Transcript Elements of Poetry - C. Wallace MCHS English / FrontPage

Elements of Poetry
What do you know
about poetry?
1. Speaker
a. The voice that communicates
with the reader of a poem.
b. A poem’s speaker can be the
voice of a person, an animal, or
even a thing.
Example
Lie back, daughter, let your head
Be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
from “First Lesson” by Philip Booth
Who is the speaker?
2. Lines and Stanzas
a. line- a row of words, which may
or may not form a complete
sentence.
b. Stanza- a group of lines forming
a unit (poem paragraph)
Example
Drum on your drums,
batter on your banjoes,
Sob on the long cool
winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
From “Jazz Fantasia” by Carl Sandburg
Identify a line and a stanza.
3. Rhythm
Rhythm- the pattern of sound
created by the arrangement of
stressed and unstressed
syllable in a line. Rhythm can
be regular or irregular.
Example
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
From “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
4. Rhyme
a. Internal rhyme- occurs within lines
of poetry
b. End rhyme- occurs at the ends of
lines
c. Rhyme scheme- the pattern of rhyme
formed by the end rhyme
Example
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Find examples of end rhyme and internal rhyme and the rhyme
scheme.
5. Sound Devices
a. Alliteration- the repetition of
consonant sounds
b. Onomatopoeia- the use of a word or
phrase, such as swoosh or clank, that
imitates or suggests the sound of
what it describes
Example
Give an example of alliteration.
Give an example of onomatopoeia.
6. Imagery
a. Imagery- descriptive language
used to represent objects,
feelings, and thoughts.
b. It often appeals to the five
senses- sight, hearing, touch,
taste, smell.
Example
Black horse drive a mower through the weeds,
And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds.
from “Reapers” by Jean Toomer
To what senses do these lines appeal?
7. Figures of Speech
a. Simile- uses the words like or as
to compare two unlike things
Example: My love is like a red,
red rose.
7. Figures of Speech
b. Metaphor- compares two or more different
things by stating or implying that one
thing is another
Example:
“… I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be
free.”
•Extended metaphor –
a metaphor that
appears through out a
poem
Dead metaphor
Metaphor so common that it is
part of everyday speech
Examples: the woman is a
beautiful flower or love a
beautiful flower
7. Figures of Speech
c. Personification- giving human
characteristics to an animal, object,
or idea
Example:
The headlights of the car stared at Bill.
Apostrophe
Addressing/ speaking to an animal,
object, or idea as if it were a
human
Example: Death, why do you mock
me?
Other Literary Elements
• Hyperbole – exaggeration to create an
effect
Examples:
I was so surprised you could have
knocked me over with a feather.
I would rather die than eat brussels
sprouts.
Other Literary Elements
• Oxymoron – two or three words
that combine opposite ideas
Examples:
“sweet sorrow”
“jumbo shrimp”
Other Literary Elements
• Paradox – holding contradictory ideas
together in order to point to a deeper truth
Examples:
“For it is in giving that we receive,
In pardoning that we are pardoned,
And in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Saint Francis of Assisi
Types of Poetry
• Epic – a long narrative poem (tells a story)
in which a hero has a great adventure
• Lyrical – expresses a speaker’s personal
thoughts and feelings
• Narrative – tells a story
• Dramatic – the speaker is a character who
gives a speech (like a monologue in a play)
Introduction to Poetry
By Billy Collins
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out.
or walk inside a poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to water ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.