Poetry Flashcards

1
Q

Two types of poetry

A

Narrative poetry and Lyric poetry

narrative poetry: poet explores ideas through the medium of a story

lyric poetry: poet gives immediate response to life/ expresses thought and emotion

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2
Q

Narrative poetry + main kinds (3)

A

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.

The main kinds are the epic, the ballad and the romance

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3
Q

Lyrics + main kinds (3)

A

Vast majority of poems are lyrics

A lyric is a poem in which the poet writes about his or her thoughts and feelings, a direct response to some aspect of experience (e.g. the death of a friend)

Basic type of lyric is the song, but we use the term Lyric’ as general label for everything that’s not a narrative poem such as the sonnet, the ode and the elegy

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4
Q

Lyric poetry characteristics (3)

A
  1. works on the basis of a contrast between some problem or some unattractive or disorderly aspect of life vs. an idea of a better, more attractive order
  2. experiences: love, death, nature, religion or a domestic, social or political ssue, but we are always offered the poet’s direct response
  3. a lyric is an attempt to confront and understand some aspect of our complex experiences in life
  4. a lyric will either lean more towards an ordered, harmonious picture or lean more towards the disorder that experience offers

(e.g. a love poem will contrast the unhapiness of not being in love with the happiness caused by love)

Disorder/order structure is inherent to poetry in general. This broad structural opposition makes studying poetry easier as you can start by looking for this pattern!

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5
Q

Alliteration

A

repetition of the same letter (or, more precisely sound) at the beginning of two or more words in a line of poetry

(e.g. five miles meandering with a mazy motion)

When you notice a feature such as this in a text, explain its function too (e.g. it reinforces the meaning of the words or it clusters certain words together)!

Main function: to lend ideas and images additional emphasis and force

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6
Q

Archaism and function

A

The use of old or antiquated words in poetry

creates the picture and signal to the reader that we are removed from ordinary experience, and ordinary language

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7
Q

Archaic words are an example of

A

poetic diction

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8
Q

poetic diction and function

A

words found in poetry which are not used in everyday speech or prose

most commonly used is ‘O’

to indicate that the poet is leaving dull reality in pursuit of something perfect, but often followed by the stark not ideal reality

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9
Q

assonance

A

repetition of the same vowel sound in two or more words in a line of poetry

e.g. a host of golden daffodils

// alliteration, it reinforces the meaning of the words and links them together - NOT necessarily about the sound effect itself but the MEANING

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10
Q

consonance

A

the repetition of the same consonant sound before and after different vowels in two words

e.g. live - love, escaped - scooped

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11
Q

when consonance replaces rhyme it is called

A

half-rhyme

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12
Q

half-rhyme vs. rhyme effect

A
  1. half-rhyme
    • is more clumsy, unlyrical and unharmonious e.g. groined - groaned, escaped - scoped
    • used especially by 20th C poets to suggest a world in fragments without order
  2. rhyme
    • neat, orderly
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13
Q

ballad

A

the traditional ballad is a song that tells a story

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14
Q

ballad characteristics (10)

A
  1. theme is often tragic (personal misfortune, public events like battles)
  2. supernatural themes
  3. oral form, dating back to the later Middle Ages
  4. simple in structure - four-line stanzas
  5. stock phrases
  6. simple language
  7. the story is central
  8. beginning abrupt, usually when tragedy occurs
  9. unhappy event (unharmonious events) in contrast with music (harmony)
  10. often incremental repetition
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15
Q

incremental repetition

A

often used in ballads, where lines are repeated from stanza to stanza, but with some small but crucial alteration as the line is repeated

e.g. a sad tale through the town is gaen

a sad tale on the morrow

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16
Q

literary ballad characteristics

A

more difficult than traditional ballad (that confront a personal or public disaster)

18th C poets took same form and subject matter BUT it does not deal with a tragedy directly

the author writes from a puzzled perspective at life and by presenting a story that refuses a simple interpretation, it offers an impression of the complexity and meaning of the world

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17
Q

blank verse

A

unrhymed poetry, but a disciplined verse form as each line is an iambic pentameter (a 10-syllable line with five emphasis/stresses)

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18
Q

blank verse use

A
  1. appears less formally contrived than a poem that rhymes
  2. good medium for long narrative poem about a complex story or exploring experience
  3. good medium for lyric poem where the poet is thinks in a discursive way rather than fitting his thoughts into stanza and rhyme patterns (–> sonnet)
  4. maintains variety by shifting the pause in the line and by using run-on lines in the verse paragraph

Often used by Shakespeare and other Renaissance dramatists!

