Poetry II

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Poetry II
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Rhetorical Devices

• Schemes (Satzfiguren)

• Tropes
• (Wortfiguren)

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Phonological Schemes

• alliteration
• Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
  (Coleridge, Kubla Khan)
• assonance
• The Lotus blooms below the barren peak
• The Lotus blows by every winding creek
• consonance
• slip, slop black, block
• onomatopoeia (Lautmalerei)
• dong, crackle, moo, pop, whizz, whoosh, zoom

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Example Onomatopoeia

• the sound of the word imitates the sound of the
  thing which the word denotes
• e.g. Hear the loud alarum bells
• Brazen bells!
• What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency
  tells! ...
• How they clang, and clash and roar!
• (Poe, The Bell)

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Morphological Schemes

• anaphora
• epiphora
• repetition
• Tyger! Tyger! burning bright (William Blake,
  The Tyger)
• homonym
• seal rest
• synonym
• insane, mad, demented
• tautology
• I myself personally.

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Example Anaphora

• a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of
  successive phrases, clauses or lines
• e.g.
• And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand
  of my own,
• And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest
  brother of my own,
• And that all the men ever born are also my
  brothers.and the
• women my sisters and lovers,
• And that the kelson of the creation is love,
• And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the
  fields,
• and brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
  
• (Walt Whitman, Song for Myself)

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Syntactic Schemes

• asyndeton
• polysyndeton
• chiasmus
• ellipsis
• hyperbaton
• inversion
• parallelism
• zeugma

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Example Asyndeton

• omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases,
  clauses, or words
• e.g.
• Hog Butcher for the World,
• Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
• Player with Railroads and the Nations Freight
  Handler
• (Carl Sandburg, Chicago)

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Example Polysyndeton

• joins phrases by conjunctions
• e.g.
• To one another! for the world, which seems
• To lie before us like a land of dreams,
• So various, so beautiful, so new
• (Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach)

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Example Chiasmus

• two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted,
  mirror-like order (a-b, b-a) to achieve
  antithesis or parallelism
• e.g.
• From Rome to London and from London to Rome.

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Example Ellipsis

• word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though
  implied by the context
• e.g.
• My wife went but I didnt

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Example Hyperbaton

• figure of syntactic dislocation where phrase or
  words that belong together are separated
• e.g.
• High on a throne of royal state, which far
• Outshone the wealth of Ormuz of Ind,
• Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand
• Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
• Satan exalted sat.
• (Milton, Paradise Lost)

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Example Inversion

• the usual word order is rearranged, often for the
  effect of emphasis or to maintain the metre
• e.g.
• Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And
  often is his gold complexion dimmd
• (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)

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Example Parallelism

• repetition of identical or similar syntactic
  elements (word, phrase, clause), phrases or
  sentences of similar construction
• e.g.
• The connoisseur peers along the
  exhibition-gallery with halfshut
• eyes bent sideways,
• The deckhands make fast the steamboat, the plank
  is thrown for the shoregoing passengers,
• The young sister holds out the skein, the elder
  sister winds it off
• in a ball and stops now and then for the
  knots,
• (Walt Whitman, Song of Myself)

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Example Zeugma

• the same word (verb or preposition) is applied to
  two others in different senses
• e.g.
• she looked at the object with suspicion and a
  magnifying glass.
• (Charles Dickens)

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Types of Poetry

• Lyrical Poetry
• Narrative Poetry

• Descriptive Poetry
• Dramatic Poetry

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Lyric Poetry

• A relatively short, non-narrative poem in which a
  single speaker presents a state of mind or an
  emotional state.
• subcategories elegy, ode, sonnet, most
  occasional poetry.

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Example Sonnet

• originally a love poem
• religious experience (e.g. Donne, Milton)
• reflections on art (e.g. Keats, Shelley)
• war experience (e.g. Brooke, Owen)
• originated in Italy
• became popular in England in the Renaissance

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Petrarcan vs. Shakespearean

• octet (eigth lines) rhyming abbaabba
• sestet (six lines) rhyming cdecde
• variations apply

• three quatrains (four lines) rhyming abab cdcd
  efef
• one final couplet (two lines) rhyming gg
• variations apply

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Example Petrarchan Sonnet

• Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame
• Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy?
• Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy
• Whom all the world doth as my lady name!
• How honour grows, and pure devotion's flame,
• How truth is joined with graceful dignity,
• There thou may'st learn, and what the path may be
  
• To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim
• There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill,
  
• And softer silence, and those holy ways
• Unutterable, untold by human heart.
• But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,
• This none can copy! since its lovely rays
• Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art.
• Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

