DOCSLIB.ORG

Poetic Technique in Vikram Seth's the Golden Gate

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Poetic Technique in Vikram Seth's the Golden Gate Poetic Technique in Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate by June Edvenson Thjømøe A Thesis presented to the Department of Humanities University of Oslo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in English Literature September, 2008 Oslo, Norway Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Dedication and Foreword ii 1. Introduction 1 2. Analytical Tools 4 3. Analysis and Comment to Date 11 4. Analysis 14 A. Beginnings: Sonnet 1.1 14 B. Dialogues 19 1. Voicemail and Phone Chat 20 2. Context and Conversation at a Chinese Restaurant 21 C. Party Contexts 31 1. Cocktail Party Culture 31 2. The Wedding Party 41 3. The Last Party 44 D. Nature 48 1. Characters in Nature 48 2. Seth Characterizing Nature 51 E. Activism and Acts 56 1. Speech and Social Activism: The Priest's Speech 56 2. Acts of Prayer & Salvation 63 a. Prayer to Saint Francis 63 b. Endings 65 5. Conclusion 69 APPENDIX A: Synopsis of The Golden Gate 80 BIBLIOGRAPHY 107 Primary Bibliography Secondary Bibliography Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor, Juan Christian Pellicer, for his insightful direction and support. I would also like to thank Professor Jakob Lothe for his guidance in the Thesis Writing seminar. i Dedication To my husband, Hans Mathias Thjømøe, for his steadfast belief in me and his support of my efforts in Norway Foreword Also born in '52, She grew up in Chicago, Hometown of gangsters, cronies, blues. To the Illinois forests and plains she moves. There, studied literature and law, Landscapes, philosophy, played in a band. Returned to Chi-town in '90 for law School, leading to hearings work, a job through friends, For the State, an esteemed but envied attorney. Determined to find true love and a friend, She advertised and met 'nice men.' Then Norway called; he is a Nordmann. She struggles for income there— does her best, Inspired by nature's beauty and rest. ii Introduction Limited analytical attention has been given to Vikram Seth's novel in verse, The Golden Gate, since its publication in 1986. In addition, comment has varied widely. Although most critical observers would agree that its moral points are worthy, some find the work panders to specific social and political issues and agendas, or is excessively didactic or trite. Seth's 'messages' in this modern morality novel include the value of friendship, the merit of nuclear disarmament, and the value of individual 'self-realization.' Little technical analysis has been done on precisely how Seth achieves his literary and poetic effects, analysis that elucidates the scope and variety of the work's meaning. The detailed analysis in this thesis ultimately suggests the greater significance of this work of poetic fiction. The means Seth uses to achieve effects are found in the poetic text. The analysis of that text in previous scholarship fails to sufficiently explore both the wealth of referential material and Seth's technical skill with language. My focus is on illustrating a variety of ways in which Seth uses specific poetic tools to achieve meaning and effect in The Golden Gate. This should result in broader agreement as to the work's importance as modern poetic literature, as well as invite further explication and annotation. I therefore see this thesis as a beginning, the beginning of a redress of a dearth of technical analysis of this important modern sonnet sequence. I provide an explication of a number of Seth's sonnets and sonnet sequences in the work by means of traditional 'close reading.' This involves holding a magnifying glass of analytical techniques to the work at the word, line, phrase, sonnet and sequence level. I include sonnets on a number of themes in order to illustrate the variety of effects Seth achieves in the work, and some of the ways in which they are intertwined in the work as a whole. I conclude by reviewing concerns of significance in evaluating the work from a literary perspective, and include the comments of some of those who have offered their critiques. Meaning in a poetic work such as this, a novel in sonnets, is, of course, direct in the sense that it is referential of 'actual' characters, events and things, as well as sharing a basic narrative plot, moving the story forward. However, it is also intentionally multi-referential; it is communicating at various indirect and oblique angles, and by multiple techniques. I attempt to give Seth's use of language and literary effects in this work their names, and a level of detailed recognition they have not had heretofore. Grounding Seth's work in the sonnet tradition is important, though historical analysis is not my focus. As Seth has stated, The Golden Gate grew out of his enthusiasm upon reading Eugene Onegin, written by Alexander Pushkin, as translated into English by Charles Johnson.1 Pushkin's 'comedy of manners,' published in 1833 in Russian, is considered one of the world's most well-loved long poems, a reflection of and embodiment of the early Romantic period in Russian literature. With its disjunctive relationship between a hero and a heroine, both seeking love, Pushkin explored "human archetypes" caught in the "attitudes" that governed "the towering fictional creations of nineteenth century Russia."2 Seth's work follows in the sonnet tradition of English poets of the 19th