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19
Q

verse paragraph

A

verse paraghraphs are separate sections in a blank-verse poem (in other poems we call them stanzas)

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20
Q

conceit

A

It is a far-fetched methapor in which a very unlikely connection between two things is established

e.g. lover’s souls as being like the two legs of a pair of compasses

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21
Q

conceit most common in what C?

A

most common in 17th C metaphysical poetry meant to strike us as ingenious = we are meant to feel that it takes invention and imagination to forge a connection

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22
Q

metaphysical poetry characteristics (4)

A
  1. conceits
  2. complicated arguments
  3. convoluted syntax
  4. rapid jumps from idea to idea
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23
Q

courtly-love poetry

A

Courtly-love poetry is generally concerned with an idealised view of love

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24
Q

courtly love poetry characteristics (2) + examples writers

A
  1. an idealised view of love in contrast with the complexity of real relationships
  2. reader often unsure on how to respond, both moved or amused

Chaucer’s narrative poems, but also common in Elzabethan sonnets (Shakespeare, Sidney)

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25
Q

dramatic monologue

A
  1. a poem in which an imaginary speaker addresses an audience
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26
Q

dramatic monologue characteristics

A
  1. the poem usually takes place at a critical moment in the speaker’s life
  2. offers an indirect revelation of his/her temperament and personality
  3. common in plays and longer poems
  4. represent one person’s response to life
    • more specifically an imagined character’s interpretation of the world they encounter (not the poet’s direct view of life!)
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27
Q

dream poetry

A

a poem that tells of a dream (also called dream visions and dream allegories)

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28
Q

dream poetry characteristics

A
  1. popular in Middle Ages (Chaucer)
  2. contrast between the dream and the realities of everyday life
  3. something significant can be discovered, revealed or explored in the dream (there’s a value of what is revealed in the unconscious or semi-conscious mind)
  4. re-emerges in poetry in the romantic period (Keats, Coleridge)
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29
Q

18th Century poetry (+ 2 other names)

A

Generally social poetry concerned with manners and morals

Also called Augustan (1700-1745) and neoclassic (1660-end of 18th C)

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30
Q

18th C poetry characteristics (8)

A
  1. writer looks at corrupt society and offers corrective thinking
  2. emphasis on decorum and moderation (basic meaning of poem is transparent as they are against excess)
  3. heroic couplet as common verse form
    • it suggests an idea of balance and order, writers look back at classical authors who had established enduring models
  4. topical references (but again meaning transparent)
  5. satiric, mocking the erant
  6. poet writes from ironic superiority
  7. balanced couplets suggesting a standard of behaviour and correctness against e.g. corrupt society
  8. increasing amount of women poets
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31
Q

elegy (definition and purpose, use, ending)

A

a poem written on the death of a friend of the poet

  • purpose is to praise the friend
  • death does ask the writer what the point is of living
  • ending, writer comes to terms with his/her grief
  • poet must explore poetic language, esp imagery, to discover if there’s a point in writing poetry/living
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32
Q

epic charateristics (5)

A
  1. An epic presents the great deeds of a heroic figure or group of figures (e.g. Homer’s Odyssey/Iliad)
  2. massive narrative poems
  3. focus on a crisis in hte history of a race or culture
  4. the scope is encyclopaedic - not just story as poet includes knowledge through imagery and allusion, classical references
  5. epic simile
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33
Q

epic simile

A

long digressions, comparing events in the story to events that we are familiar with or events in other stories or history

  • part of the epic being all-inclusive of knowledge
  • creates coherence suggesting that everything is part of a greater pattern)
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34
Q

epithalamion

A

a song or poem in honour of a marriage (traditionally sung outside the bride’s room on her wedding-night)

