Poetry

1. Poetry Type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery to appeal to the reader’s emotions and imagination.

2. Poetry Elements • Simile: Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things by using a connective word such as like, as, than, or resembles

3. Example of a Simile: • The Roman Road runs straight and bare • As the pale parting-line in hair • Thomas Hardy from “The Roman Road” • What is compared to what?

4. Metaphors • A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without using a connective word such as like, as, than, or resembles

5. Direct Metaphor • “I am soft sift/ In an hourglass” • Directly compares ‘I’ to ‘sift’ with out using like or as.

6. Implied Metaphor • “O Captian! My captain! Our fearful trip is done,/The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won.” • The images imply a comparison between a captain commanding his ship and a president leading his country (in this case, the president was Lincoln).

7. Extended Metaphor • A metaphor developed over several lines or throughout an entire poem. • Fireworks

8. “Fireworks” by Amy Lowell • Which stanza starts the extended metaphor? • What is Lowell comparing? • What does most of the poem’s imagery come from? (urban scenes, colors and shapes, natural landscapes?) • If the story in the poem were written in prose, how would it change? Explain.

9. Mixed Metaphor • The inconsistent combination of two or more metaphors. • They are usually unintentional and often humorous: • Like most literary devices, metaphors bomb when used incorrectly, confusing the reader or drawing attention to the writer's lack of skill. For instance, in the statement, "Our keyboard will teach your mind's eye to play by ear," the speaker has mixed two metaphors, leading to nonsense. A "mind's eye" can't play anything, and certainly not "by ear." Learn how to use metaphors correctly here.

10. Personification • A type of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human. • The trees are undressing, and fling in many places---On the gray road, the roof, the window sill---Their radiant robes and ribbons an yellow laces. --Thomas Hardy from “Last Week in October”

11. Personification

12. Use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning. Buzz, splash, bark Onomatopoeia

13. Alliteration • Repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. • Although alliteration most often consists of sounds that begin words, it may also involve sounds that occur within words. • Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot. -Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”

14. Symbolism • Symbol: Person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself. • Many symbols have become so widely recognized that they are public symbols: In Western cultures, for example, most people recognize the heart as a symbol of love and the snake as a symbol of evil.

15. O Rose, though art sick!The invisible worm, That flies in the night,In the howling storm,Has found out they bedOf crimson joy:And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy. -William Blake What does the rose and the worm symbolize? Symbolism

16. Imagery • Language that appeals to the senses • Imagery is used in all types of writing but is especially important in poetry. Most images are visual-that is, they create in the reader’s mind pictures that appeal to the sense of sight.

17. Imagery • Imagery may also appeal to the senses of hearing, smell, touch, and taste, as in the following lines about winter. • (Saw in line 2 is a wise saying. Crabs in line 5 are crab apples. Keel is to cool by stirring.)

18. Imagery • When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl-Tu whit,Tu-who, a merry note,While greasy Joan doth keel the pot, -William Shakespeare fromLove’s Labor’s Lost

19. Imagery • “A Super Market in California” • Allen Ginsberg • What are some of the images that pop out to you in this poem?

20. Hyperbole • Figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion or create a comic effect. • Writers often use hyperbole, also called overstatement, to intensify a description or to emphasize the essential nature of something.

21. Hyperbole

22. Summertime is Here My tongue is a piece of sandpaperI’m dissolving into a puddle.I want to dive into a snowdriftThough I’m sure that would befuddleOpen me up, my organs are cookedI think I’m now well done.You can fry an egg upon my browAs I melt away in the sun! Poetry by Sharon Hendricks Hyperbole

23. Idiom • Expression peculiar to a particular language that means something different from the literal meaning of the words. • “It’s raining cats and dogs.” • “We heard it straight from the horses mouth.” • “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

24. Idioms for Idiots  'You can't cry over spilled milk! 'my mother always said.'Life's not a piece of cake! 'she hammered in my head.'That's the way it goes, ' that's the way the cookie crumbles'My mother saved her idiomsfor all my idiotic troubles. John Randal Idiom

25. Play on the multiple meanings of a word or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings. Many jokes and riddles are based on puns. (“When is a doctor most annoyed?” “When he runs out of patients.” Pun

26. Reference to a statement, a person, a place, an event, or a thing that is known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics, sports, science, or the arts. To what is this picture alluding? Allusion

27. Theme • The central idea or insight about human life revealed by a work of literature. • A theme is not the same as a work’s subject, which can usually be expressed in word or two: old age, ambition, love. The theme is the revelation the writer wishes us to discover about that subject.

