Poetry 2

Question 1

What defined the Poetry form: Metre and Rhythm?

Answer 1

• prosody is the study of sound + rhythm in poetry –> isn’t a very exact science, but properly used it can be an aid to reading + hearing process
• the rhythm of a passage - in prose or poetry - is a pattern of sound pulsations in the voice as one reads it
• the rhythm of language is structured by stressed + unstressed syllables
• when the stress recurs a quite regular intervals - that is, when the rhythm has a pattern - the result is meter
• meter is measured in feet; a foot normally consists of a stressed and one more unstressed syllables
• loft of modern poetry = free in verse + has no meter

–> Table of meter feet in notes !!

Question 2

What is a blank verse?

Answer 2

= unrhymed iambic parameter

Question 3

What is a free verse?

Answer 3

= no regular meter but nonetheless rhythmic effect

Question 4

Different rhyme schemes

Answer 4

= refers to the pattern of lines that rhyme in a poem (aabb)

End-stopped line:

• agrees with syntactic unit
• “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

Caesura:

• any significant pause within a line
• “To err is human/to forgive, devine

Feminine rhyme:

• lines that rhyme by using an unstressed final syllable
• “gender/bender”

Imperfect rhyme:
- involves rhyming sounds within the same line

Enjambement/run-on-line:

• when the syntax of one couplet carries over into the next couplet
• “April is the cruelest month, breading lilacs out of the dead land, mixing”

masculine ryhme:

• lines that rhyme by using a stressed final syllable
• “man/fan”

Eye-rhyme:

• uses words with identical endings but different pronounciations
• “bread/bead”

Alliteration:
- repetitions of sounds in nearby words

Couplet:
- aabb

Enclosing:
- abba

Alternate:
- abab

Question 5

Stanza forms

Answer 5

= divided into stanzas, groups of lines with a specific cogency of their own + usually set off from one another by a space

Ballad stanzas (look at picture):

• consist of four lines, the second + fourth of which are iambic trimeter + rhyme with each other
• first + third lines, in iambic trimeter , don’t rhyme

Sonnet:

• structured according to one of two principles of division
• on one principle, the sonnet divides into 3 units of 4 lines each + a final unit of 2 lines
• the 4-4-4-2- sonnet is usually called the English or Shakespearen Sonnet

Italian sonnet:

• fundamental break is between the first 8 lines (called an octave) + the last 6 (called a sestet)
• abba abba cdc cdc

Question 6

How do you analyze poetry?

Answer 6

• poems have speakers or personas that aren’t to be confused with the author
• Author creates the persona, voice, or lyrical I
• within the poem –> speaker presents his feelings or observations to an implicit or explicit listener or fictive addressee
• general theme
• tone, mood, atmosphere as generated by a poem through a specific use of semantics, syntax, imagery, sound
• language is marked by:
  ° language cast in verse
  ° verses grouped in stanzas
  ° brevity, concentration, reduction
  ° expression of subjectivity (person/voice)
  ° specialized language
  ° suggestive imagery
  ° rhyme, meter, sound patterns
  ° aesthetic self-referntality

Question 7

examples

Answer 7

look at notes