Introduction to Poetry - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 33
About This Presentation
Title:

Introduction to Poetry

Description:

19 She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 20 For ever wilt ... But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:72
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 34
Provided by: Anon9
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Introduction to Poetry


1
Introduction to Poetry
  • Poem by Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry

2
Introduction to Poetry definitions
  • SAMUEL JOHNSON (from Preface to Shakespeare)The
    end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry
    is to instruct by pleasing.
  • WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (from Preface to Lyrical
    Ballads) Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
    powerful feelings it takes its origin from
    emotion recollected in tranquility the emotion
    is contemplated till, by a species of reaction,
    the tranquility gradually disappears, and an
    emotion, kindred to that which was the subject of
    contemplation, is gradually produced, and does
    itself actually exist in the mind.

3
Definitions contd.
  • ROBERT FROST (The Letters of Robert Frost to
    Louis Untermeyer (1963)) A poem begins with a
    lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a
    love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward
    expression an effort to find fulfillment. A
    complete poem is one where the emotion has found
    its thought and the thought has found the words."
  • MERRIAMWEBSTER.COM Poem A composition in verse
  • Poetry 1 a metrical writing VERSE b the
    productions of a poet POEMS 2 writing that
    formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness
    of experience in language chosen and arranged to
    create a specific emotional response through
    meaning, sound, and rhythm3 a something
    likened to poetry especially in beauty of
    expression b poetic quality or aspect ltthe
    poetry of dancegt

4
Definitions contd.
  • Jonathan Culler (from Literary Theory. A Very
    Short Introduction) language that makes abundant
    use of figures of speech and language that aims
    to be powerfully persuasive.
  • Horace via Reaske (The College Writers Guide to
    the Study of Literature) Horace, who was
    concerned with the complexities of aesthetic
    experience, compared poetry to pictures and
    suggested that both can be superficially
    arresting or densely compact.

5
What is poetry? -1
  • Poetry is one of the oldest literatures - oral
    poetry existed before written literature
  • The Greek root of the word poetry is poësis,
    meaning a making and a poet is a maker
    (English word wright (a maker, a craftsperson) as
    used in playwright).
  • The word poetry is so venerable that the study of
    the principles of literature, as well as the
    study of principles of poetry, is still called
    poetics by many in the field of English

6
What is poetry? -2
  • Poetry is incredibly diverse cant discuss all
    the forms, styles, methods, or principles.
  • Poetry rewards a lot of reading and thinking. For
    all writers, of all forms, poetry study teaches
    the possibilities of words (their music, rhythm,
    sound) and the possibilities of language (the
    intensity and compression of language, the beauty
    and ugliness). Words stand bare in poetry.
  • Poetry is nothing to be frightened of - we need
    to learn ways of reading and understanding it.
    Ex. reading across the line.

7
How do you recognize a poem?
  • The vast majority of poetry announces itself as
    poetry by its
  • Length - (relatively short)
  • Visual impression - irregular lines, often
    divided in stanzas or sections, capitalized first
    letter of each line.
  • Concentrated, intense language that makes some
    deliberate sound effects which can involve
    rhythm, rhyme, or other sounds.
  • Concentrated language effects that seem based on
    the word and the line for expression (rather than
    the sentence or the paragraph)
  • Meaning making that often depends on metaphor,
    symbol, association, surprise, strong description
    - the reader must take a closer/deeper look.

8
Recognizing a poem - buts
  • Avant garde artists who deliberately question or
    have questioned the way poetry works.
  • The level of language ranges from slang to the
    most formal standard English, the subjects
    include the forbidden, the marginal, the avant
    garde, the personal, the traditional.
  • Poets, like all artists, have different agendas,
    just like fiction and drama writers, and their
    form, content and conscious and unconscious
    agendas are present and reflect each other.

9
Formal poetry Form and quasi-form
  • Formal poems follow a fairly strict formula of
    "versification" - regular rhyme, meter, rhythm
    and/or division into stanzas.
  • Formal poetry may be the most ancient of all
    literature - in oral cultures form is an aid to
    memory it is now accepted that Homer's Iliad
    and Odyssey were Greek oral forms with repeating
    patterns that aided the teller of the tale.
  • Some poets don't write in a strict form, but use
    some formal devices, such as same-line stanzas,
    or occasional regular rhyme or rhythm to help
    organize the look and content of their poetry.
    We'll call this loose, arbitrary form Quasi-Form.

10
Formal poetry free and anti-form
  • Most contemporary poets find forms artificial and
    write in irregular lines, irregular stanzas, with
    no regular repeating rhythm or rhyme. Instead,
    their language is sculpted to follow the poet's
    own taste. We'll refer to these poems as open
    form or free form (also called vers libre ).
  • Finally, some poets write in ways that challenge
    and confuse the whole idea of form as necessary
    to poetry. They may do this through parody or
    ridicule of a form, for example. We'll call this
    use of form Anti-Form.