28. Theme • There is no single correct way to express a theme, and sometimes a work has several themes. • Many have ambiguous themes; that is, they have no clear single meaning but are open to a variety of interpretations, even opposing ones.

29. Theme • Some themes are so commonly found in the literature of all cultures and all ages that they are called universal themes. • “Heroes must undergo trials and endure losses before they can claim their rightful kingdom.” • “Arrogance and pride can bring destruction.” • “When the rule of law is broken, chaos and anarchy will result.” • “Love will endure and triumph over evil.”

30. Theme • Although a few stories, poems, and plays have themes that are stated directly, most themes are implied.

31. Theme • The reader must piece together all the clues the writer has provided to arrive at a discovery of the work’s total meaning. • Two of the most important clues to consider are: • The way the main character has changed • And the way the conflict has been resolved.

32. “Holy Thursday” William Blake Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery Fed with cold and usurious hand?Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine. And their fields are bleak & bare. And their ways are fill'd with thorns. It is eternal winter there. For where-e’er the sun does shine, And where-e’er the rain does fall:Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall. Theme: Good conquers evil

33. I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed– I, too, am America. Theme: Coming of Age

34. Nothing Gold Can Stayby Robert FrostNature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Theme: Destruction of Beauty

35. Mood • A story or poem’s atmosphere or the feeling it evokes. • Mood is often created by the story or poem’s setting.

36. Tone • The attitude a writer takes toward a subject, a character, or the reader. • Tone is conveyed through the writer’s choice of words and details. • What is the tone of the following poem. How can you tell? “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes

37. Repeating of lines or words! Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shakeTo ask if there is some mistake.The only other sound's the sweepOf easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep. Repetition

38. Slant Rhyme • Words that sound similar but do not rhyme exactly. • Let the boy try along this bayonet bladeHow cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash;And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.-Wilfred Owen, from “Arms and the Boy.

39. Rhythm • Musical quality in language, produced by repetition. • Rhythm occurs naturally in all forms of spoken and written language. Poems written in meter create rhythm by a strict pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. • Writers can also create rhythm by repeating grammatical structures, by using pauses, by varying line lengths, and by balancing long and short words or phrases.

40. Rhythm and meter • Meter: A generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. • Pg. 583 and 1113 in Elements of Literature • Iambic Pentameter

41. Blank Verse • Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter • Blank verse is the most important metrical form in English dramatic and epic poetry and the major verse line in Shakespeare’s plays. • One reason blank verse has been popular, even with some modern poets, is that it combines the naturalness of unrhymed verse with the structure of metrical verse.

42. Blank Verse • Excerpt from Macbethby William Shakespeare • Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

43. Types of Poetry

44. Lyrical Poetry • Poetry that expresses a speaker’s emotions or thoughts and does not tell a story. • The term lyric comes from ancient Greece, where such poems were recited to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument called a lyre.

45. Most lyric poems are short, and they imply, rather than state directly, a single strong emotion. Lyric Poetry

46. Lyric Poetry • Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) • 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; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st 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.

47. Fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter. Sonnets

48. Italian/Petrarchan sonnet • Named after the fourteenth-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch • Has two parts: • An 8 line octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba • And a 6 line sestet with the rhyme scheme cdecde

49. Sonnets • Octave: Presents a problem, proposes a question, or expresses an idea. • Sestet: resolves, answers, or drives home.

50. Sonnets: Italian • When I consider how my light is spent (a) Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b) And that one talent which is death to hide, (b) Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a)To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a) My true account, lest he returning chide; (b) "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b) I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c) Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d) Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e)Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c) And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d) They also serve who only stand and wait." (e) • John Milton “On His Blindness”