Poetry

Reviewing Types of Meter Iambic (iamb) u / Trochaic (trochee) / u Anapestic (anapest) u u / Dactylic (dactyl) / u u Spondaic (spondee) / / Write at least two examples of words that use each meter type.

Symbols vs Character Traits Write two examples of SYMBOLS Write two examples of CHARACTER TRAITS From the Canterbury Tales… The ulcer on the Cook’s knee is a SYMBOL. The fact that he cooks very well is a CHARACTER TRAIT.

Paradox vs. Oxymoron A paradox is a statement that both makes sense and defies logic. It is a sentence. An oxymoron is a group of words (not a sentence) that contradicts itself. "What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young." - George Bernard Shaw jumbo shrimp Be cruel to be kind. If you didn't get this message, call me. ice water

Poetic Forms Examples from Brit Lit

Ballads Get Up and Bar the Door

Guiding Questions 1) Why does the goodwife refuse to bar the door when her husband first asks? 2) What agreement do the husband and wife reach about barring the door?  3) To whom does the word one refer in line 29? 4) What do the two strangers plan to do to the goodman and what do they plan to do to his wife? 5) Who eventually wins the contest? Why? 6) Why does the goodman want the door barred? 7) When do the goodman and his wife first become aware of the presence of the strangers? 8) In lines 25-29, the goodwife is thinking about what?  9) What do you think the stranger means when he suggests taking "aff the auld man's beard"? 10) What serious point does this humorous ballad make?

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Christopher Marlowe LYRIC

How serious or realistic do you think the shepherd’s offer is? Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lines slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. What is your opinion of the gifts that the shepherd offers to his beloved? How serious or realistic do you think the shepherd’s offer is? Why do you think Marlowe chose the setting described in the poem?

The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd Sir Walter Raleigh LYRIC

How would you describe the nymph’s attitude toward life? If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall. Thy gowns, they shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten – In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in my no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move How would you describe the nymph’s attitude toward life? On the basis of the first and last stanzas, what do you think might convince the nymph to accept the shepherd’s offer?

Spenser and Shakespeare Sonnets Spenser and Shakespeare

Spenser: Guiding Questions Sonnet 30: Summarize the two questions in quatrains 1 and 2. What answer does the couplet give? Why does Spenser use the images of fire and ice? Sonnet 75: What message does this sonnet give to us? How is it different from the previous poem? What images does Spenser use here?

Edmund Spenser – Sonnet 30 My love is like to ice, and I to fire; How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayed by her heart-frozen cold: But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, And feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told That fire which all things melts, should harden ice: And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device. Such is the pow’r of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind.

Edmund Spenser – Sonnet 75 One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washéd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. “Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize. For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipéd out likewise.” “Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternize And in the heavens write your glorious name, Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.”

Shakespeare: Guiding Questions Sonnet 29: Summarize, line by line, the thought process the poem’s speaker goes through. Where does the speaker’s ideas change? How does this fit with the form/structure of the poem? Sonnet 116: Do you think this speaker’s concept of love is realistic? Would he/she agree more with Marlowe (“Passionate Shepherd”) or Raleigh (“Nymph’s Reply”)? Sonnet 130: What does the speaker seem to say about typical love comparisons? What do you think was Shakespeare’s purpose in writing this sonnet?

Shakespeare – Sonnet 29 When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate, For thy sweet love remb’red such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Shakespeare – Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever fixéd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare – Sonnet 130 My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks, And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never aw a goddess go, My mistress when she walks treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Compare the Two: Rhyme Scheme Spenser Shakespeare One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. “Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay, A mortal thing so to immortalize. For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise.” “Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name, Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew. Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come, Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. Now write one of your own!

Important differences to note Free VS Blank Important differences to note

Free Verse Does not require any set rhyme scheme Does not have a rigid meter Example: “Solar,” by Philip Larkin, 1964

Suspended lion face Spilling at the centre Of an unfurnished sky How still you stand, And how unaided Single stalkless flower You pour unrecompensed. The eye sees you Simplified by distance Into an origin, Your petalled head of flames Continuously exploding. Heat is the echo of your Gold. Coined there among Lonely horizontals You exist openly. Our needs hourly Climb and return like angels. Unclosing like a hand, You give for ever.

Blank Verse No rhyme scheme Always in iambic pentameter u / u / u / u / u / Frequently used in translations of epic/narrative poetry Example: from Paradise Lost, by John Milton

Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed In the beginning how the Heavens and the Earth Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God, I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th’Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

Haiku Japanese verse with a specific number of syllables in each line (5-7-5), often discussing nature.

Haiku Rhythm and Rhyme aren’t important Syllable structure guides the form Usually about nature ARCHING INTO THE SKY THE WAVE LEAVES MORE BLUE This is a haiku They are fun to write sometimes But not so easy

Limerick Traditional Irish verse with a specific meter and rhyme scheme, often with a humorous message.

Limerick There was an Old Man of Nantucket Who kept all his cash in a bucket. His daughter, called Nan, Ran away with a man, And as for the bucket, Nantucket. The limerick packs laughs anatomical In space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean And the clean ones so seldom are comical.