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35
Q

use of epithalamion (6)

A
  1. incorporated in many novels, plays, poems
  2. marriage often symbol of perfect order that can be established in society as well as being sactioned by God
  3. pattern:
    • poem is about the events of the entire day
    • central characters are bride and groom
    • poet as public celebrator of private experience
  4. joyful, celebratory mode (no references to darker aspects of life)
  5. nature imagery (bride fresh and fertile)
  6. classical references (evoke innocence)
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36
Q

free verse (4)

A
  1. poetry written in irregular lines and without any regular metre (>< blank verse has the iambic pentameter!)
  2. abandons regular metrical pattern and usually also abandons rhyme
  3. free verse is a good medium for the poet to discuss thinking in all its complexity (as it doesn’t have a strict frame)
  4. repetition of word and phrase to introduce some organisation (irregularity of free verse - but still search towards some symmetry)
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37
Q

heroic couplet characteristics

A
  1. a pair of 10-syllable lines (i.e. two iambic pentameters) that rhyme
  2. entire poem can be written in a sequence of these couplets
  3. most popular verse form in 18th C poetry (Shakespeare, Chaucer, Browning, Dryden, Pope)
  4. difference between open couplets and closed couplets
    • open couplets make us not conscious of the rhyme, allowing thought to run on, they become similar to blank verse
    • closed couplets make us conscious of the ryme, creating idea of balance that is praised in society, which satire mocks (making it ideal verse form for satire)
      *
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38
Q

Imagery

A

imagery covers every concrete object, action and feeling in a poem (the key words in a poem), but also the use of metaphors and similes (figurative language)

(the effects of sounds in a sequence of words are alliteration and assonance)

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39
Q

figurative use of language (4)

A
  1. language used in a non-literal way (e.g. metaphor or a simile to extend significance of what he/she is saying)
  2. as poets try to create ordered verse in contrast to the disordered world, figurative imagery either adds to the sense of disorder or to the sense of oder/harmony
    • association of something positive with positive images creates a forceful impression of the ideal
    • association of something negative with negative images creates a forceful impression of the unpleasant disorder
  3. most common associations: objects with religious, cosmic, natural (flowers, animals, weather), daily life (money, war, business), body (sickness, disease, health, death) concepts
    • creating opposites of good-bad, light-dark
  4. rather a way of creating force by associating ideas in the poem with other (un)pleasent things than creating a crypted meaning!
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40
Q

imagism (8)

A
  1. coined by Ezra Pound (‘In a station of the metro’; also important William Carlos Williams)
  2. ca 1914 start of economical poems that use a few, hard, clear images (very concentrated impression of scene), followed by a poetic (metaphoric) comparison
  3. no comment or development of an argument, every word counts
  4. free verse
  5. juxtaposition of figurtive image in second line as a response to the observed image in the first
  6. imagist poetry is a reaction against romantic poetry with its verbose expresion and personal fantasies
  7. imagist poetry is the start of modern poetry (formal innovation, small scale refers to only being able to understand reality in glimpses/fragments)
  8. new self-consciousness about poetry (trying to find a technique to adequatly describe the world makes us reconsider what reality is like and how language tries to represent it
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41
Q

Lyric poetry evolution (17th C lyric poetry - 20th C lyric poetry)

A

17th C lyric poetry (Ben Jonson, Donne, Shakespeare)

  1. theme mostly secular (perfect love - complexity of feelings and experience, disorder) or divine love (perfection of God - disorder in experience)

Lyric poetry not preferred in 18th C poetry (Pope e.g. preferred social poetry by using narrative verse or a social form such as the epistle)

Romantic period (Keats, Wordsworth), popular again, but shift in subject/approach

  1. rather than about secular/divine love, it talks about nature and how to construct order/harmony in that nature

Victorian period (Tennyson, Arnold)

  1. gap between an ideal order and the disorder of reality gets wider and search for stability becomes increasingly desperate

Same for 20th C (Yeats, Margaret Atwood)

  1. theme often about perception and reality leaving the reader unsure about what is real or imagined
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42
Q

lyrical ballad (Wordsworth, Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads)