11
l(aleaffalls)oneliness
12
Gwendolyn Brooks 1917-2000
13
We real cool. We Left school. We 
Lurk late. We Strike straight. We 
Sing sin. We Thin gin. We 
Jazz June. We Die soon.
14
Subject/theme of a poem
  • Love poem
  • Political poem
  • Metaphysical poem (philosophical)
  • Confessional Poem - Poem of self
    exploration/revelation
  • Poem reflecting on death or other solemn themes
    (Elegy)
  • Poem to praise a wedding (Epithalamion)
  • Poem to impart wisdom, learning and aid memory
    (Proverb)
  • Poems that are discovered in everyday life (found
    poetry)
  • Puns - poems that depend on word play, humor,
    cleverness
  • Epigram (short, witty, concise saying)

15
Langston Hughes Epigram
  • EPIGRAM
  • Oh, God of dust and rainbows, help us see
  • That without dust the rainbow would not be.

16
Poetic Terms -1
  • Word - the intensity of words, their strength,
    music
  • Rhyme Masculine, Feminine, Compound, Off/near,
    End, Internal
  • Rhyme scheme, i.e. aa/bb/cc
  • Neologism - making new words or combining words
    in new forms
  • Assonance - similarities in vowel sounds (seat
    and meal)
  • Consonance similarities in consonant sounds
    (loft, lift and left)
  • Alliteration - combinations of words based on
    their similarities in consonant sounds (like
    lilacs lying in lakes)

17
Poetic terms -2
  • Compression - the use of compact language, often
    removing unnecessary words
  • Punctuation - including lack of, spaces (pauses),
    too much
  • Image - an important structural unit, like the
    scene
  • Description - the way images are made
  • Metaphor/Symbol/Figure - also a basic structural,
    organizing unit of a poem
  • Internal Consistency
  • Ending - one of the hardest things to accomplish
    in a poem - where to end?

18
Line the sentence of a poem
  • Line the sentences in poetry can be stretched,
    cut, interrupted, fragmented
  • End-stopped A line that expresses a complete
    thought
  • Enjambment run on lines, run-on verse
  • Metrical or prosodic structure grouping of
    syllables that comprise a line into metrical feet
    of various kinds. Iamb, binary feet with stress
    of second syllable, Trochee, binary feet with
    stress on initial syllable
  • Line breaks - where you decide to cut the line,
    on what word
  • Caesura break in meaning or rhetorical pause in
    the middle of a line

19
Stanza the paragraph of a poem
  • Stanza - consists of a set of lines
  • One-line Couplet
  • Tercet or Triplet Quatrain
  • Quintet or Cinquain Sestet, sextet, sextain
  • Septet Octave (Octet)
  • Nine, Ten line stanza
  • Sonnet (also called a quatorzain or fouteneer)

20
POETIC GENRES ODE
  • a formal celebration of a special event and thus
    is usually a fairly public and continuous form of
    expression.
  • A long lyric on a serious theme
  • Example Ode on a Grecian Urn / John Keats

21
John Keats (1795-1821)Ode on a Grecian Urn
  •               1Thou still unravish'd bride of
    quietness,
  •               2     Thou foster-child of silence
    and slow time,
  •               3Sylvan historian, who canst thus
    express
  •               4     A flowery tale more sweetly
    than our rhyme
  •               5What leaf-fring'd legend haunts
    about thy shape
  •               6     Of deities or mortals, or of
    both,
  •               7          In Tempe or the dales of
    Arcady?
  •               8     What men or gods are these?
    What maidens loth?
  •               9What mad pursuit? What struggle to
    escape?
  •             10          What pipes and timbrels?
    What wild ecstasy?

22
  •             11Heard melodies are sweet, but those
    unheard
  •             12     Are sweeter therefore, ye
    soft pipes, play on
  •             13Not to the sensual ear, but, more
    endear'd,
  •             14     Pipe to the spirit ditties of
    no tone
  •             15Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou
    canst not leave
  •             16     Thy song, nor ever can those
    trees be bare
  •             17          Bold Lover, never, never
    canst thou kiss,
  •             18Though winning near the goal yet,
    do not grieve
  •             19     She cannot fade, though thou
    hast not thy bliss,
  •             20          For ever wilt thou love,
    and she be fair!

23
  • 21Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot
    shed
  •             22      Your leaves, nor ever bid the
    Spring adieu
  •             23And, happy melodist, unwearied,
  •             24      For ever piping songs for
    ever new
  •             25More happy love! more happy, happy
    love!
  •             26      For ever warm and still to be
    enjoy'd,
  •             27           For ever panting, and
    for ever young
  •             28All breathing human passion far
    above,
  •             29      That leaves a heart
    high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
  •             30           A burning forehead, and
    a parching tongue.

