Basics of Poetry 

I. Definition of Poetry  

1. Poetry is the best words in the best order.                         

                                                            ---Samuel T. Coleridge  

2. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.                           

                                                             ---William Wordsworth  

3. Poetry is the expression of imagination.                           

                                                             ---P. P. Shelley 

Poetry is characterized by the following elements: a musical effect created by rhythm and sounds, a precise and fresh imagery, and multiple levels of interpretation suggested by the connotation of the closer words and by allusions. 

 Poetic Devices: Simile, Metaphor, Conceit, Personification, Symbol, Paradox, Ambiguity, Onomatopoeia 

II. Types of Poetry   

 1. Narrative Poetry: Epic, Ballad, Romance；   

 2. Lyrical Poetry: Song, Lyric, Sonnet, Ode, Hymn, Elegy, Pastoral；  

 3. Dramatic Poetry: Tragedy, Comedy, Historical Play 

III. Elements of Poetry

        Metrical Rhythm

        Rhyme

        Tone 

        Imagery

        Theme

 

1. Rhythm and Meter

  (1)   Rhythm refers to the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in a poem or song.     

  (2) The pattern of rhythm in a poem is called meter. There are 5 basic patterns of rhythms.   

  (3) Each of these meters is made up of its basic units. Each unit is called a foot.

Note: Rhythm doesn’t have meaning, but it can certainly help convey and reinforce meaning. It can intimate movement or action. 

 (a) Iambic foot (iambus): An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one       In every cry of every man (ˇˉ)   

         In every infant’s cry of fear

 (b) Trochaic foot (trochee): A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one

              Rise like ︱lions ︱after︱slumber(ˉˇ)

 (c) Anapestic foot (anapest): Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one

              --I am monarch of all I survey(ˇˇˉ)

 (d) Dactylic foot (dactyl): A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones   

              --Think of her ︱mournfully(ˉˇˇ) 

 (e) Spondee: A foot which consists of two stressed syllables    

             --knick-knack; ︱More haste, ︱less speed.(ˉˉ) 

 (4) Number of feet per line

         one foot-- monometer (rare)

          two feet-- dimeter

          three feet --trimeter

          four feet-- tetrameter

          five feet -- pentameter

          six feet --hexameter

          seven feet--heptameter (rare)

          eight feet-- octameter (rare) 

(5) Line (Stanza ) Pattern

        -- couplet: 2 lines

        -- tercet: 3 lines

        -- quatrain: 4 lines

        --sestet: 6 lines

        -- ottave: 8 lines

        -- Spenserian stanza: 9 lines

        -- sonnet: 14 lines 

(6) Rhyme

     Words that have identical end sounds at the end of a poetic line, e.g: 

                  She walks in beauty, like the night               a  

                  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;           b

                  And all that’s best of dark and bright             a   

                  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:                b

                  This mellowed to that tender light                a   

                  Which heaven to gaudy day denies.            b 

2. Image and Imagery

     Imagery is a verbal appeal to the reader’s sense perception. When a writer uses words that awaken in the reader’s memory or imagination a concept of the senses, he is using an image.An image is a mental picture painted in words.An image is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.  

                           image → sense perception → emotion/ideas 

Images can be classified according to the sense perception to which they appeal :            

    sight ( visual images of color or shape )         

    hearing ( auditoral images )         

    taste ( gustatory images )         

    smell ( olfactory images )         

     touch ( tactile images )         

     movement ( kinaesthetic images ) 

3. Poet, Speaker and Tone

      Speaker: a fictional person, who speaks in a poem, as different from the poet’s real self

      Tone: the poet’s or the speaker’s attitude towards his subject, his audience, or even himself; the emotional coloring of a poem; the mood, voice, attitude and outlook of the poetThe tone can be described as “cold”, “eager”, “uncertain”, “cheerful”, “protesting”, “depressed” etc. 

4. Symbol, Irony and Allusion

  (1) Symbol: in poetry, those words and groups of words  which have a range of reference beyond their literal denotation (“rose”—youth, beauty, perfection, and shortness of youth and life, ete.) 

 (2) Private symbols: a highly specialized and personal set of words, objects, and phrases, etc. Which take on specific meanings as a result of repeated use by a poet in poem after poem. 

(3) Symbolic poem: a poem which pervasively uses symbols as a major strategy, and which is more committed to the things the symbols represent than to everyday reality (Such poems are said to use symbolism). 

 Irony : always implying some sort of discrepancy or gap, between what is said and what is meant; between appearance and reality, or between expectation and fulfillment—powerful devices that enable the poet to suggest meanings without stating them, to communicate a great deal more than what he says. 

 Allusion: a reference to something outside the poem (in history, in previous literature, etc.) which has built-in emotional associations;    Allusions imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the wok supplies an emotional or intellectual context.