A
  1. reaction against the social and intellectual interest of much 17th C and 18th C poetry
  2. instead turns to nature and thus marks start of romantic poetry
  3. ‘ballad’ suggests a desire to go back to the simple misfortunes of ordinary people >< urbane, witty style of 18th C poetry about morals and manners of the town = often simply writing
  4. ‘lyrical’ greater degree of authorial involvement than in a traditional balad, author responses to experience + it also breaks the distinction as it combines the narrative and lyric modes together
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43
Q

metaphysical poetry

A
  1. term used to refer to 17th C poets (Donne difficult, Vaughan, Marvell)
  2. poems are often written in knotted sentences, argument difficult to find, jumps from one to another idea
  3. imagery extraordinary
  4. conventional subjects, mostly secular/divine love
  5. greater emphasis on how difficult it is to make sense of experience (disorder) against the redeeming love
  6. witty and ingenious conceits by juxtaposing things that have not much in common (e.g. two lovers - pair of compasses = Donne)
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44
Q

metre

A

the pattern of stresses and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

45
Q

most widely used metre/line in English poetry

A

the iambic pentameter

46
Q

the iambic pentameter (6)

A
  1. a 10-syllable line with five stresses or emphases (see image p52)
  2. an unstressed syllable is always followed by a stressed syllable
  3. each unit or group of syllables is called a foot
    • here it’s specifically called a iambic foot because it has the pattern unstressed-stressed syllable = thus five jambic feet form the iambic pentameter
  4. majority of English poetry (rhymed and unrhymed) are written in this metre as it’s a natural rise and fall pattern)
  5. a regular pentameter pattern suggests an easy, everyday, routinial experience (e.g. going to work)
  6. disrupting the regular pattern sugggests difficulty, no order
47
Q

different variations of pattern in a iambic pentameter

A
  1. iambic foot = unstressed - stressed syllable
  2. trochaic foot/trochee = stressed-unstressed syllable
  3. spondee = two syllable foot stressed-stressed

Still all an iambic pentameter as they are five stresses/feet. These are just variations of within those feet.

Variation stresses different words and emphasises the meaning of those words

48
Q

difference between metre and rythm

A
  • metre: something the poet imposes on the words, deliberately arranging them into a pattern to make the language more meaningful
  • rhythm: something that comes with the language itself because of the way we speak. When you read a poem, it is the rhythm of the language you hear that enables you to spot the stresses in a line of poetry (aka the metre)
49
Q

different length of line in poetry (length denotes how many syllables and feeit in a line)

A
  1. pentameter: 10 syllables divided into 5 feet/stresses
  2. tetrameter: 8 syllables divided into 4 feet
  3. hexameter: 12 syllables divided into six feet
    • if the feet are iambic in a hexameter, they are called an alexandrine
50
Q

pure-stress or strong-stress metre

A
  1. four stresses to every line, regardless of length (thus regardless of how many syllables and feet there are)
  2. used in Old English poetry and medieval alliterative poetry where syllables don’t matter, only stress!
  3. Hopkins also used this (late 19th C poetry) and called it ‘sprung’ rhythm because you spring from one strong syllable to the next without a pause inbetween
  4. verse is more rhetorical rather than metrical as it effect is that of speech, not organised rhythms
51
Q

prosody

A

the study of versification, especially metre, rhyme and stanzas

52
Q

caesura

A

a pause in a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation

53
Q

end-stopped lines

A

a pause at the end of a line of poetry, marked by punctuation

54
Q

run-on lines

A

there is no pause at the end of a line. This running-over of the sense of one line to the next is also called enjambement

55
Q

enjambement

A

‘striding-over’ = when one line runs over into the next one

56
Q

mock-heroic or mock-epic poem

A
  • It imitates the elaborated form and elevated style of epic poetry, but applies it to trivial subject matter
  • when the epic style and conventions (grand concepts, heroic imagery) are used to describe trivial, petty incidents = comic and satiric effect

examples: 3 major mock-heroic poems in English, 2 by Pope and 1 by Dryden

57
Q

modern(ist) poetry

A
  1. often very difficult (think T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land)
  2. confusing lines (Eliot even switches foreign language), poem shifts from scene to scene without logic
  3. creates sense of being lost, no order in a confusing world which reflects the poet’s impression of contemporary disorder
  4. images and structure therefore suggest a complicated/puzzling world
  5. but threads of order (Eliot uses phrases from earlier literature, goes even back to traditional Christianity and a desire for religious conviction) or through a life (disorder) / art (order) division (Yeats)
  6. ideas often not necessarily difficult, but technique is
58
Q

ode (5)

