ENG 260 GUIDE TO READING AND WRITING ABOUT LITERATURE Presentation 5: Poetry ENG 260—Literature of Sports, Fall 2002

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 2 This presentation will discuss what poetry is elements of poetry how to read a poem writing about poetry

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 3 What is poetry? In contrast to prose, which is the normal use of language for communication in both fiction and non-fiction, poetry is a special use of language. more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 4 Poetic language is – concise but rich – usually not literal (relies heavily on connotation, i.e. meanings associated with a word beyond its literal one) – meant to appeal to senses and emotions – dependent on sound, both of individual words and whole phrases more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 5 All poems have a “speaker” (or “persona” or “voice”); unlike other forms of imaginative literature (fiction and drama), the speaker is usually identified with the author (poet) but they are not necessarily the same. more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 6 Most poems are quite short, but some, called “narrative” poems, can be rather long and have several characters and a plot, just like drama (in fact, some plays are written in poetry or “verse”). Very long narrative poems are called “epic” poems. Song lyrics can also be considered poetry.

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 7 The elements of poetry basic unit: the line (may or may not be a complete sentence and have punctuation at the end stanza-a group of lines separated by a space (usually grouped for a reason, e.g. rhyme, unit of thought) couplet-two consecutive lines of a poem that rhyme and/or have the same meter quatrain-a stanza or whole poem of four lines more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 8 Features of poetry: – rhyme: lines ending in identical or similar syllables (external rhyme) or containing identical/similar syllables (internal rhyme) consecutive lines may rhyme, or the pattern may be different (e.g. abab ) poems without rhyme are called “free verse” more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 9 – rhythm (or prosody): measured by meter basic unit of meter: the foot (a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables) click here to view names for different rhythmic patterns in poetryhere more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 10 – sound alliteration (repetition of consonants, especially at the beginning of words) assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) onomatopeia (words sounding like natural sounds) more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 11 – syntax (arrangement of words) syntax in poetry is often very free; words are often out of their normal order – other literary devices mentioned in Presentation 1 click here to view ones oftenhere encountered in poetry more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 12 – other characteristics of poetry personification (ascribing human properties to an inanimate object) hyperbole (exaggeration) and understatement irony

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 13 How to read a poem read it a few times first for literal meaning and general impressions then read it several more times and closely for deeper meaning, larger themes more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 14 analyze each line and stanza; look for various poetic elements as described above and think how they add to the overall meaning of the poem more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 15 try to read the poem out loud or listen to it read for you; remember that poetry is meant primarily to be heard, so pay particular attention to the sound of the poem

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 16 Writing about poetry poems can be written about by themselves, i.e. you can do an explication (close analysis) of a poem or a comparative analysis of two or more poems – apply your interpretation of the poem and its elements more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 17 you can also compare poetry when writing about other forms of literature (the analysis of poetry here will usually be less intense)

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 18 conventions: put titles of poems in quotation marks (some long narrative or epic poem titles go in italics) when quoting two whole lines or from two lines of a poem, separate the lines with a forward slash ( / ), with a space on each side more...

Literature of Sports, Fall 2002 ENG 260 Guide to Reading and Writing about Literature Presentation 5, Slide 19 when quoting more than two lines, keep the lines separate and set them off with indentation (and don’t use quotation marks) give the line number of each line quoted (e.g. “(2)”, “(3-5)”