Transcript poetry
poetry Central to existence Without which we are spiritually impoverished • Poetry says more and says it more intensely than ordinary language • Language is employed on different occasions to say quite different kinds of things We all have a need to live more deeply and fully with greater awareness, to know the experience of others, and to understand our own experience better. Poets, from their own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences, select, combine, and reorganize. Literature - can be used as a gear for stepping up the intensity and increasing the range of our experience and as a glass for clarifying it. - is a means of living - exists to communicate significant experience – it is concentrated and organized – not to tell about experience but to allow us to imaginatively participate in that experience Literature II • Allows us through imagination to live more deeply, richly, and with greater awareness • BROADENS our experience – makes us acquainted with a variety of experiences which we may otherwise have no contact with • DEEPENS our experience – by making us feel more of the daily experiences we already have Literature III • Enlarges our perspectives and breaks down some of the limits we may feel • If we keep all the things that literature does in mind we can avoid two limiting approaches to poetry Limiting approaches • Always look for a lesson or a moral – if we limit ourselves to this we are bound to be disappointed • Always expect to find poetry beautiful – sometimes poetry is meant to be ugly Sometimes beauty and philosophical truth appear in the poem because they are an essential part of experience and poetry deals with experience BUT Poetry • Is concerned with all kinds of experience – Beautiful – Ugly – Strange – Common – Noble – Ignoble – Imaginary – actual Encountered in real life pain and death are not pleasurable but we may read and reread poems about these subjects because of their ability to enlighten and move us – our humanity affirmed • Poetry is a more condensed form of literature – the words have a higher voltage • It is a communication – the completeness depending on the power and clarity of the transmitter and the sensitivity and tuning of the receiver Poetry has four dimensions • • • • Intellectual dimension Sensuous dimension Emotional dimension Imaginative dimension Achieves dimensions by the use drawing on language resources • • • • • • • • • • Connotation Imagery Metaphor Symbol Paradox Irony Allusion Sound repetition Pattern Rhythm • Poet uses language cunningly – efficiently organizing it • Page 641 in Perrine – Questions to understand and evaluate poetry • • • • • • • • • • • • Who is the speaker? What kind of person is the speaker? Is there an identifiable audience for the speaker? What can we know about it? What is the occasion? What is the setting in time – hour, season, century, etc What is the setting in place – indoors or out, city or country, land or sea, region, nation, hemisphere What is the central purpose of the poem? State the central theme or idea in one sentence? Outline the poem to show its structure and development – summarize the events of the poem Paraphrase the poem Discuss the diction of the poem. Point out words that are particularly well chosen and explain why Discuss the imagery. What kinds? Structure? Point out examples of metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy – explain appropriateness • • • • • • • • • Point out and explain any symbols. If the poem is allegorical, explain the allegory Point out and explain examples of paradox, overstatement, understatement, and irony. What is their function? Point out and explain any illusions. What is their function? What is the tone of the poem? How is this achieved? Point out significant examples of sound repetition and explain their function What is the meter of the poem? Discuss the adaptation of sound to sense Describe the form or pattern Criticize and evaluate the poem Allusion • A reference to another work or famous figure assumed to be well known enough to be recognized by the reader apostrophe • Usually in poetry – the device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction either to begin a poem or to make a dramatic break in thought somewhere in the poem assonance • The repetition of vowel sounds between different consonants ballad A long narrative poem that presents a single dramatic episode which is often tragic or violent – the two types of ballads are Folk Ballad – usually sung and passed down orally, author unknown, form and melody often changed depending on the singer’s preferences Literary Ballad – art ballad – imitates fold ballad but is more polished and uses a higher level of poetic diction Blank verse • Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter – favorite of Shakespeare Cacophony • Harsh, awkward, or dissonant sounds used deliberately in poetry or prose – opposite of euphony colloquialism • A word or phrase used in everyday conversation and informal writing that is sometimes inappropriate in formal writing conceit • An elaborate figure of speech in which two seemingly dissimilar things or situations are compared consonance • The repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowel sounds