A
  1. an elaborate and elevated lyric poem
  2. extends over a few stanzas
  3. addressed to a person, thing or an abstraction (e.g. melancholy) that transcends the problems of life becoming a symbol of perfection
  4. straightforward form in which the subject is praised –> romantic period more hesitant and philosophical
  5. status of object can be questioned (esp. romantic period), shift from the positive celebration of the traditional ode towards an emphasis on negative feelings
59
Q

how to read an ode

A
  1. look at how elevated language is used to transcend the everyday, mundane
  2. look for the opposing images that reflect the harsher realities of life
    • as the poem progresses, it will become more complicated with difficult ideas, an involved argument and a veriety of images in each stanza as the poet becomes aware of the gap between an ideal and the reality of life
60
Q

How to read a narrative poem (3 steps) and explain distinction

A
  1. read a narrative poem simply as a story
  2. look for the simple idea the story seems to put across
  3. look at the details the poet introduces which suggest that life is always more complicated than the stories we might make out of it or the interpretations we place on it

(e.g. using a morally suspect imagined narrator (Canterbury Tales) or multiple narrators with their own interpretations of reality)

A narrative poem thus makes a distinction between a story (an anecdote with a point) and the discourse (complications in their telling of the story which undermine the simple moral significane)

61
Q

Pastoral poetry

A
  1. Poetry about a peaceful, rural world/life far away from the corruption of contemporary life
  2. it presents an artificial image of an innocent world (= Arcadia, the idealised country celebrated in classical pastoral poems) which contrasts with the corrupt reality
62
Q

Pastoral imagery used as

A
  1. an allegory = it presents an ideal world which we interpret as the real world even though the real world is not referred to or presented (medieval allegorical way of thinking –> Spenser)
  2. a vehicle = by associating pastoral with the poet’s problems (such as death), he can come to terms with the reality (his friend becoming a good shepherd ordained by God to die) OR he associates pastoral with the ideal of art, allowing him to escape from experience (Milton)
  3. critique = focusing on the reality of rural life includes an implicit attack on the unreality of the pastoral mode, criticising the idyllic landscape (although it had always been a device for writing about a utopian world rather than a belief in pastoral innocence (Wordsworth)

shift in 17th C: the medieval allegorical way of thinking is replaced by an empirical response to experience = confrontation with real world rather than an imagined world as a contrast (Milton focuses more on gap between ideal/real than Spenser)

63
Q

Renaissance Poetry (6)

A
  1. always engaged with issues about how society is ordered (mainly in politics and religion)
  2. favoured modes are epic and short lyric poems
  3. favoured subject is love (secular and divine)
  4. growing insecurity and lack of confidence in world as the gap between society’s disorder and God’s order grows (–> Civil War 1642-51, questioning God’s actions and ordered pattern vs. life’s mess)
  5. at the end of Renaissance period, social poetry (Pope, Druden) becomes important as well as the novel = focus on secular world. Ren poetry is therefore the last attempt at holding everything together (God/man)
  6. doubleness as it’s simultaneously serious and playful

(examples: Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne and Milton)

64
Q

Rhyme

A

identity of sound between two words, extending from the last fully stressed vowel to the end of the word

the conventional method of referring to the rhyme scheme of a poem is through the alphabet (aa, bb, cc - abab - aabbaa)

65
Q

use of rhyme

A
  1. creates harmony and order
    • the poet finds connections between words (maybe just on the level of sound) that suggest a broader idea of finding order in things. This rder is mostly formed by the meaning of those words, but the verse form (incl rhyme) help
    • it can contribute to order by combining opposites or by associating them together (finding similarity in dissimilarity)
  2. rhyme pattern that suddenly fails can add to the idea of the disorder of the real world, so much so that the orderly pattern of the poem is interrupted

Never just comment that it rhymes, but explain how the use of that rhyme contributes to the overall meaning and effect of the poem!

