ELEMENTS OF POETRY meter, stanzas, form, rhyme, voice, imagery, figurative language, symbolism, sound, rhythm, theme, diction

1. METER- is the rhythmic pattern created in a line of verse. Four basic kinds of meter: Accentual (strong-stress) meter: number of stressed syllables in a line fixed; number of total syllables- not fixed. (e.g. Beowulf) Syllabic meter: number of total syllables- fixed; number of stressed syllables not fixed. Accentual-syllabic meter: Both the number of stressed syllables and the number of total syllables is fixed. Quantitative meter: The duration of sound of each syllable, rather than its stress, determines the meter. The Foot The foot is the basic rhythmic unit into which a line of verse can be divided. When reciting verse, there usually is a slight pause between feet. When this pause is especially pronounced, it is called a caesura. The process of analyzing the number and type of feet in a line is called scansion. Common types of feet Iamb: An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: to day Trochee: A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable: car ry Dactyl: A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables: diff icult Anapest: Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable: it istime Spondee: Two successive syllables with strong stresses: stop, thief Pyrrhic: Two successive syllables with light stresses: up to Names of Meter [by number] Monometer: One foot Dimeter: Two feet Trimeter: Three feet Tetrameter: Four feet Pentameter: Five feet Hexameter: Six feet Heptameter: Seven feet Octameter: Eight feet

2. STANZAS: are series of lines grouped together and separated by an empty line from other stanzas. They are the equivalent of a paragraph in an essay. Identifying stanza through number of lines couplet (2 lines); tercet (3 lines); quatrain (4 lines); cinquain (5 lines); sestet (6 lines) Rhyme Scheme:

Haiku: It has an unrhymed verse form having three lines (a tercet) and usually 5,7,5 syllables, respectively. Limerick: It has a very structured poem, usually humorous & composed of five lines (a cinquain), in an aabba rhyming pattern; beat must be anapestic (weak, weak, strong) with 3 feet in lines 1, 2, & 5 and 2 feet in lines 3 & 4. Sonnet: It is a lyric poem (see below) consisting of 14 lines. In English, generally the two basic kinds of sonnets are the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet and the Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet. The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet is named after Petrarch, an Italian Renaissance poet. The Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). The Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines each) and a concluding couplet (two lines). The Petrarchan sonnet tends to divide the thought into two parts (argument and conclusion); the Shakespearean, into four. 3. FORM: refers to various sets of "rules" followed by poems of certain types. Three most common types of poems according to form: a. Lyric Poetry: It is any poem with one speaker (not necessarily the poet) who expresses strong thoughts and feelings. Most poems, especially modern ones, are lyric poems. b. Narrative Poem: It is a poem that tells a story; its structure resembles the plot line of a story [i.e. the introduction of conflict and characters, rising action, climax and the denouement]. c. Descriptive Poem: It is a poem that describes the world that surrounds the speaker. It uses elaborate imagery and adjectives. While emotional, it is more "outward-focused" than lyric poetry, which is more personal and introspective. Subtypes of the three styles above: Elegy: It is a lyric poem that mourns the dead. It has no set metric or stanzaic pattern, but it usually begins by reminiscing about the dead person, then laments the reason for the death, and then resolves the grief by concluding that death leads to immortality. It often uses "apostrophe" as a literary technique. Sonnet: The sonnet is a lyric poem. Ballad: It is a narrative poem that has a musical rhythm and can be sung. Epic: It is a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero. Ode: It is usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern.

4. RHYME is the repetition of similar sounds. In poetry, the most common kind of rhyme is the end rhyme, which occurs at the end of two or more lines. It is usually identified with lower case letters, and a new letter is used to identify each new end sound. Take a look at the rhyme scheme for the following poem : I saw a fairy in the wood, He was dressed all in green. He drew his sword while I just stood, And realized I'd been seen.