century.3 Nineteenth century Victorian sonnet writers used the sonnet sequence for, among other purposes, "clothing autobiographical material in fictional dress."4 The tradition of telling a narrative in a sonnet sequence continued into the 20th century in England and America where, as one scholar notes, we see the blurring of the role of the sonnet stanza, yet an increased appreciation for the sonnet's ability to provide "dynamic images" for a poet's development.5 Today, we note that Seth's sonnet novel has paved the way for other sonnet writers, with renewed interest in the sonnet form and sonnet sequence as a vehicle for narrative poetry and literary development.6 Seth's work in The Golden Gate exhibits a traditional literary approach to storytelling, and traditional nods to the humanitarian values honored by earlier sonnet writers. From, for example, his use of a 'hero' seeking love in the world, having a series of related adventures, to the use of jokes and puns, high and low humor, quick shifts in action, and the use of gravity, surprise and social comment, Seth follows closely in the traditions of his literary forbears. At the same time, Seth modernizes his story's parts and themes appropriately. 1 Pushkin, Alexander. Pushkin: Eugene Onegin and Other Poems. Translated by Charles Johnson. Edited by Charles Johnson, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets. New York, London, Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. 2 Id. at Intro. 3 Lord Byron's Don Juan, first published in sequels between 1819 and 1824, is the first full reflection of English Romantic ideals in a sonnet-related narrative sequence. Byron, Lord George Gordon, Don Juan. Edited by Christopher Ricks, T.G. Steffan, E. Steffan and W.W. Pratt, Penguin English Poets. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1973. 4 Fuller, John. The Sonnet. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1972, 45. Fuller mentions several examples of semi- autobiographical sonnet sequences published in the 19th century, beginning with Venetia by Benjamin Disraeli. The form increased in popularity later in the century, with Elisabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), George Meredith's Modern Love (1862), Thomas Hardy's She, to Him (1866) and George Eliot's Brother and Sister (1869). 5 Id at 46. Wilfrid Blunt's Esther (1892) is noted by Fuller as a more modern sonnet sequence. Others he mentions include William Ellery Leonard's Two Lives (1926), and John Crowe Ransom's "Two Gentlemen in Bonds," from Selected Poems (1970). 6 Here, I note Anthony Burgess's posthumous Byrne (1998), finished in 1993, and Brad Leithauser's Darlington's Fall (2003). Burgess, Anthony. Byrne. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998. Leithauser, Brad. Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 2 Seth uses his platform as an author to share secrets with the reader about the characters and their history, to jab at cultural prejudices, and to explore the popular culture of 1980s California. The Golden Gate is set in the San Francisco Bay area. Topics of Seth's comment include, among others, the role played by the Roman Catholic church in social activism, the struggles of homosexuals and bisexuals, the struggle of unknown artists against the fecklessness and fickleness of art critics' reviews, the roles of workers in Silicon Valley, the defense industry's endangerment of local and global life, and the beauty of the Bay Area, the ocean and life's natural wonders. Various portions of Seth's 'novel in verse' both bless and question those who struggle in their lives to create a worthy contribution to the world as we know it, with their balance of work and play, intimacy, chastity, love and friendship. Further, the sadness of disconnection from others, both intentional and unintentional, is explored, as well as the personal and private alarm one can suffer over estrangements from those one has loved deeply, either as friend, family or wife. I have selected sonnets from several different passages in The Golden Gate to more readily see the variety of specific poetic techniques and choices made by Seth. Through close reading, I examine aspects of theme and narrative purpose, as well as figurative and metaphorical techniques Seth uses to achieve effects.7 I also note some of the broader strokes Seth uses to unite the ideologies with which his characters struggle.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Transformation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin Into Tchaikovsky's Opera
    THE TRANSFORMATION OF PUSHKIN'S EUGENE ONEGIN INTO TCHAIKOVSKY'S OPERA Molly C. Doran A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC August 2012 Committee: Eftychia Papanikolaou, Advisor Megan Rancier © 2012 Molly Doran All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Eftychia Papanikolaou, Advisor Since receiving its first performance in 1879, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s fifth opera, Eugene Onegin (1877-1878), has garnered much attention from both music scholars and prominent figures in Russian literature. Despite its largely enthusiastic reception in musical circles, it almost immediately became the target of negative criticism by Russian authors who viewed the opera as a trivial and overly romanticized embarrassment to Pushkin’s novel. Criticism of the opera often revolves around the fact that the novel’s most significant feature—its self-conscious narrator—does not exist in the opera, thus completely changing one of the story’s defining attributes. Scholarship in defense of the opera began to appear in abundance during the 1990s with the work of Alexander Poznansky, Caryl Emerson, Byron Nelson, and Richard Taruskin. These authors have all sought to demonstrate that the opera stands as more than a work of overly personalized emotionalism. In my thesis I review the relationship between the novel and the opera in greater depth by explaining what distinguishes the two works from each other, but also by looking further into the argument that Tchaikovsky’s music represents the novel well by cleverly incorporating ironic elements as a means of capturing the literary narrator’s sardonic voice.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Meter
