1. What Makes English Poetic?
Objectives:
Identify the different structural devices that make English poetic
Identify different stylistic devices such as imagery and figurative language
Plan and perform an individual oral commentary

2. Poetry is all around us…
Advertisements
T-shirts
Brochures
Slogans
Movies
And the list goes on!

3. So….what makes English poetic then?
We will answer that question by analyzing how literary devices appeal to our
Aural Sense
Visual Sense

4. Break it down…
Aural Sense: Refers to the sense of hearing
Visual Sense
Refers to the sense of sight

5. Aural Sense: Vocabulary
Alliteration: is the repetition of a consonant at the beginning of two or more words or stressed syllables
Assonance: is the repetition of vowel sound in the middle of two or more words, such as the ‘ow’ sound in loud mouth.
Consonance: is the repetition of a consonant sound in the middle or at the end of words, such as the “L” sound in fall and swell.
Onomatopoeia: refers to the use of words that sound like what they name or describe.
Rhythm: in poetry is created through patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Metric Foot: is a group of stressed and/or unstressed syllables that form the basic unit of rhythm in a poem
Scansion: is the process of finding patterns of unstressed and stressed syllables in lines of poetry

6. Verse: is a line of poetry
Enjambement: in poetry is the style of continuing a sentence from one line to the next without a pause
Metre: is the rhythmic structure of a verse of poetry
Free verse: describes poetry that has neither rhyme nor consistent metre
Blank verse: describes poetry that has a consistent metre but no rhyming scheme.
Half rhyme: describes lines of poetry that have words that sound similar but do not entirely rhyme
Ballad: is a form of rhyming verse, usually following a pattern of abcb, that tells a narrative and can be set to music
Sonnet: is a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter, containing three quatrains and a heroic couplet
Heroic couplet: is 2 lines of rhyming verse, usually at the end of a sonnet, which tend to be ‘closed’ (there is no enjambement between the liens) and self-contained.

7. Aural Sense: Sound and Structure
To answer the question What makes English poetic? We need to explore the English language at difference levels. In order to understand English, you will have to look at it in detail, just as a biologist needs to look at the smallest details of an organism under a microscope. The process starts by looking at the letters in words, and then we can ‘zoom out’ bit by bit to other levels: syllables, sentences, and eventually, whole poems.
After studying the devices of poetry, you will begin to identify and appreciate style and form more readily. This awareness should enhance rather than hinder your enjoyment of poetic language. You may read a poem and recognize in it examples of alliteration, rhyming schemes and patterns of syllables, but try not to let these distract you from the purpose of poetry, which is to appeal to your sense and convey a sentiment.
One way poetry appeals to our senses is through sound. Listening to poems being read out loud is an excellent way to experience poetry. Read the following poem Bright star by John Keats and ask yourself the simple question How do I experience this poem?

8. Bright star, Joh
n Keats, 1819
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching with eternal lids apart
Like nature’s patient, sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moons-
No-yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death
*Eremite: a hermit or recluse, someone living in isolation devoting themselves to their religious beliefs
**Ablution: washing, here with the sense of a sacred ritual

9. Reflect
How do you experience this poem after your first reading of it?
Listen to the poem being read out loud. How does the sound of the poem affect your senses?
What sentiments do you think Keats is conveying to the reader through this poem?

10. Identify!
Look back through Keat’s poem again and list out examples of:
Alliteration
Assonance
Consonance

11. Syllables & Feet Bright star (place stressor symbols above)
Language has natural RHYTHM, which is created by stressing or not stressing the syllables of words. Rappers are very conscious of where stresses naturally fall in words, as their use of language has to fit in with a beat.
Try Identifying the rhythm of stresses in the first two words of Bright Star
Bright star
(place stressor symbols above)

12. Breaking it down further
The first two syllables are BOTH stressed! They also have a natural tendency to go together and comprise what we call a METRIC FOOT.
A Metric Foot can consist of one or more words and begin or end in the middle of a word.
Feet are the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables that make poetry sound rythmical.