The rhyme scheme of the poem is abab. Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line, as in these lines from Coleridge, "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" or "Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white" ("The Ancient Mariner"). Remember that most modern poems do not have rhyme. 5. VOICE Speaker: By convention we refer to the speaking persona as "the speaker" in poetry where specific characters are not indicated (comparable to "the narrator" in fiction). Always refer to the speaking persona in lyric poetry as "the speaker." Tone: As a literary term, tone refers to the writer's attitude towards the subject of a literary work as indicated in the work itself. One way to think about tone in poetry is to consider the speaker's literal "tone of voice": just as with tone of voice, a poem's tone may indicate an attitude of joy, sadness, solemnity, silliness, frustration, anger, puzzlement, etc. Irony: The word "irony" has a number of different meanings, but in the most general terms irony involves a marked difference between what one says or expects and what is actually meant or what actually happens. More precisely, verbal irony occurs when there is an appreciable difference between what is said and what is actually meant, often where what is meant is the opposite of what is said. For example, a person who dreads going to the dentist might say with great irony, "I just love having someone put needles and small power tools in my mouth. I wish I could get cavities filled every month." The tone of a poem is ironic if there is some apparent discrepancy between the literal substance of the speaker's words and the attitude actually conveyed. 6. IMAGERY: is the use of words to convey vivid, concrete sensory experiences. The word "image" suggests most obviously a visual image, a picture, but imagery also includes vivid sensory experiences of smell, sound, touch, and taste as well. Imagery goes beyond mere description to communicate an experience or feeling so vividly that it encourages the creation of images in the mind of the reader and readers experiences for themselves the specific sensations that the poet intends. Visual imagery: visual descriptions so vivid they seem to come to life in the reader's mind's when they are read, as in the description of a very old fish in Elizabeth Bishop's poem titled "The Fish": Here and there his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wall-paper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wall-paper: shapes like full-blown roses strained and lost through age.

He was speckled with barnacles, fine rosettes of lime, and infested with tiny white sea-lice, and underneath two or three rags of green weed hung down. (9-21) Auditory imagery: descriptions of sound so vivid the reader seems almost to hear them while reading the poem. For example, Alexander Pope contrasts the gentle sounds of a whispering wind and a softrunning stream with the harsher sound of waves crashing on the shore in "Sound and Sense": The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently bows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flow; But when the loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. Images of smell (olfactory imagery): descriptions of smells so vivid they seem almost to stimulate the reader's own sense of smell while reading, as in the poem, "Root Cellar," by Theodore Roethke: And what a congress of stinks! Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks. Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. (5-11) Tactile or "physical" imagery: descriptions conveying a strong, vivid sense of touch or physical sensation that the reader can almost feel himself or herself while reading, as in Robert Frost's description of standing on a ladder in "After Apple Picking": "My instep arch not only keeps the ache, / It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. / I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend" (21-23). Or in the sensation of touch (and possibly taste) in the fourth stanza of Helen Chasin's poem, "The Word Plum": The word plum is delicious pout and push, luxury of self-love, and savoring murmur full in the mouth and falling like fruit taut skin pierced, bitten, provoked into juice, and tart flesh. (1-8). 7. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE is wording that makes explicit comparisons between unlike things using figures of speech such as metaphors and similes.

Simile: direct comparison between two unlike things usually delivered with the word "like," "as," or "so." A simile so common as to be a clich indicates great haste with the expression "like a bat out of hell": When Marcia's parents came home early, Bill went flying out the back door like a bat out of hell. Metaphor: a figurative analogy or comparison between two things where the comparison is indicated directly, without the "like" or "as" customary in similes. Metaphors suggest literally that one thing is something else which it clearly is not in reality. In the sentence, "Marcia's father had a cow when he saw Bill leaping over the backyard fence," the expression "had a cow" is a metaphorical expression meaning "got very upset." In all probability, Marcia's father is not capable of giving birth to a calf, much less a full-grown cow! Hyperbole: an extreme exaggeration, such as in the expression "from here clear into the next county" in the previous example, or the expression "after hell freezes over" in the sentence, "Bill, you'll be welcome in my house again about ten minutes after hell freezes over!" Personification: a figurative comparison endowing inanimate things with human qualities. Example: The stars above wept and the pale moon sighed as Bill trudged across the Andersons' yard with the cries of Marcia's father echoing through the night. Stars are personified as weeping here, and the moon is said to sigh, things humans can do but not inanimate bodies in the heavens. Synecdoche is a form of metaphor, which in mentioning an important (and attached) part signifies the whole (e.g. "hands" for labour). Metonymy is similar to synecdoche; it's a form of metaphor allowing an object closely associated (butunattached) with a object or situation to stand for the thing itself (e.g. the crown or throne for a king or the bench for the judicial system). Symbol is like a simile or metaphor with the first term left out. "My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile. If, through persistent identification of the rose with the beloved woman, we may come to associate the rose with her and her particular virtues. At this point, the rose would become a symbol. Allegory can be defined as a one to one correspondence between a series of abstract ideas and a series of images or pictures presented in the form of a story or a narrative. For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is an extended allegory that represents the Russian Revolution through a fable of a farm and its rebellious animals. Irony takes many forms. Most basically, irony is a figure of speech in which actual intent is expressed through words that carry the opposite meaning.
o o o o

