INTRODUCTION TO POETRY AND THE LITERALLY

DEVICESPRESENTED BY J.T MOTHIBELI

WHAT IS POETRY

Poetry is a literary form that combines the precise meanings of words with their emotional associations, sounds, and rhythms in order to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. It can tell a story, express feelings and thoughts, or describe things.

Furthermore poetry is a genre that is very different from prose and drama.

Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"

CHARECTARISTICS OF A POEM

The ‘paragraph’ in a poem is called a stanza or a verse. Poetry does not necessarily have to have ordered/regular standards.

Poetry is evocative. It typically evokes in the reader an intense emotion: joy, sorrow, anger and love

Predominant use of imagery which appeals to the senses - of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. You might be interested in the terminology of the different imagery. They are as follows:

Visual imagery – sense of sight

e.g. It was as strange as an ocean without water

CHACRACTARISTICS CONTI…..

Poems contain figurative language (e.g. simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, etc.)

Poems may include rhythm (the regular recurrence of stressed and unstressed beats)

Poems may contain rhyme Poems contain sound

devices (e.g. assonance, alliteration, consonance to support the content of a poem

FORMS OF POETRY

The term poetic form indicates the way that a poem is structured by recurrent patterns of rhythms and words.

We must look at stanzas (meter, line length and rhyme) and verse (blank or free

Forms of poetry conti…

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic

pentameter (5 feet/line)

Blank means that the poetry is not rhymed. Iambic pentameter refers to the fact that each line contains five iambs, or metrical feet, consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Free Verse : Also called open

form verse Yet it still keeps

line divisions deliberate which separates it from prose.

Forms of poetry conti.. (Iambic Pentameter)

Iambic Pentameter has :

Iambic Pentameter hasThe rhythm in each line sounds like: ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM

Forms of poetry conti..(Couplet)

A couplet has a pair of rhymed lines of the same length and meter.

It can also embody rhymed pairs of lines in Iambic Pentameter are termed heroic couplets.

Forms of poetry conti…(Tercet (Triplet)

Is a group of three lines, usually sharing the same rhyme.

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows,

The liquefaction of her clothes.

(“Upon Julia’s Clothes” by Robert Herrick)

The line length may be the same or it may vary

Forms of poetry conti..(Quatrain)

Consists of four lines and is the most common stanza form in English poetry.

May use a variety of meter and rhyme schemes. The most frequent rhyme scheme is that in which the second and forth line rhyme (abcb)

http://tinyurl.com/6o7tvhw

Forms of poetry conti..(Refrain/Sonnet)

Is a word, a phrase, or a group of lines repeated at intervals in a poem.

It is a common feature of folk ballads and of Elizabethan songs

Is a Lyric poem, written in a single stanza that usually consists of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter.

Different forms of Sonnets

Italian sonnet: Named after

Petrarch, an Italian poet who introduced the form in the early fourteenth century.

Divided into an opening octave- a group of eight lines, and a concluding sestet-a six line unit.

The rhyme scheme is usually fixed. The opening octave is abba abba, but that of the sestet may vary (ced ced, or cdc cdc, or cdc dcd.

Example of an Italian sonnet

http://tinyurl.com/blmflxd

English sonnet(Shakespearean)

Nicknamed after it’s most famous practitioner.

Features three quatrains and a final couplet.

Rhyme scheme usually goes abab cdcd efef gg. http://tinyurl.com/cq33s3s

Elements of poetry

The elements in prose and poetry are similar. The table below illustrate the terminology used where the elements are concerned.PROSE/DRAMA POETRY

Plot Subject matter

Theme Subject matter

Characterization Very rarely

Point of view Voice/persona

Tone Tone

Mood Mood

Interpretation of poems.

Poems can be interpreted at two levels:

- Literal level -the basic, original meaning of a poem

Figurative level – the deeper, imaginative meaning of a poem

Elements of poetry explained

Theme Represents the

main subject or idea of a poem.

A poem can have more than one theme because different people would interpret the same poem in various ways

Style and Language

Refer to how the poet uses the language to convey his or her ideas. This would affect the tone, mood and meaning of a poem

Elements of poetry conti..

Mood Refers to the feeling a poem creates for

the readers Tone Reflects the poet’s attitude towards the

subject of the poem.

Literary devices

Literary devices are common structures used in writing. These devices can be either literary elements or literary techniques. Literary elements are found in almost every story and can be used to analyse and interpret (e.g. protagonist, setting, plot, theme). Literary techniques, on the other hand, constructions in the text, usually to express artistic meaning through the use of language (e.g. metaphor, hyperbole).

Allitartaion

Alliteration – is the repetition of the initial consonant sounds in words close together.

Furthermore it can also be defined as when lots of words in a poem start with the same letter it is called alliteration.

