? You have to make up your mind what the poet's intention in writing the poem was and what they wanted to say.



o Tone : Make the idea of tone simpler by thinking about it like this:

• If you were reading the poem aloud, how would you do it?

• What kind of voice would you use? • How would you want an audience to react when

they heard it? • Practice thinking about tone by reading a number

of different poems. • How does the poet want the audience to react to

each one?



• Using quotations: You may need to be able to pick out quotations from the poem that illustrate the points that you make. The selection of a quotation is one way to know if you really understand the poem and if you are able to construct an argument and have thought about your ideas. Make sure you develop your point by commenting about the quotation you've selected - how it shows what you're saying.

• Remember this process: Point - Quotation - Comment • Make a point, support it with a quotation and then

explain how the language used helps to add to the line's effectiveness.



Checklist:

How to read a poem

I. What's it about? Get to know the subject matter of the poem.

II. How does the poem work? Look at the language (words) the poet has used. Think about the sound the poem makes when you read it. Look at the form it's written in.

III. Develop your ideas about the poem. What ideas does the poem give you? What attitude does the poet have to the subject matter? What tone does the poem have - how would you read it aloud?



THE ENDBy

Rozi Khan

The Department of English

Govt. P.G. Jahanzeb College

Saidu Sharif, Swat.


Poetry

Documents

Transcript of Poetry