    Introduction to Meter A stress or accent is the greater amount of force given to one syllable than another. English is a language in which all syllables are stressed or unstressed, and traditional poetry in English has used stress patterns as a fundamental structuring device. Meter is simply the rhythmic pattern of stresses in verse. To scan a poem means to read it for meter, an operation whose noun form is scansion. This can be tricky, for although we register and reproduce stresses in our everyday language, we are usually not aware of what we’re going. Learning to scan means making a more or less unconscious operation conscious. There are four types of meter in English: iambic, trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic. Each is named for a basic foot (usually two or three syllables with one strong stress). Iambs are feet with an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable. Only in nursery rhymes to do we tend to find totally regular meter, which has a singsong effect, Chidiock Tichborne’s poem being a notable exception. Here is a single line from Emily Dickinson that is totally regular iambic: _ / │ _ / │ _ / │ _ / My life had stood – a loaded Gun – This line serves to notify readers that the basic form of the poem will be iambic tetrameter, or four feet of iambs. The lines that follow are not so regular. Trochees are feet with a stressed syllable, followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochaic meter is associated with chants and magic spells in English: / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Double, double, toil and trouble, / _ │ / _ │ / _ │ / _ Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
    [Show full text]
  • Lerud Dissertation May 2017
    ANTAGONISTIC COOPERATION: PROSE IN AMERICAN POETRY by ELIZABETH J. LERUD A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2017 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Elizabeth J. LeRud Title: Antagonistic Cooperation: Prose in American Poetry This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the English Department by: Karen J. Ford Chair Forest Pyle Core Member William Rossi Core Member Geri Doran Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2017. ii © 2017 Elizabeth J. LeRud iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Elizabeth J. LeRud Doctor of Philosophy Department of English June 2017 Title: Antagonistic Cooperation: Prose in American Poetry Poets and critics have long agreed that any perceived differences between poetry and prose are not essential to those modes: both are comprised of words, both may be arranged typographically in various ways—in lines, in paragraphs of sentences, or otherwise—and both draw freely from the complete range of literary styles and tools, like rhythm, sound patterning, focalization, figures, imagery, narration, or address. Yet still, in modern American literature, poetry and prose remain entrenched as a binary, one just as likely to be invoked as fact by writers and scholars as by casual readers. I argue that this binary is not only prevalent but also productive for modern notions of poetry, the root of many formal innovations of the past two centuries, like the prose poem and free verse.
    [Show full text]
  • Rhythm and Meter in Macbeth Iambic Pentameter (Nobles)
    Grade 9 Analysis- Rhythm and Meter in Macbeth Iambic Pentameter (Nobles) What is it? Shakespeare's sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this: baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM. Why does Shakespeare use it? When Shakespeare's characters speak in verse (iambic pentameter), they are usually the noble (aristocratic) characters, and their speech represents their high culture and position in society. It gives the play a structured consistency, and when this is changed in instances of prose such as when Macbeth writes to Lady Macbeth and when Lady Macduff talks with her son, these are normally instances where a situation is abnormal e.g. when the Porter babbles in his drunken haze. Trochaic Tetrameter (Witches) What is it? Trochaic tetrameter is a rapid meter of poetry consisting of four feet of trochees. A trochee is made up of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable (the opposite of an iamb). Here is the flow of a line of trochaic tetrameter: BAboom / BAboom / BAboom / BAboom. Why does Shakespeare use it? The witches’ speech patterns create a spooky mood from the start of the scene. Beginning with the second line, they speak in rhyming couplets of trochaic tetrameter. The falling rhythm and insistent rhyme emphasize the witchcraft they practice while they speak—boiling some sort of potion in a cauldron.