66
Q

end rhyme

A

occurs at the end of lines (poetry)

67
Q

internal rhyme

A

occurs within lines (poetry)

68
Q

strong rhymes

A

also called masculine rhymes: a single stressed syllable (e.g. hill - still)

69
Q

weak rhymes

A

also called feminine rhymes: two rhyming sullables, a stressed one, followed by an unstressed one (e.g. hollow - follow)

70
Q

eye rhyme

A

also called courtesy rhymes: words spelt alike but not actually rhyming (e.g. love - prove)

71
Q

imperfect rhymes

A

also called partial, near, slant or off-rhymes: words which do not quite rhyme and so produce a sense of discordance (e.g. soul-wall)

72
Q

half-rhymes

A

also called consonance: repetition of the same consonant sounds before and after different vowels (e.g. groaned - groined)

73
Q

rhythm

A

the flow or movement of a line, whether it goes fast or slow, is calm or troubled

you can know the flow by looking at the meaning of the words (meaning and rhythm are intertwined)!

  • if the speaker is troubled - rhythm is troubled
  • if the speaker is happy and excited - rhythm is too
  • if the speaker is calm and at peace - rhythm is too

(e.g. line talks about repetition, rhythm is repetitive - line talks about a depressive image, rhythm is lifeless, long and depressive to reinforce the meaning of the words

74
Q

romances (5)

A
  1. a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure, love and chivalry
  2. typical hero is a knight on a quest
  3. quest becomes a symbolic journey in which moral and spiritual qualities are tested
  4. use of supernatural events and of a fairy land are common
  5. clear gap between the vision of an ideal world and how things are in the real world (in sir Gawain we have the ideal knight and a patterned text to reinforce this world remote from ordinary life, but a teasing narrator who hints at the absurd aspect of this ideality)
75
Q

evolution of romances (Middle Ages - romantic period)

A
  • were popular in the Middle Ages (sir Gawain and the green knight)
  • not in 18th C
  • popular again in romantic period (Keats)
    • same awareness of gap as in the Middle Ages between ideal word and reality
    • romantic period had interest in stories of the Middle Ages because they involved a flight of the imagination whereby a harmonious world could be created in the mind (rather than an interest in knights and ladies)
76
Q

romantic poetry

A
  1. starting point of romantic poetry are Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads
  2. can be seen as a reaction against the rational mentality of the 18th C
  3. focus on nature in which truth and value can be be found which is lost by rational philosophers
  4. importance of childhood, child has innocent wisdom which dissapears as maturity comes closer
  5. through emphasising the natural and uncorrupted, new focus on emotions and feelings
  6. often poets are ‘hesistant’ = they create a picture of something natural (landscape or character) on which they impose an imaginative interpretation, but then question whether this can be trusted (Wordsworth) or if it fails to shift away from complex reality (Coleridge)
  7. focus on imagination also means focus on the mind and how fantasies are created in the mind (aka make-believe worlds, however still tension between this dreamlike world vs. reality)

(examples Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge)

77
Q

how to read a romantic poem

A
  1. look at how the poet has used imagination to create something positive in the poem (a vivid picture or a strong statement of positive beliefs)
  2. what does the poem offer beyond that?
    • is it aware of the disorder and problems that are always present in experience, because reality is more complex than the order created by the poet
78
Q

Sonnet (types, 4)

A
  1. A 14-line poem
  2. technically a type of stanza form
  3. Two main types:
    • the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet
    • the English or Shakespearean sonnet
    • (also the curtal sonet)

a very self-conscious, disciplined form that is associated with the specific theme of love.