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Example Shakespearean Sonnet

• Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless
  sea
• But sad mortality oer-sways their power,
• How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
• Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
• O, how shall summers honey breath hold out
• Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
• When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
• Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
• O fearful meditation! where, alack,
• Shall Times best jewel from Times chest lie
  hid?
• Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
• Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
• O, none, unless, this miracle have might
• That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
• (Shakespeare, Sonnet 65)

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Example Claude McKay

• His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.
• His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
• Had bidden him to his bosom once again
• The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
• All night a bright and solitary star
• (Perchance the one that ever guided him,
• Yet gave him up at last to Fates wild whim)
• Hung pitifully oer the swinging char.
• Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came into
  view
• The ghastly body swayingin the sun.
• The women thronged to look, but never a one
• Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue.
• And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
• Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
• (McKay, The Lynching)

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Example Robert Gernhardt

• Sonette find ich sowas von beschissen,so eng,
  rigide, irgendwie nicht gutes macht mich
  ehrlich richtig krank zu wissen,daß wer Sonette
  schreibt. Daß wer den Mut
• hat, heute noch so'n dumpfen Scheiß zu
  bauenallein der Fakt, daß so ein Typ das
  tut,kann mir in echt den ganzen Tag
  versauen.Ich hab da eine Sperre. Und die Wut
• darüber, daß so'n abgefuckter Kackermich mittels
  seiner Wichserein blockiert,schafft in mir
  Aggressionen auf den Macker.
• Ich tick nicht, was das Arschloch motiviert.Ich
  tick es echt nicht. Und wills echt nicht
  wissenIch find Sonette unheimlich beschissen.
• (Gernhardt, Materialen zu einer der bekanntesten
  Gedichtformen Italienischen Ursprungs)

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Narrative Poetry

• Poem which gives verbal representation, in verse,
  of a sequence of connected events it propels
  characters through a plot and is told by a
  narrator.
• subcategories epics, mock-epic, ballad

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Example Epic

• Epics usually operate on large scale, both in
  length and topic, such as the founding of a
  nation, hero sagas, or (mockeries of) grand
  narratives.
• e.g. Virgils Aeneid
• e.g. Beowulf
• e.g. Miltons Paradise Lost

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Example Ballad

• A ballad is a song, originally transmitted
  orally, which tells a story.
• usually four-line stanzas, alternating tetrameter
  and trimeter
• folk ballad
• steet ballad
• literary ballad

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Descriptive and Dramatic Poetry

• Both lyric and narrative poetry can contain
  lengthy and detailed descriptions (descriptive
  poetry) or scenes in direct speech (dramatic
  poetry).

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Didactic Poetry

• The purpose of a didactic poem is primarily to
  teach something.
• e.g. James Thomsons The Seasons
• e.g. Alexander Popes Essay on Criticism
• Horace (65-8 BC)
• prodesse (learning)
• delectare (pleasure)

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Metre

• Metre is the measured arrangements of accents and
  syllables in poetry. The metre is defined by the
  kind and number of feet.
• Accentual metre
• Syllabic metre
• Accentual-Syllabic metre
• Free verse

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Scansion, to scan

• We won't talk of stress,
• o 1 o 1 or x/xx/
• We won't talk of feet.
• o 1 o 1 as in daffodil
• We'll talk about rhythm, / x x
• o 1 o 1 (o)
• We'll talk about beat.
• o 1 o 1
• (from Carper/Altridge 2004)

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Metre and Line Length

• iamb (o1)
• trochee (1o)
• dactyl (1oo)
• anapaest (oo1)
• spondee (11)

• monometre
• dimetre
• trimetre
• tetrametre
• pentametre
• hexametre
• heptametre
• octametre

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So What?

• Metre must be suitable for the poem. Otherwise it
  leads to more or less ridiculous contradictions
  and thematic incoherence.
• The interplay of metre, rhythm and topic can also
  achieve a comic, satirical, alienating, shocking
  effect.

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Example Unsuitable Metre

• The poplars are felld, farewell to the shade
• And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade,
• The winds play no longer, and sing in the leaves,
• Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
• Twelve years have elapsd since I last took a
  view
• Of my favourite field and the bank where they
  grew,
• And now in the grass behold they are laid,
• And the tree is my seat that once lent me a
  shade.
• (Cowper, The Poplar Field)

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Example Metre as Comic Effect

• Corinna, Pride of Drury-Lane,
• For whom no Shepherd sighs in vain
• Never did Covent Garden boast
• So bright a batterd, strolling Toast
• No drunken Rake to pick her up,
• No Cellar where on Tick to sup
• Returning at the Midnight Hour
• Four stories climbing to her Bowr
• Then, seated on a three-leggd Chair,
• Takes off her artificial Hair
• Now picking out a Crystal Eye,
• She wipes it clean, and lays it by.