13. Here are the 5 kinds of feet often used by poets
Name
Pattern
Examples
Iamb
Unstressed, stressed
Would I
Trochee
stressed, unstressed
Pillow’d
Spondee
stressed, stressed
Still, still
Anapest
Unstressed, unstressed stressed
(rip)ening breast
Dactyl
Stressed, unstressed unstressed
eremite

14. Do NOW Take a look at the poem Bright star
Write out the poem with double spacing between the lines
Indicate the stressed and unstressed syllables in the poem
Use the following marks:
Unstressed
Stressed

15. Verse & Metre
Analyzing the poem ‘Bright star’ for its rhythmic patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables has introduced you to a process known as scansion.
You have looked at poetic language at the level of letter and syllable.
Now your view will widen to include th elines of poetry, also known as verses. VERSES ARE NOT SENTENCES. Many times, verses of poetry neither begin at the beginning of a sentence nor end at the end of a sentence.
When a sentence carries on at the end of one verse into the next without a pause at the end of the line, it is called enjambement.
Example:
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) I am never without it (anywhere
i go you may go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

16. If poets experiment with syntax (the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.) so that verses are not necessarily sentences, what then is the organizing principle of verses? The answer is METRE (the rhythmic structure of poetic verse).
After clustering syllables into feet, you need to see if there are patterns of feet.
In the first line of ‘Bright star’ there are five iambs in the verse (although the first is, as you have seen, a spondee). Notice how words can be split across different feet as in the case of the word stedfast.
This is Iambic pentameter 1 2 3 4 5
Bright star
Would I
Were sted
Fast as
Thou art

17. # of Feet
Name of Metre
Examples (all iambic) 5
pentameter
I of snow I upon I the moun I tains and I the moors I 4
tetrameter
I amaz I ing grace I how sweet I the sound I 3
trimeter
I that saves I a wretch I like me I 2
dimeter
I be gone I be gone I

18. Rhyme & Stanza
What is a poem? People often think of poetry as rhyming verse, perhaps because we tend to remember poems that rhyme, but not all poetry has to rhyme. In fact, many poems do not. Look at these opening lines from the poem ‘out, out’ by Robert Frost

19. “Out, out” --Robert Frost
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.

20. Breaking it down…
The final words of the lines to not rhyme
There are TWO types of poems that do not rhyme:
Free Verse
No metre or pattern of syllables
Blank Verse
Does have metre
The Frost poem does not rhyme, but each line has ten syllables
It is a pentameter with blank verse
Some of the words such as COUNT and VERMONT almost rhyme…this is called HALF RHYME.

21. Let’s apply this Rhyme theory to “Bright star”
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art- A
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night B
And watching with eternal lids apart A
Like nature’s patient, sleepless eremite, B
The moving waters at their priestlike task C
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, D
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask C
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors- D
No-yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, E
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, F
To feel forever its soft fall and swell, E
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, F
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, G
And so live ever-or else swoon to death G

22. Through rhyme, John Keats creates a mood that is pensive, soft and sweet. We can establish that he uses iambic pentameter throughout the entire poem. There is also a rhyming pattern from verse to verse. When looking at it closely, a pattern emerges.
Thanks to the rhyming scheme we begin to see clusters of verses. There are three verse clusters that follow a similar pattern: ABAB CDCD EFEF. Clusters such as these are called stanzas, and stanzas to poetry are what paragraphs are to prose-these each usually contain a single idea.
We use a series of Latin=based words to refer to stanzas, depending on the number of verses (lines) they contain. (see next slide)

23. Stanzas: 2 verses= couplet 3 verses=tercet 4 verses=quatrain
5 verses=cinquain
6 verses=sestet
7 verses=septet
8 verses=octave

24. Even-numbered stanzas are the most common
Poets cluster verses into stanzas for the same reason that novelist use paragraphs: TO SEPARATE IDEAS
In Keat’s poem, we can follow the evolution of his ideas by analyzing the progression of the stanzas:
The first stanza (a quatrain) expresses the narrator’s desire to be as unchanging and as alert as a star. He starts to explain what he means by this by saying he does not want the loneliness of a star, or the isolation of a hermit
The second quatrain continues with the narrator’s explanation of what he does not want. This quatrain extends the image of the isolation and separateness of the star. He refers again to religion, to the tide washing the shore and the purity of snow in isolated places.
In the third quatrain the narrator explains why he wants to be like a star-to be unchanging in the sense of never leaving the woman he loves. We now understand why has rejected the isolation and asceticism of the religious hermit because cutting himself off from the world would be incompatible with being in love. He wants to capture forever the moment of sleeping beside his mistress and feeling her breathing.
In the last two lines (the final couplet) he clarifies further where he always wants to be. He wants to be always with the woman he loves, hearing her breathing. If he cannot always be with her, he would rather die.