  1. conventions of romantic love were established by Petrarch in 14th C (= as a paradoxical mix of feelings and thoughts)
  2. Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers employ these both seriously and not seriously in various ways
  3. not limited to 16th and 17th C writers, also 19th C writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning explore sonnets (often building contrast with death as the real enemy of love - desire and fear)
  4. not all sonnets deal with love (romantics use the form to explore nature), but always connected to it
79
Q

A petrarchan or Italian sonnet

A
  1. has an octave (8 lines), volta and a sestet (6 lines)
  2. rhyme scheme
    • abba abba cde cde
    • abba abba cdc dcd
  3. iambic pentameter
  4. typical pattern: the octave sets out a problem, the sestet is used to resolve it
80
Q

An English, Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet

A
  1. has 3 quatrains (four-line stanzas), volta and a couplet (two lines)
  2. rhyme scheme
    • abab cdcd efef gg
  3. iambic pentameter
  4. often an ordered notion of ideal love set against a sense of love’s problems (strict, ideal poetic form >< life) OR it is about writing itself which stresses the artificiality of the sonnet form and the contrast between life and trying to order life in something contrived as a poem
81
Q

sonnet sequence

A

a series of sonnets on the same theme by the same poet

3 major sonnet sequences in English; all about love: Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney (the sonnet form has been used by many poets on a variety of themes)

82
Q

How is the sonnet form used

A
  1. either to express a logical argument in which the poet imposes an ordered answer on a problem (Petrarchan/Italian sonnet)
  2. either to challenge the rigidity of the sonnet suggesting that life itself goes beyond the restraints of poetic form (Shakespeare esp convey a very complex sense of the difficulty of resolving an issue - English/Shakespearean/Elizebethan sonnet)
83
Q

How to read a sonnet

A
  1. identify the theme
  2. is it English or Petrarchan? (look at rhyme scheme and how the form is used)
  3. is the language calm or violent
    1. if the overall impression is calm, the poet will be using the sonnet to get on top of difficult ideas
    2. if the poem is disorderly, then there is a tension between the sonnet’s ordered form and an awareness that life does not fit in such a strict poetic form
84
Q

Stanza (+most common one)

A
  1. units of verse, seperated by a space in printed text
  2. most common are four-line units (quatrains) but the term ‘stanza’ refers to any group of lines!
  3. each unit normally contains the same number of lines and same rhyme scheme
  4. with longer poems divided at irregular intervals, each unit of verse is called a verse paragraph
85
Q

Verse paragraph

A

In longer poems divided at irregular intervals, each unit of verse is called a verse paragraph

86
Q

the use of stanzas in poetry (3)

A
  1. stanzas offer a regular pattern, which enables the poet to offer an idea of order within the work (which in turn can contrast with the content)
  2. within the stanza, complications can occur, but this stands in contrast with the overall desire for pattern
  3. there are different stanza patterns (couplet, tercet, quatrain, sonnet, etc), but sometimes a pattern might be invented for a particular poem
87
Q

couplet

A
  • type of stanza form: a pair of rhymed lines
88
Q

heroic couplet

A

type of stanza form: rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (= 10 syllable line with 5 stresses)

89
Q

tercet

A

also called triplet

type of stanza form:

three lines with a single rhyme

90
Q

quatrain

A

type of stanza form:

a four-line stanza

91
Q

rhyme royal

A

type of stanza form:

a seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter with rhyme scheme: ababbcc

92
Q

ottava rima

A

type of stanza form:

an eight-line stanza rhyming abababcc

93
Q

Spenserian stanza

A

type of stanza form:

a nine-line stanza rhming ababbcbcc

the first eight lines are iambic pentameter, the ninth an alexandrine

94
Q

curtal sonnet

A

type of stanza form:

  • invented by Hopkins
  • shortened form of a sonnet
  • two seperate stanzas
    • first of six lines
    • other of four lines with a half-line tail piece
95
Q

canto

A

type of stanza form:

a sub-division of a narrative poem

96
Q

symbol

A
  1. an object which stands for something else (e.g. a dove symbolising peace)
  2. in a poem it is a word which both signifies something specific as well as something beyond itself
97
Q

difference between a symbol and image in poetry

A

an image is associated with something that is stated in the poem itself

whilst we have to infer meaning and associations with a symbol (thus not stated in the text, indirect)

98
Q

use of a symbol in poetry (4)