The implications or the effect it has on advancing the poets argument is that This gives the line a special beat like a rhythm. Thus reiterating his main points in a particular stanza.

Metaphor

Poets use metaphors to compare two apparently unlike things without using the words like, as, than, or resembles.

Examples: “The sky is a patchwork

quilt” “Thomas is a bear on the

football field” “She cried a sea of tears” “'Cause it's a bittersweet

symphony, this life

Examples: “The sky is a

patchwork quilt” “Thomas is a bear

on the football field”

Simile

A simile is a direct comparison between two unlike things using the words like or as.

Examples: “The sky is like a

patchwork quilt” “She sang like a

bird” “You are as tough as

leather” “He runs like the

wind”

The poet creates a picture by comparing two things using the words ‘like’ or ‘as.

Example: “As snug as a gun”

Personification

This happens when the poet intentionally gives human qualities to non-human objects or things.

I wandered lonely as a cloud’ – The cloud is described as if it is a person wandering around

‘.

Onomatopoeia

When a word imitates the sound it is describing it is called onomatopoeia.

Example:

“Snap, Crackle, and Pop”The three creepy gnomes on Rice Krispies boxes

Imagery

- Involves our senses, e.g: visual, smell and sound.

- Draws the reader into an experience by stimulating their senses which contributes to the mood of the poem.

It is intended to show rather than just tell

Assonance

The repetition of a vowel sound in two or more words in the line of a poem.

Examples: - their soaky clothes torn and approached the stove. I know/ this rose is only/ an ink-and-paper

rose/ but see how it grows and goes/ on growing.

Consonance

– Is the repetition of identical consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds.

Example: “live and love” -Home-Same-Lime

Rhyme

Is the repetition of identical or similar sounds in stressed syllables. A pattern of end rhymes is called a rhyme scheme. Therefore rhyme falls under the category of sound effects.

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a rhyming poem or in lyrics for music. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme.

For example, “abab” indicates a four-line stanza in which the first and third lines rhyme, as do the second and fourth.

Types of rhyme

Perfect rhyme: Refers to the immediately recognizable norm: true/blue, mountain/fountain. 

Imperfect rhyme: Refers to rhymes that are close but not exact: lap/shape, glorious/nefarious 

Eye rhyme: This refers to rhymes based on similarity of spelling rather than sound. Often these are highly conventional, and reflect historical changes in pronunciation: love/move/prove, why/envy

Types of rhyme conti...

Assonant rhyme: Rhyming with similar vowels, different consonants: dip/limp, man/prank

Consonant rhyme: Rhyming with similar consonants, different vowels: limp/lump, bit/bet.

Internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme which occurs in a single line of verse. Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line.

- Examples: "In mist or cloud, on

mast or shroud" from “The Rhyme of

the Ancient Mariner”

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Rhythm

Is the repetition of a pattern of sounds

Repetition

Is the return of a word, phrase, stanza form, or effect in any form of literature.

Examples:Back off from this poemIt has drawn in your feetBack off from this poemIt has drawn in your legsBack off from this poemIt is a greedy mirror

Modern forms of poetry

Along the years poetry just like any other art form has evolved from medieval times poetry to the renaissance and the Victorian poets and has reached a modern contemporary. Poetry has taken different attributes and forms and has incorporated slang and rap thus these next slides shall discuss the different elements it has.

Aspects of Literary Modernism

Self-consciousness, experimentation

New techniques such as the Stream of Consciousness

Fragmentation in structuring literary works

Lack of a single authoritative viewpoint

Could be replaced by unreliable narrator or multiple points of view.

Free Verse

Also known as 'open form' or 'vers libre'

Lineated but not organised by meter or any other strict patterning device

Most free verse has irregular line lengths and lacks rhyme

Remember: don't confuse free verse with blank verse! Blank verse is unrhyming iambic pentameter.

It can help to think of broad different categories of free verse:

Reference list

Braindoolan. (2010). http://www.slideshare.net/Briandoolan/the-language-of-poetry. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from www.slideshare.co.za: http://www.slideshare.net/Briandoolan/the-language-of-poetry

SC, F. S. (2010). http://www.slideshare.net/FenwaySoxSSC/poetic-forms. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from www.slideshare.co.za: http://www.slideshare.net/FenwaySoxSSC/poetic-forms

Megarrison. (2011). slideshare. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/megarrison/poetry-elements

aw, S. (2011). slideshare. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/SarahLaw/modernism-and-free-verse Cktan84. (2011). slideshare. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/cktan84/what-is-poetry-6890333

Apliter7. (2012, 04). slideshare. Retrieved 03 19, 2013, from slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/aplitper7/poetic-styles-and-forms

Thank you