Imagery and Figurative Language

1. What vivid images does the poem contain?

2. What examples can you find of personification?

3. What similes directly compare dissimilar items?

4. What metaphors equate dissimilar items? Which of these metaphors are implied? Which, if any, are extended?

5. What symbols can you find?

Types of Poetry

1. What events in the poem form a narrative?

2. What personal emotions does the poet express in a lyric?

3. What, character or characters speak within the poem to make it dramatic? What situation makes the character or characters speak?

Patterns in Poetry

1. What pattern does the poem follow in its length, line length, meter, and rhyme scheme? Is the poem’s pattern a traditional one?

2. Where does the poem depart from traditional patterns in stanza arrangement, line length, capitalization, and punctuation?

Literary Focus

Rhythm.

The word rhythm comes from a Greek word meaning "flow" and refers to any repeated pattern. In a poem the rhythm is the pattern of beats created by the syllables and stresses of the words in each line.

In some poems the pattern of beats is regular and predictable. For example, the following lines by the Elizabethan poet Ben Jonson use a regular rhythm in which the stressed syllables, which are marked ׳, alternate with the unstressed syllables, which are marked ˇ:

Quéen aňd huńtrĕss, cháste aňd fáir,

Nów thě śun iš láid tŏ sléep.

When the rhythm follows such a strict pattern, the poem is said to have a definite meter. By contrast many modern poems use an irregular and free-flowing rhythm in which the beats do not follow a consistent pattern. For example, each of the follow­ing lines from William Stafford's "Fifteen" seems to have its own rhythm:

Ĭ fouńd báck ǒf thĕ wıllŏws oňe śummĕr

dáy ă mòtŏrcýclĕ wıth éngıne rùnnıng…

The rhythm of a poem often echoes its sense, or meaning. For example, a poem about a military band is likely to march in regular meter, while a poem about a dragonfly would probably zip and halt unpredictably. Stressed syllables slow down a line, and unstressed syllables quicken its movement. Punctuation and stanza breaks can also affect the rhythm of a poem.

Slant Rhyme. Words rhyme when they repeat the same sound. Slant rhyme is a type of rhyme that occurs when two words repeat similar, but not identical, sounds.

Slant rhymes are created between words that have the same vowel sounds but different consonants, as in meek and neat; this type of slant rhyme is known as assonance. Slant rhymes also occur when words have the same consonants but not the same vowel sounds, as in pat and pit; this type of slant rhyme is known as consonance. Some slant rhymes combine assonance and consonance, for example, painter and tinder, or enchanted and repented. Other terms for slant rhyme are approximate rhyme, off rhyme, near rhyme, and half rhyme.

Slant rhyme was not popular in poetry until this century; in fact, Emily Dickinson was often criticized for her use of it. Slant rhyme can be very effective in poetry because it snaps us to attention, surprising us with the hint of an echo when we expect a more obvious rhyme.

Blank Verse. Blank verse consists of any number of unrhymed lines that arе each ten syllables long with a stress on every other syllable. Another name for this verse form is unrhymed (therefore “blank”) iambic pentameter. An iamb is a unit of rhythm made up of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The words confuse and repeat are both iambs.

Blank verse seems more like prose than most then verse forms. It does not rhyme, it is not usually written in stanzas, and it is very close to the natural rhythms of the English language. Although based on carefully counted syllables and beats, blank verse usually flows very naturally when it is written well. Because of its natural, free-flowing quality, blank verse is very popular among writers of English, accounting for over half of all the poetry written in English.

Free Verse. Free verse is poetry that does not follow a regular, predictable pattern of rhythm, line length, or rhyme.

Free verse is a relatively recent form of poetry; poets first broke from traditional forms to write free verse in the nineteenth century.

In free verse the lines may vary in their lengths and may end in unusual places. For example, lines may break between subjects and their verbs. In determining the length of lines? The writer of free verse considers such questions as how the lines look on the page, how they sound when they are read, and, especially, how the breaks at the ends of the lines affect the poem’s meaning and flow. The writer of free verse must therefore be sensitive to the natural rhythms and pauses of language.

Onomatopoeia and Alliteration.

Onomatopoeia [оn'ə mat'ə рē'ə] is the use of a word whose sound mimics or suggests its meaning. For example, the word buzz actually sounds like what it means - the noise made by a bee. The word clop imitates the hollow slap of hooves on hard sur­faces. Onomatopoeia both reinforces the meaning of a poem and adds to its musical quality.

Alliteration, another special sound effect, is the repetition of consonant sounds within a short space.

Usually alliteration occurs at the beginning of words, as in the sentence "The bee brushed the blossom and then buzzed away." Such alliteration is called initial alliteration. A more subtle form of alliteration, called internal alliteration, occurs within, rather than at the beginning of, words. Both internal and initial alliteration can be found in the sentence, "The Chinese inchworm chewed through the peach."

Wherever it occurs, alliteration adds to the musical quality of a poem by creating echoes among its sounds. Alliteration also adds to the meaning and unity of a poem by connecting its words and ideas.

Allusions. An allusion is a reference to a work of literature or to a well-known person, place, or event from history.

Writers who use allusions expect their au­diences to recognize the original source of the allu­sion. Among the most popular sources of allusions are the Bible and the Greek and Roman myths.

An allusion serves as a kind of shorthand, a brief reference to a well-known idea, situation, or picture that needs no further explanation. For example, Pope adds a striking picture to "Sound and Sense" when he refers to Camilla, a mythological queen so fleet of foot that she could run over the ocean’s waves without getting her feet wet.