INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

Elements of Poetry

PERSONA & PERSONIFICATION

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Literary Devices or Elements of a poetry techniques used in representing concepts, persons or ideas in poems.

One of the elements is persona.

Persona referring to the narrator / voice of the poem who is telling the story in the poem.

Not to be confused with the author.

Derived from the Greek term mask.

Sometimes, the poet is also the persona.

Personification : giving human traits to non-human things or unanimated objects

Theres Been A Death in the Opposite House

We lead There's been a death in the opposite house As lately as today. I know it by the numb look Such houses have always. The neighbours rustle in and out, The doctor drives away. A window opens like a pod, Abrupt, mechanically; Somebody flings a mattress out, The children hurry by; They wonder if It died on that, I used to when a boy. The minister goes stiffly in As if the house were his, And he owned all the mourners now, And little boys besides; And then the milliner, and the man Of the appalling trade, To take the measure of the house. There'll be that dark parade Of tassels and of coaches soon; It's easy as a sign, The intuition of the news In just a country town.

Personification Poem
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Take a Poem to Lunch by Denise Rodgers

I'd love to take a poem to lunch or treat it to a wholesome brunch of fresh cut fruit and apple crunch. I'd spread it neatly on the cloth beside a bowl of chicken broth and watch a mug of root beer froth. I'd feel the words collect the mood, the taste and feel of tempting food popped in the mouth and slowly chewed, and get the smell of fresh baked bread that sniffs inside and fills our head with thoughts that no word ever said. And as the words rest on the page beside the cumin, salt and sage, and every slowly starts to age, like soup that simmers as it's stirred, ingredients get mixed and blurred and blends in taste with every word until the poet gets it right, the taste and smell and sound and sight, the words that make it fit. Just write.

Alliteration
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Repetition of the words with the same consonantal sounds either at the beginning of the words or in between words.

The words have to be close together

Alliteration provides rhythm to poetry

Poems with alliteration are easier to memorise and remember.

Provides poems with unique structure, flow and beauty. Initial alliteration : at the beginning of the words Internal alliteration : found within words.

Alliteration
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Betty Botter by Mother Goose Betty Botter bought some butter, but, she said, the butters bitter; if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my batter better. So she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and the batter was not bitter. So twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter. 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 some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber doorOnly this, and nothing more." excerpt from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

Assonance
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The repetition of vowel sounds in a phrase or line in poetry

Provides sense of fluidity to the verse
(http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/assonance_def.html)

Effective when rhyming scheme is not there.

Example :
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Daffodils by William Wordsworth

Onomatopaeia and Simile

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Onomatopaiea - Poetic structure to illustrate how certain things sound.

Figure of speech where words imitate sounds Example : Metaphor I heard the ripple washing in the reeds / And the wild water lapping on the crag From Morte D'Arthur by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Simile comparisons of two things which appear to be dissimilar, are usually signified by the words like and as
E.g. My love is like a red, red rose Robert Burns "Guiltless forever, like a tree" from Men and Women by Robert Browning

One object is concrete and the other one is abstract

Metaphor
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Identification of one idea with another. Comparing two unlikely objects

Implied comparison as opposed to direct comparison as in simile.

The comparison is usually obscured and implicit

Example :
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Rhythm
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Sound patterns in poems which are created by stresses and pauses) Stresses : emphasis on certain syllables, words or phrases

Pauses : breaks in a verse, usually at the end of each line

Cadence : Rising and falling intonation of the spoken language

Caesura : a pronounced pause

Scansion : Analysis of the number and type of feet in a line.
Source :http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/lit/literaryterms/section3.php#RhythmandMeter

Rhythm
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Foot : Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem, one of those syllables is stressed. Also known as the rhythmic unit Common types of feet in English poetry a. Iambic : unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable : e.g : go ing b. Trochee : stressed syllable followed by unstressed syllable : e.g : sor ry c. Dactyl : a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables : e.g. go vern ment d. Anapest : 2 unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable : e.g. There are ma ny who say e. Spondee : 2 stressed syllables successively : e.g. get in f. Pyrrhic : 2 unstressed syllables : e.g. He is up to nothing

Meter
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A line with one or more feet. Also, a rhythmic pattern created in a line of verse (http://sparkcharts.sparknotes.com/lit/literaryterms/section3.php#Rhythm%20and%20Meter) Types of meter: a. accentual : strong, number of stressed syllables in a line is fixed , number of total syllables is not fixed (e.g. Beowulf) b. syllabic : fixed number of total syllables , number of stressed syllables is not fixed c. accentual syllabic : number of stressed syllables and number of total syllables are fixed (e.g. Chaucers poems) d. quantitative : duration of each sound of the syllable determines the meter

Meter
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a. One foot monometer b. Two feet dimeter c. Three feet trimeter d. Four feet tetrameter e. Five feet pentameter f. Six feet hexameter g. Seven feet heptameter h. Eight feet - octameter Iambic pentameter : Each line of verse has five feet that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Most popular rhyming scheme in English poetry.
e.g. To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells (Ode to Autumn by John Keats)

Rhyme
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Common way to create musicality in the verses

Types of rhymes : a. End rhyme appears at the end of a line of verse. Commonly used in English poetry b. Internal rhyme a rhyme in between words in a single line
e.g. I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die (The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

c. Masculine rhyme one syllable word rhyme

e.g. sail and trail , paRENT and baRREN

d. Feminine rhyme a stressed syllable followed by unstressed syllable

e.g. MOther and BROther

e. Perfect rhyme exact matching sounds in a verse.

Symbols
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Can be twofold : i) as itself ii) suggesting something deeper

Symbols are not obvious comparisons like metaphors Use to represent abstract ideas and symbols usually associate two things both figuratively and literally

Some symbols are well known, e.g. red is for bravery, white is for purity, while other symbols can be context specific.
Based on similarity : The Road Not Taken : road symbolises path in life. How to identify pay attention to particular details mentioned in the poem. See if the symbol represent an idea or an emotion Base

Symbols
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Based on association - established through repetition throughout the poem - how to identify : look for repetitions objects or ideas Based on literary tradition - drawn from mythology, religious books or works of other poets - quite difficult to identify, look for reference to other works being mentioned by the poet

Based on cliches - easiest to identify as they have been used profusely - very obvious and transparent, - e.g. rose as the symbol for love
Source : http://www.ehow.com/info_8662753_definition-symbols-poetry.html

Tone & Irony

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Refers to the mood or the voice of the poem. It means the attitude and feeling of a poet towards his readers (Bah & Robinson, 1990). Can be set through the conventions of the poem such as the meter or repetitions.

Irony : refers to a difference between the way something appears and what is actually true (source : http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/irony_def.html).
Allows poet to say something but means something else. Difficult to detect in poetry Can be achieved through the use of sarcasm Ironic point of view : discrepancies between writer and personas point of view Dramatic Irony : what the reader knows but the persona does not

Themes
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Refer to the central idea of the poem. They include what the poet feels, thinks and perceives. Themes are derived from experiences in real life and they varied.

Types of themes found in poems:

i) Identity : social and cultural identities like in Monsoon History ii) De colonisation / assimilation : from the colonised perspectives ; iii) Feminism iv) Love v) War vi) Nature vii) Death viiii) Other unconventional themes

Thank you

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