Form in Poetry

1
Form in Poetry

• The Shapes and Sounds of Poetry

2
Form in Poetry

• Form (Structure) in poetry refers to
• The way the words are arranged in lines
• The way the lines are arranged in stanzas
• The way the units of sound are organized in
  rhythm and rhyme
• The two main forms are conventional and organic

3
Conventional Form

• Also know as fixed form poems
• Include the sonnet, the ballad, the elegy, the
  ode, the villanelle, and blank verse
• Fixed form poems were used by the great English
  poets before the 19th century
• William Shakespeare and John Milton
• Also used by American poets of the time

4
Conventional Form

• Follow certain fixed rules
• Limited number of lines
• A specified meter and rhyme scheme
• A definite structure

5
From A Psalm of Lifeby Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow

• Tell me not in mournful numbers
• Life is but an empty dream
• For the soul is dead that slumbers
• And things are not what they seem

6
From Exultation is the Goingby Emily Dickenson

• Exultation is the going
• Of an inland soul to sea,
• Past the housespast the headlands
• Into deep Eternity

7
Organic Form

• Also know as irregular form poems
• Developed in the early 19th Century
• English poets wanted more flexible verse forms to
  fit the new content of their poetry
• Organic poetry takes its shape from the content
  of the poem itself
• The form of the poem Grows naturally out of
  what the poem says

8
Free Verse

• A form of organic poetry
• Different than conventional poetry and other
  organic poetry
• Lack of regular meter and rhyme
• Free verse is not completely free
• It uses rhythm, although not in the regular
  patterns of meter
• It also depends on other sound devices besides
  rhyme to achieve musical effects, such as
  various forms of repetition.

9
Poetic Devices

• Poets use different devices to help communicate
  their ideas.
• Symbols, for example, convey meaning other than
  the literal definitions of words.
• A symbol is a person, place, or object that
  stands for something beyond itself, such as an
  idea or feeling.
• Often, poets use sound devices, such as the
  following ones, to produce special qualities of
  sound in a poem.

10
Poetic Sound Devices

• Alliteration is a repetition of consonant sounds
  at the beginnings of words
• Example The soft sounds of summer surrounded me.
• Assonance is a repetition of vowel sounds within
  words.
• Example The rise of the night tide came on
  suddenly
• Consonance is a repetition of consonant sounds
  within and at the end of words
• Example The hot rotten air beat down the crowd

11
Poetic Sound Devices

• Repetition is a recurrence of words, phrases, or
  lines.
• Anaphora is a repetition of the same word or
  phrase at the beginning of two or more lines.
• We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on
  the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields
  and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills
  we shall never surrender." (Winston Churchill)

12
Poetic Sound Devices

• Repetition is a recurrence of words, phrases, or
  lines.
• Parallelism is the use of similar phrasing to
  express related ideas.
• You can see my smile, you can see my grin, you
  cannot see my fear
• My sadness is my fight, the world is my
  battlefield.

13
From I Hear America Singingby Walt Whitman

• I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
• Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it
  should be blithe and strong,
• The carpenter singing his as he measures his
  plank or beam,

14
From Song of Myselfby Walt Whitman

• Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the
  produced babe of vegetation,
• Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

15

• I hear America singing, the varied carols I
  hearThose of mechanics--each one singing his,
  as it should be, blithe and strongThe carpenter
  singing his, as he measures his plank or
  beam,The mason singing his, as he makes ready
  for work, or leaves off workThe boatman singing
  what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand
  singing on the steamboat deckThe shoemaker
  singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter
  singing as he standsThe wood-cutter's song--the
  ploughboy's, on his way in the morning,or at the
  noon intermission, or at sundownThe delicious
  singing of the mother--or of the young wife at
  work--or of the girl sewing or washing--Each
  singing what belongs to her, and to none
  elseThe day what belongs to the day--At night,
  the party of young fellows, robust,
  friendly,Singing, with open mouths, their strong
  melodious songs.

16

• I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the
  world, and upon alloppression and shame,I hear
  secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish
  withthemselves, remorseful after deeds done,I
  see in low life the mother misused by her
  children, dying,neglected, gaunt, desperate,I
  see the wife misused by her husband, I see the
  treacherous seducerof young women,I mark the
  ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love
  attempted to behid, I see these sights on the
  earth,I see the workings of battle, pestilence,
  tyranny, I see martyrs andprisoners,I observe a
  famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots
  whoshall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the
  rest,I observe the slights and degradations cast
  by arrogant persons uponlaborers, the poor, and
  upon negroes, and the likeAll these--all the
  meanness and agony without end I sitting look out
  upon,See, hear, and am silent.