Transcript The Commentary Paper

The Commentary Paper
POETRY
• Types of imagery & effects
• Voice
• Poetic Form
• Figures of Speech
• Rhyme
• Rhythm
• Line length and pace
Types of imagery & effects
Auditory
Tactile
Visual
Olfactory
Gustatory
Kinesthetic
Auditory imagery& effects
See also rhyme and rhythm
Onomatopoeia
Alliteration
Assonance
Occurs when the sound
of a word echoes or
suggests the meaning
Hiss
Buzz
Slap
The repetition of an
initial consonant sound
in two or more words
The lover lost his light
in life
When vowel sounds
are repeated
Tide, fight, mine,
Visual imagery
The following figures of speech can help visual imagery :
• Simile
• Metaphor
• Personification
Also look at a poet’s use of colours
Voice
• Who is speaking in the poem?
• Is it the poet or a character ?
• Who is the poem written for ?
• Why was the poem written ?
e.g. To persuade, narrate, argue, reflect ?
First or third person ?
For example, is the poet writing the poem
using "I", or acting as the narrator.
If the poet has written the poem in the
first person, you need to consider whether
the poet is writing their own ideas directly or
taking on the role of another character.
The poem may express different points
of view and voices in different stanzas.
How many different voices are
there in the poem?
Do you associate more closely
with one of the voices? If so,
why?
Does the poem directly ask the
reader questions ? Are these
rhetorical ?
Does the poet want you to feel a
certain way or are they looking
for you to answer a question?
Poetic Form
All poets have their own individual styles.
However, there are a number of categories which poems fit into.
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That when they vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.
(Doctor Faustus)
What form is this ?
Blank verse is a type of poetry,
distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme
In English, the meter most commonly used with
blank verse has been iambic pentameter.
How is this different to Free
Verse ?
Free Verse is poetry without standardized
rhyme, meter, or structure. It is not formless,
however, but relies on its own words and
content to determine its best form.
Dramatic Monologue
Poem that presents a moment in which a narrator/speaker discusses a topic
and, in so doing, reveals his personal feelings to a listener. Only the
narrator, talks–hence the term monologue, meaning "single (mono)
discourse (logue)."
Elegy
A somber poem or song that praises or laments the dead. Perhaps the
finest elegy in English literature is Thomas Gray's ‘Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard’.
Eulogy
Speech or written work paying tribute to a person who has recently
died; speech or written work praising a person (living, as well as dead),
place, thing, or idea.
Concrete Poetry
Poetry with lines arranged to resemble a familiar object, such as a
Christmas tree. Concrete poetry is also called shaped verse.
Lyrical Poetry
Poetry that presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet
as opposed to poetry that tells a story or presents a witty
observation. Sonnets, odes, and elegies are examples of lyrical
poems. William Wordsworth, John Keats, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, and William Blake are among the poets who wrote
lyrics. Shakespeare's sonnets are lyrical poems, although his
verse plays are not; they tell a story. Lyrical poetry often has a
pleasing musical quality.
Pastoral Poem
Poem focusing on some aspect of rural life. It may center on
the love of a shepherd for a maiden, on the death of a friend,
or on the quiet simplicity of rural life.
Quatrain
Stanza or poem of four lines. A quatrain usually has a rhyme scheme, such as
abab, abba, or abcb.
Sonnet
Form of poetry invented in Italy that has 14 lines with a specific rhyme
scheme. The Italian Petrarchan sonnet consists of an eight-line stanza
(octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet). The first stanza presents a theme,
and the second stanza develops it. The rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) first
stanza (octave): ABBA, ABBA; (2) second stanza (sestet): CDE, CDE. The
Shakespearean sonnet has three four-line stanzas (quatrains) and a two-line
unit called a couplet. A couplet is always indented; both lines rhyme at the
end. The meter of Shakespeare's sonnets is usually iambic pentameter. The
rhyming lines in each stanza are the first and third and the second and
fourth. In the couplet ending the poem, both lines rhyme. All of
Shakespeare's sonnets follow the same rhyming pattern.
Warning ! Sonnets don’t always follow these patterns exactly.
From 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tear, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A
B
B
A
A
B
B
A
C
D
C
D
C
D
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G
Figures of Speech
Anaphora - the repetition of the same word or group of words at
the beginning of several consecutive sentences or verses to
emphasize an image or a concept. Mad world! Mad kings! Mad
composition!
Apostrophe – a thing is addressed directly as though it were a
person.
Hyperbole – exaggeration for effect
Irony – states one thing when the opposite meaning is intended.
Metaphor – a comparison without the words like or as.
Oxymoron – a combination of contradictory or incongruous
terms. E.g. “Living death” or “mute cry”
Personification - the attribution of human characteristics
to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.
A Simile is a comparison between unlike objects
introduced by a connective word such as like or as.
Symbolism occurs when a concrete object stands for an
abstract concept.
A transferred epithet is a word or phrase shifted from the
noun it would usually describe.
Rhyme
Definition : correspondence in the sounds of two or more lines
(especially final sounds)
Eye rhyme occurs when the spelling of the words suggests a
rhyme but not the sound. move, glove
Half-rhyme – only the final consonant sounds match
e.g. soul, oil
trolley, bully
death, forth
Masculine rhymes end on a stress. Van, span support,
retort
Feminine rhymes end on an unstressed syllable.
Revival, arrival
historical,rhetorical
Rhythm
Meter is a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
in lines of a set length.
Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?
(The unstressed syllables are in blue and the stressed syllables in red.)
Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables makes up a unit
called a foot. The line contains five feet in all :
1
2
3
4
5
Shall I..|..comPARE..|..thee TO..|..a SUM..|..mer’s DAY?
.......A foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable (as above) is called an iamb. Because there are
five feet in the line, all iambic, the meter of the line is iambic
pentameter.
Some feet in verse and poetry have different stress patterns. For
example, one type of foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed
by a stressed one. Another type consists of a stressed one followed by an
unstressed one. In all, there are five types of feet:
Iamb (Iambic)
Trochee
(Trochaic)
Spondee
(Spondaic)
Anapest
(Anapestic)
Dactyl
(Dactylic
Unstressed + Stressed
Two Syllables
Stressed + Unstressed
Two Syllables
Stressed + Stressed
Two Syllables
Unstressed +
Unstressed + Stressed
Three Syllables
Stressed + Unstressed
+ Unstressed
Three Syllables
The length of lines–and thus the meter–can also vary. Following are
the types of meter and the line length:
Monometer
Dimeter
Trimeter
Tetrameter
Pentameter
Hexameter
Heptameter
Octameter
One foot
Two feet
Three feet
Four feet
Five feet
Six feet
Seven feet
Eight feet
Line Length and Pace
The pace of a poem can be determined by the length of
individual words and the length of lines.
Enjambement - Carrying the sense of one line of
verse over to the next line without a pause.
Caesura - Pause in a line of verse