25. Do NOW Read the poem b Elizabeth Barret Browning on the next slide.
Write the poem down leaving a space in between each line.
At the end of each verse, write a letter to depict a rhyming scheme.
What kind of stanzas did the poet use?
What is the main idea of each stanza?
Comment on the metre of the poem. What patterns do you see in the verses?
Comment on the use of enjambement. Why do you think the poet used this device?
Make sure to mark the stressed and unstressed syllables.

26. How do I love thee? Elizabeth Barret Browning, 1850
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

27. Types of Poems
Sometimes people want to express their deeper feelings, especially on occasions marking important events in people’s lives, such as when a baby is born, when two people get married, or when someone important to them dies. Poetry is a text type which focuses quickly on the essence of what someone feels and wants to express, without the need for lots of context or a logical sequencing of events such as you would find in a story. When people communicate for everyday purposes, they do not have the time to craft their words into exquisite phrases—everyday speech is more ordinary. In poems, however, the language is more obviously crafted and the message is therefore more deeply felt. Poetry is also a traditional form of text, having evolved from oral storytelling in the days when few people could read and the printing press had not been invented. For example, the type of poem known as a BALLAD came about in medieval times as a form for singing short tales and stories. The form and tradition has evolved, shaping the roots of jazz, folk, and rock music today.

28. The texts discussed so far in this chapter “Bright star” and “How do I love thee?” are examples of another type of poem known as the SONNET.
The sonnet came to England from the Italian sonetto, a traditional short song to a lover. There are different types of the sonnet.
If you are studying poetry for Part 4, you need to be sure of the sorts of poem that you are dealing with. Ask yourself why a particular form is effective for expressing certain ideas.
In order to understand the relationship between FORM and MEANING, it is important to see how a poet uses a certain type of poem to express a certain sentiment.

29. Genre
Sub Genre
Purpose
Metre
Form
Lyrical
Poetry
(Song-like)
English Sonnet
Expression of deep sentiment
Iambic pentameter
Abab cdcd efef, gg
Italian sonnet
Expression of love
Abba, cddc, efgefg
Ode
Glorify an event or person
Free verse, though often iambic
Abab, cdecde
Villanelle
Usually pastoral (depicting a rural theme)
Often iambic pentamenter
A1ba2, aba1, aba2, aba1, aba2, aba1a2
Limerick
Humor
Anapaestic trimeter (a) and dimeter (b)
aabba
Narrative Poetry (Story-telling)
Ballard
Diverse
Iambic
Tetrameter (a,c)
And trimester (b)
abcd
Epic
To tell long stories about heroes and great achievements
Free verse, and blank verse

30. Do NOW
To end this unit, you are going to look at a well-known poem by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. As you read the poem out loud, ask how the metre, verse and rhyming scheme all contribute to the sentiments that the poet is expressing.

31. Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas, 1953
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know that dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes cold blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

33. Imagery and Figurative Language
In the last unit, you saw how sound and structure act as keys to help unlock the meaning of poetry and that by studying the form of a poem you can open up new ways of understanding the content. As you continue to uncover the deeper meaning of poems, you will need more of these keys. Since poetry appeals to the senses, in this unit you will be exploring the use of IMAGERY to evoke sensory experiences. Imagery, in literature, is descriptive language that can conjure up sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and tastes.
Notice the difference here from the last unit, which was about the SOUNDS we hear. When we refer to sounds in this unit we mean the auditory impressions that a poem can evoke. Because poetry has the ability to stir our sense in this way, it can transport us to another world.
Poetry often challenges our understanding of the way the world works through the use of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.

34. Key Terms:
Imagery: is the use of descriptive language to evoke sensory experience.
Figurative language: is the language that is not intended to be taken literally but uses references to one thing to express ideas about something else.
Personification: is a type of metaphor where human qualities are given to an animal, object or concept.
Apostrophe: is a device that allows the poet, or the narrator of the poem, to directly address something inanimate or someone dead or absent.
Metonymy: descries references to things or concepts not by name but by something closely associated with them.
Synecdoche: is referring to an entire thing or concept by referring to one of its parts
Metaphor: comparing two unlike things without using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’
Simile: comparing two unlike things using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’

35. Do NOW Read “The ballard of a landlord” by Langston Hughes
Complete a scansion
Identify metre/feet
Find rhyme scheme
Types of stanzas
Meaning behind stanzas
Genre/Subgenre/purpose/metre/form (use chart)
Identify:
Imagery
Figurative language