24
  • 31Who are these coming to the
    sacrifice?
  •             32      To what green altar, O
    mysterious priest,
  •             33Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at
    the skies,
  •             34      And all her silken flanks
    with garlands drest?
  •             35What little town by river or sea
    shore,
  •             36      Or mountain-built with
    peaceful citadel,
  •             37           Is emptied of this folk,
    this pious morn?
  •             38And, little town, thy streets for
    evermore
  •             39      Will silent be and not a
    soul to tell
  •             40           Why thou art desolate,
    can e'er return.

25
EPIC
  • Is applied to a work that meets the following
    criteria it is a long narrative poem on a great
    and serious subject, elevated in style, and
    centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on
    whose actions depend the faith of a tribe, a
    nation, or the human race.
  • Example Beowulf
  • Example Paradise Lost / John Milton

26
The Sonnet
  • Comes from the Italian word sonetto little song
    and was in use during the Renaissance (14th
    16th centuries).
  • It is a lyric poem containing 14 lines in iambic
    pentametre with a set rhyme scheme abba abba cde
    cde 5 rhymes (structure set by Guittone
    dArezzo).
  • It is divided into an OCTAVE/OCTET (8 line
    stanza) which states or develops the proposition
    and a SESTET (6 line stanza) which contains the
    solution or resolution. There are also minor
    breaks between the two quatrains of the octet and
    the two tercets of the sestet.
  • Traditional subjects include love and faith

27
Kinds of sonnets
  • The Petrarchan (Petrarch, Laura poems, 1304-74)
    or Miltonic sonnet (where the break can occur in
    the 8th or 9th line)
  • The English or Shakespearean (1564-1616) sonnet
    the form was introduced to England by Sir Thomas
    Wyatt (1503-42) in the 16th century and came to
    maturity with Shakespeare who wrote 154 sonnets.
    Sonnets 1-126 addressed to Mr. W.H. (William
    Herbert, Earl of Pembroke) and Sonnet (127-154)
    addressed to the Dark Lady. The rhyme scheme used
    is abab cdcd efef gg (7 rhymes). The epigrammatic
    force of the last couplet is very strong sums
    up the message or gives it a twist
  • The Spenserian sonnet (1552-99, Amoretti to his
    fiancee Elizabeth Boyle) has an interlocking
    rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee (5 rhymes of the
    Italian sonnet are rearranged.)

28
Shakespeares Sonnet XVIII
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art
more lovely and more temperateRough winds do
shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease
hath all too short a dateSometime 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
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.
29
ELEGY
  • A poem in which the speaker either mourns for
    someone who has died or contemplates the tragic
    importance of death. It expresses the poets
    grief over somebody or something that has been
    lost.
  • A formal and sustained poem of lament for the
    death of a particular person.
  • Example Elegy for a Dead Soldier / Karl Shapiro
    , Antipater of Sidon, the Destruction of Corinth.

30
BALLAD
  • A brief and usually sad stories told in song, the
    story is told in compact dramatic scenes, with
    simple dialogue and concrete imagery, and often a
    refrain.
  • Example Sir Patrick Spence , Ballad of
    Birmingham / Dudley Randall, Lord Randall

31
Lord Randall
  • "O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son?And
    where ha you been, my handsome young man?""I ha
    been at the greenwood mother, mak my bed
    soon,For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad
    lie down."
  • "An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son?And
    wha met ye there, my handsome young man?""O I
    met wi my true-love mother, mak my bed soon,For
    I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down."
  • "And what did she give you, Lord Randal, My
    son?And wha did she give you, my handsome young
    man?""Eels fried in a pan mother, mak my bed
    soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie
    down."

32
  • "And what gat your leavins, Lord Randal my
    son?And wha gat your leavins, my handsome young
    man?""My hawks and my hounds mother, mak my bed
    soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fein wad lie
    down."
  • "And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son?And
    what becam of them, my handsome young man?"They
    stretched their legs out and died mother mak my
    bed soon,For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad
    lie down."
  • "O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my
    son!I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young
    man!""O yes, I am poisoned mother, mak my bed
    soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and fain wad lie
    down."

33
  • "What d'ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my
    son?What d'ye leave to your mother, my handsome
    young man?""Four and twenty milk kye mother,
    mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and I
    fain wad lie down."
  • "What d'ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my
    son?What d'ye leave to your sister, my handsome
    young man?""My gold and my silver mother mak my
    bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, an I fain
    wad lie down."
  • "What d'ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my
    son?What d'ye leave to your brother, my handsome
    young man?""My houses and my lands mother, mak
    my bed soon,For I'm sick at the heart, and I
    fain wad lie down."
  • "What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal,
    my son?What d'ye leave to your true-love, my
    handsome young man?""I leave her hell and fire
    mother mak my bed soon,For I'm sick at the
    heart, and I fain wad lie down."
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com