Paradox: usually a literal contradiction of terms or situations Situational Irony: an unmailed letter Dramatic Irony: audience has more information or greater perspective than the characters Verbal Irony: saying one thing but meaning another Overstatement (hyperbole)

Understatement (meiosis) Sarcasm

Irony may be a positive or negative force. It is most valuable as a mode of perception that assists the poet to see around and behind opposed attitudes, and to see the often conflicting interpretations that come from our examination of life. 8. SYMBOLISM: symbols are objects, places, beings, or actions that operate on two separate levels of meaning. Not to be confused with metaphors (expressions making figurative comparisons between unlike things for the purpose of describing one of them with greater precision), symbols are objects, places, beings, or actions that operate on two separate levels of meaning. A symbol operates on one level as the thing described literally, but it also operates on a different, higher plane of meaning in what it suggests, represents, or "stands for." An American flag is a common symbol: on the literal level the U.S. flag is a rectangular cloth covered with thirteen red and white stripes and fifty white stars on a blue background in one upper corner. The thirteen stripes symbolize the thirteen original colonies, and the fifty stars represent the fifty states making up the present-day United States of America. Beyond the symbolism contained within the design of the flag, however, the flag as a whole has symbolic meanings of liberty, equality, democracy, patriotism, and more. For American soldiers serving in foreign countries the flag no doubt symbolizes home. 9. SOUND: the vocal rhythms which we experience simply by using our own speaking voice. Alliteration is the repetition especially of consonant sounds in words occurring in close proximity. Alliteration occurs most obviously in the stanza from "The Raven" above in the repetition of "s" sounds in "books surcease of sorrowsorrow for the lost Lenore," and also of the "r" and "l" sounds in "rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore / Nameless here for evermore" (10, 11-12). Assonance involves the repetition of similar vowel sounds in syllables ending with different consonant sounds, as in "roof," "tooth," and "shoot."Consonance is the repetition of final consonant sounds with differing preceding vowel sounds: "peel," "pale," and "pole," e.g. Onomatopoeia is where the sounds of words suggest their meaning, such as in the words "buzz," "crackle," and "sizzle." Euphony is where the words sound pleasant and harmonious, as in the second line of Shakespeare's sonnet, "[Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?]": "Thou art more lovely and more temperate." Cacophony is the opposite, where the sound is harsher and more discordant, as in these lines from Sharon Olds's "Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941": [B]ut most lay like corpses, their coverings coming undone, naked calves

hard as corded wood spilling from under a cloak. (12-15) 10. RHYTHM: flow of stressed and unstressed syllables to create oral patterns. Meter: The arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables into repeating patterns within lines of poetry establish a poem's meter: iambic pentameter, for instance, is a common meter indicating five feet (units made up of unstressed and stressed syllables) per line: "The rain is scarce this year in Tulsa town," e.g. Caesura is a a strong pause occurring in the middle of a line of verse. Note the caesura in the third line below, from W. B. Yeats's "Cold Heaven": And I took all the blame out of all sense and reason, Until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, Riddled with light. Ah! when the ghost begins to quicken, Confusion of the death-bed over, is it sent Out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken By the injustice of the skies for punishment? (7-12) Enjambment is where the rhythm rushes the reader from the end of one line to the beginning of the next without pause, as we see in the last three lines of the Yeats passage above: we move rapidly from "sent" at the end of line 10 to the "out" beginning line 11, and from the "stricken" ending line 11 to the "by" beginning line 12. 11. THEME: talks about the central idea, the thought behind what the poet wants to convey. A theme can be anything from a description about a person or thing, a thought or even a story. In short a theme stands for whatever the poem is about. 12. DICTION refers to the poets choice of words in a poem. Denotative diction refers to a poets use of dictionary definitions of words. Connotative diction refers to a poets use of words that have more personal or suggestive meanings.

FORMS (of poetry): HAIKU BALLAD LIMERICK s FREE VERSE TYPES (of poetry): NARRATIVE LYRIC/DESCRIPTIVE HUMOROUS PARODY