Intro to Poetry

1. Intro to Poetry Lyric and Narrative

2. What is Iambic Pentameter? • One type of meter (or rhythm) • Iamb (unstressed syllable + stressed syllable) • Examples: between, mature, instead • Pentameter (penta = five, meter = repeated) • So, Iambic + Pentameter = • Unstressed Syllable + Stressed Syllable x 5

3. What does Iambic Pentameter Sound Like? • da DUM / da DUM / da DUM / da DUM / da DUM • Practice: • My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; • Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; • Now on your own: • Complete the practice on the worksheet • Write your own four lines of Iambic Pentameter Poetry

4. What I Need to Understand about Poetry • Two Types: • Lyric Poetry • Narrative Poetry

5. Lyric Poetry • Short poem with a single speaker • Expresses personal thoughts and feelings • Does NOT tell the entire story • Characteristics: • Sense of rhythm and melody • Imaginative language • Exploration of a single thought or feeling • Ex. Ode, Haiku, Cinquain, Sonnet

6. Shakespearean Sonnet • A sonnet is a fourteen-line stanza form consisting of iambic pentameter lines. The two major sonnet forms are the Italian (Petrarchan) and the English (Shakepsearean). • The English sonnet is a fourteen-line stanza consisting of three quatrains and a couplet (three sets of four and one set of two lines). Notice how the poet’s thoughts are organized around these four sets of lines. • The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg

7. To Do: • Mark off the Stanzas (three quatrains, one couplet) • Circle the words that show the rhyme scheme • Find three examples of imagery • Find a metaphor • What is the emotion of this sonnet? My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

8. 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 dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime 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 wand’rest 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. What is the rhyme scheme of this poem? Summarize the theme of the poem. How many syllables are in each line? Why might the last two lines be indented? Draw lines between the lines to show where you would create stanzas if you were the poet. Copy down an excellent example of alliteration. What metaphor is in this poem? What two things are being compared? Where is an example of personification? What is “this” in the last line? How long will it last?

9. Narrative Poetry • Longer poem • Based in traditions of storytelling and folk tales. • DOES tell the entire story (must have a PLOT) • Characteristics: • Often has a narrator • Sense of rhythm, imagery • Follows a story arc • Ex. Epic, Ballad