• Her Eye-Brows from a Mouses hyde,
• Stuck on with Art on either Side,
• Pulls off with Care, and first displays em,
• Then in a Play-Book smoothly lays em.
• Now dextrously her Plumpers draws,
• That serve to fill her hollow Jaws.
• Untwists a Wire and from her Gums
• A Set of Teeth completely comes.
• (From Swift, A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to
  Bed)

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Free Verse

• Free verse does not use any particular pattern of
  stress or number of syllables per line.
• Although without regular metre, it is not without
  rhythmic effect and organisation. It can be
  organised around syntactic units, words or sound
  repetitions.

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Example Free Verse

• Some quick to arm,
• some for adventure,
• some from fear of weakness,
• some from fear of censure,
• some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
• some learning later ...
• some in fear, learning love of slaughter
• (Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley)

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Rhythm

• Poetry exploits rhythms to create additional
  meaning.
• Rhythm is a series of alterations of build-up
  and release, movement and counter-movement,
  tending toward regularity but complicated by
  constant variations and local inflections.
  (Attridge 1995 3)

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Rhythm is influenced by

• pauses
• elisions (omission or slurring of a syllable)
• e.g. Hung pitifully oer the swinging char.
  (Claude McKay)
• vowel length
• consonant clusters
• modulation (adjustment of tone, pitch/Tonhöhe, or
  volume of sound)

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Pauses

• end-stopped lines (Zeilenstil)
• e.g. Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor
  boundless sea
• But sad mortality oer-sways their power,
  (Shakespeare)
• run-on-lines (Enjambement)
• e.g.
• And that all the men ever born are also my
  brothers.and the
• women my sisters and lovers, (Whitman)
• caesura (Zäsur) comma, colon, full stop at end of
  line
• e.g. The sea is calm to-night. (Arnold)

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Example Pauses

• The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the
  moon lies fair upon the straits on the French
  coast the light gleams and is gone the cliffs of
  England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the
  tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the
  night air! Only, from the long line of spray
  where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
  listen! you hear the grating roar of pebbles
  which the waves draw back, and fling, at their
  return, up the high strand, begin, and cease, and
  then again begin, with tremulous cadence slow,
  and bring the eternal note of sadness in.

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Example end-stopped line

• The sea is calm to-night.
• The tide is full, the moon lies fair
• Upon the straits on the French coast the light
• Gleams and is gone the cliffs of England stand,
• Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
• Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
• Only, from the long line of spray
• Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
• Listen! you hear the grating roar
• Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
• At their return, up the high strand,
• Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
• With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
• The eternal note of sadness in.
• (From Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach)

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Sound Patterns (Rhyme)

• When two words have the same sound (phoneme) from
  the last stressed vowel onwards, they are
  considered to rhyme.

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Forms of Rhymes

• masculine (man fan)
• feminine (gender bender)
• triple (treacherous lecherous)
• identical rhyme (know no)
• eye-rhyme (move dove)
• half-rhyme (loads lids foam moan)
• internal (East, west, homes best)
• external (aabb, abab, abba, abcabc)

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External Rhyme

• rhyming couplet (aabb)
• alternate / cross rhyme (abab)
• embracing / enclosing rhyme (abba)
• tail rhyme (abcabc)

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So What?

• Sylistic devices can
• draw ones attention to certain elements
• create connections between certain elements
• make a text more comprehensive
• characterize the speaker
• elicit certain emotional responses in readers or
  listeners

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Analysis of Poetry

• situation / subject matter
• concepts / oppositions (love hate, life -
  death)
• lyrical persona or implicit voice
• fictional addressee
• mood, tone
• poetic form (metre, rhythm, sound, type of poem)
• rhetorical form (figurative language) tropes,
  schemes

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Reference / Sources

• Thomas Carper, Derek Attridge. Meter and Meaning
  an Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry. London New
  York Routledge, 2004.
• Jeffrey Wainright. Poetry The Basics. London
  New York Routledge, 2004.
• Chris Baldick. Oxford Concise Dictionary of
  Literary Terms. Oxford and New York Oxford UP,
  2004
• J. A. Cuddon. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary
  Terms and Literary Theory. London Penguin Books,
  1998.
• Michael Meyer. English and American Literatures.
  Tübingen and Basel A. Francke, 2004.