A
  1. It allows the reader to infer a meaning and see how the object or place described relates to a larger idea/concept such as innocence or an ideal world
  2. only used by poets when they want to express an apprehension of something that is not directly observable in the everyday world
    • through a symbol from the familiar world this non-rational apprehension can be conveyed
  3. often used in romantic poetry (to express a sense of an unseen world in the imagination)
  4. a poet can also start with an object in the real world and make it symbolic by loading it with meaning which is not explicitly stated
99
Q

20th C Poetry

A
  1. Is characterised by various writers who offer differnt responses to a disorderd/chaotic world torn apart by two world wars
  2. by the end of the C, many different types of poetry (e.g. the Georgian poets, modernist poetry, the Movement poets, New poetry, postmodernist poetry, performance poetry)
  3. a lot more international and multicultural talking about topics such as race and social problems (Derek Walcott)
100
Q

Georgian poets

A
  1. wrote at the beginning of the century, before the Great War (14-18)
  2. very traditional, celebrating the order of rural England (>< war poetry of Wilfred Owen and Sassoon and modernist poetry of Pound - T.S. Eliot denoting a world without coherence or links)
  3. solid, uncomplicated poetry
101
Q

war poetry

A

A type of 20th C poetry which follows the Georgian poets:

It carries the shock of WOI through:

  1. bitter, ironic verse
  2. dream and nightmare imagery
  3. language of violence and slaughter
  4. still it echoes the idea of order through half-rhyme and referencing love >< disorder in war poetry
102
Q

Political poetry 1930s

A

A type of 20th C poetry

favoured left-wing politics as poetry and language have a role to play in a world surrounded by social issues and drifting towards war again (>< T.S. Eliot’s right-wing poetry containing anti-Semitist notions, the society is so extremely sick they seem to seek the most conservative myths of order)

(examples: W.H. Auden, C.Day-Lewis, Spender)

103
Q

The Movement poets

A

Type of 20th C poetry: 1950s

  1. rational
  2. deals with the everyday reality in a pessimistic manner, but without romantic excess or obscure modernist verse
  3. sobre, orderly poetry (post-war life being re-established on a reduced scale)

(example Philip Larkin)

–> reaction against this is the New Poetry of the 60s

104
Q

New Poetry

A

Type of 20th C poetry: 1960s

  1. reaction against the Movement poets
  2. shift from sobre, orderly poetry to innovative, energetic poems // modernism
  3. talk about the cruelty and violence of life, the unspoken parts of the human mind
  4. disintegration and darkness (characterising the postmodern period)

(examples: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Ted Hughes)

105
Q

Postmodern poetry

A
  1. in general: all literature written since the Second World War
  2. more specific: work characterised by
    • fragmentation
    • discontinuity
    • indeterminacy
    • dislocation
    • self-consciousness

(examples: Margaret Atwood, Ann Duffy, Tony Harrison)

106
Q

How to read 20th C poetry

A

It is either written in a conventional form or in an unconventional form (disjointed verse, dense).

  1. unconvential form uses its dislocated, disoriented form to create a disorderd world with no secure framework
  2. conventional form can also be used to present a disturbing picture of modern life
107
Q

verse epistle

A

a kind of letter in verse, dealing with moral and philosophical themes

example Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot:

  1. use of satire
  2. uses snapshots of characters to create an impression of a disordered society
  3. opposing standars (respect for balance through heroic couplets)
  4. vicious imagery
108
Q

women’s poetry

A
  1. there is an enormous variety and quantity of women writing, but it has only recently been starting to get recognised
    • 17th - 18th C
    • 19th C (Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Brontë, Christina Rossetti)
    • 20th C (Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Stevie Smith, Margaret Atwood, Fleur Adcock, Carol Ann Duffy)
  2. things to consider when reading women’s poetry:
    • historical and social contexts in which women were writing (often excluded from education and politics)
    • feminist issues (woman’s experience, relationship of women to language) although not limited to!
    • how does this poetry challenges stereotypes
    • how does it uses conventions and conventional forms (often by using a conventional verse form it critiques the restraint on women even in poetry - but then the act of writing can be seen as a defiance/questioning the social structure)
    • poetry as a space to define their own identity
    • humorous and moving at the same time