Poetry• Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound,

and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as an authentic and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define.

• Poetry is writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm

• Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning.

• 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.

Poetry is difficult to define!

• We must choose a definition, so this will be it:

• Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response or to tell a story.

Poetic Devices• Metaphor (Implicit and Explicit)• Simile• Personification• Onomatopoeia• Alliteration• Assonance• Rhyme Scheme

Poetic Terms

•Couplet•Quatrain•Stanza

Types of Poetry

• Narrative Poem• Epic Poem• Lyric Poem• Limerick• Sonnet

Alliteration

• Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words.

• “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

• When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughts, I summon up remembrance of thins past…

Assonance

• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in words within lines.

• Example: "As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with

seven wives, Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, Every cat had seven kittens: kittens, cats, sacks and wives, How many were going to St. Ives?"

Meter

• Meter is the basic rhythm of a poem• It consists of stressed (´) and unstressed ( )⌣• A foot is a basic unit of meter. The most common

foot in poetry is the iamb, which is one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.

• Iambic pentameter is the most well known meter, made up of five iambs.

• “And wash this filthy witness from your hand.”

Emily Dickinson

“The Belle of Amherst”

Emily Dickinson

• Born in Amherst, Massachusetts• Lived from 1830-1886• Wrote nearly 1800 poems• She was an excellent student as a young woman• She traveled when she was young.• When her father died, she stopped leaving her house and

lived the rest of her life there. • She wrote many letters during her life of solitude.• She is known as “The Belle of Amherst”

Dickinson’s Religion

• Grew up in a very religious community influenced by Calvinism, which holds than man is inherently sinful.

• She seemed to reject organized religion and the idea of original sin.

Dickinson’s Poetry• Unusual use of dashes• Unusual use of capitalization• Exceptionally creative use of metaphor• Use of broken meter (a rhythm that is not

consistent)• Use of near rhyme• Subjects of her poetry include nature,

spirituality and religion, and death

“For I have promises to keepAnd miles to go before I sleepAnd miles to go before I sleep”

Robert Frost

Robert Frost• Lived from 1874-1963• Born in San Francisco but moved to Massachusetts; he is

associated with the New England states. • Father died when he was 11. His sister, two of his

children, and his wife died, and these losses affected his poetry.

• His parents were teachers and he developed a love of literature as a child.

• He worked as a Latin teacher, a textile worker, and a farmer, among other jobs.

Frost’s Poetry• Many poems are about nature• He used everyday words and common

speech patterns• Setting of poetry is often New England• The structure of his poems is formal

– Regular meter– Regular rhyme scheme

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Listen my children and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere”

Longfellow• Born in Maine 1n 1807; died in Massachusetts in 1882• He was a professor of modern languages• He was married twice; both wives died• He traveled often in Europe• He did not hold to any particular religion, but was

influenced by Puritanism and Unitarianism.• He was incredibly popular.

Longfellow’s Poetry

• He wrote in a clear, elegant style.• He wrote about common American values

– Family– Heroism

• Meter and rhyme are regular

Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Whitman’s Life

• He worked as a printer, a teacher, an editor, and a lecturer.

• He worked as a nurse during the Civil War.• His first volume of poems was called

Leaves of Grass.

Whitman’s poetry

• He often wrote about American life and democracy.

• He wrote about topics considered ‘unfit’ for poetry – everyday things like carpenters and blacksmiths

Robert Browning

1812-1889

Gerard Manley Hopkins

“The World Is Charged with the Grandeur of

God”

Hopkins• Born in 1844 to an Anglican family in England• He was influenced by John Henry Cardinal Newman

and became Catholic in 1866• He entered the Jesuits in 1867 and burned his poems

when he entered• He worked as a parish priest and as a teacher of Latin

and Greek• Began writing poetry again in 1875• Died in 1889

Hopkins’ Poetry

• Unusual use of rhythm – he called it “sprung rhythm.”

• Nature is important in many of his poems.• He coined words and used unusual words• He extensively used alliteration, assonance

and onomatopoeia• His Catholicism influenced his poetry

Pied Horse

William Blake

Songs of Innocence

Songs of Experience

William Blake• 1757-1827• English poet• Wrote Songs of Innocence, poetry written from a child’s

point of view.• Wrote Songs of Experience, poetry written from an adult

point of view. • He was an accomplished artist and made engravings to

illustrate his poetry.• He had mystical visions both as a boy and later on; these

visions influenced his poetry.

Blake’s Poetry and Religion

• His poems are known for recurring themes of– Good and evil– Knowledge and innocence

• He was “spiritual” but hated organized religion.– He opposed any kind of self-denial– He invented his own mythology– Believed people were saved by knowledge, not by

faith (Gnostic)

A Blacksmith Using an Anvil