    [Show full text]
  • Download This Guide As A
    Teacher’s Guide I Remember: Poems and Pictures of Heritage compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins About the Book Genre: Poetry (Biographical) SYNOPSIS Format: Hardcover, $19.95 I Remember: Poems and Pictures of Heritage brings together the work of 56 pages, 7” x 10” fourteen award-winning poets and sixteen illustrators of diverse backgrounds ISBN: 9781620143117 who share aspects of their childhood experiences in honest portraits of what it was like for them growing up in the United States. Newbery Medalist Kwame Reading Level: Grade 5 Alexander takes us on a riotous ride through good times and sad spent with his extended family, which is perfectly captured by Coretta Scott King Award Interest Level: Grades 4–12 winner Michele Wood’s vibrant overlapping images. Pura Belpré Award winner Guided Reading Level: W Margarita Engle shares happy memories of learning embroidery from her grandmother, accompanied by Ecuadorean fine artist and printmaker Paula Accelerated Reader® Level/Points: Barragán’s colorful graphic representation of a granddaughter and grandmother NP at work. Bestselling author Nick Bruel talks about his confusion at having to define himself by a single racial label, which is brought to life by newcomer Lexile™ Measure: NP Janine Macbeth’s reflective image of herself trying to figure out her own mixed *Reading level based on the ATOS Readability Formula ancestry. Themes: Art, Biography and Memoir, Biracial/ Multiracial Interest, Childhood Experiences and Memories, Together these heartfelt poems and captivating illustrations shine a light on the Cultural Diversity, Diversity, Dreams and Aspirations, Empathy rich diversity of people in our nation as well as the timeless human connections and Compassion, Families, Fathers, Food, Grandparents, and universal experiences we all share.
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion
    APPENDIX B Basic Guide to Latin Meter and Scansion Latin poetry follows a strict rhythm based on the quantity of the vowel in each syllable. Each line of poetry divides into a number of feet (analogous to the measures in music). The syllables in each foot scan as “long” or “short” according to the parameters of the meter that the poet employs. A vowel scans as “long” if (1) it is long by nature (e.g., the ablative singular ending in the first declen- sion: puellā); (2) it is a diphthong: ae (saepe), au (laudat), ei (deinde), eu (neuter), oe (poena), ui (cui); (3) it is long by position—these vowels are followed by double consonants (cantātae) or a consonantal i (Trōia), x (flexibus), or z. All other vowels scan as “short.” A few other matters often confuse beginners: (1) qu and gu count as single consonants (sīc aquilam; linguā); (2) h does NOT affect the quantity of a vowel Bellus( homō: Martial 1.9.1, the -us in bellus scans as short); (3) if a mute consonant (b, c, d, g, k, q, p, t) is followed by l or r, the preced- ing vowel scans according to the demands of the meter, either long (omnium patrōnus: Catullus 49.7, the -a in patrōnus scans as long to accommodate the hendecasyllabic meter) OR short (prō patriā: Horace, Carmina 3.2.13, the first -a in patriā scans as short to accommodate the Alcaic strophe). 583 40-Irby-Appendix B.indd 583 02/07/15 12:32 AM DESIGN SERVICES OF # 157612 Cust: OUP Au: Irby Pg.
    [Show full text]
  • The Novelistic Poem and the Poetical Novel: Towards A
    THE NOVELISTIC POEM AND THE POETICAL NOVEL: TOWARDS A THEORY OF GENERIC INTERRELATION IN THE ROMANTIC PERIOD by Nick Bujak A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland July 2014 © 2014 Nick Bujak All Rights Reserved Abstract This dissertation examines the shifting set of formal and conceptual relations that have structured the intertwined development and reception of “the novel” and “poetry” since the Romantic period. In Part One, I focus on the continuing rise of the novel in the age of best-selling poetry, arguing that narrative poetry and the novel participated in a shared history of narrative innovation. I take the popular and formally innovative poems of Walter Scott as a particularly important example of poetry’s contribution to this shared history. Specifically, I argue that Scott’s knowledge of the ballad tradition and his modern experiments with poetry in that mode enabled him to introduce narrative techniques into the novel that prepare the way for the deployment of free indirect discourse in the novels of Jane Austen and her successors. More broadly, I attempt to describe a theory of generic interrelation that is capable of identifying and explaining the interrelated formal development of works written during the Romantic period. In Part Two, I work to recover and analyze the complex history of perceptions about genre from the Romantic period through the twentieth century. Since the Romantic period itself, many thinkers have been interested in identifying what is essentially poetic about poetry, and, as a closely related matter, in determining what can distinguish poetry from prose and the novel.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes on Prosody
    Notes on Middle English Prosody Dr. A Mitchell Sound and Sense Middle English poets typically delight in the accidental harmonies and disharmonies of verbal sounds. Sometimes sound is deliberately made to echoe sense, but more often accoustic patterns do not serve a referential or mimetic function. Syncopated rhythm may just be pleasurable to hear in the voice; variation may aid expressiveness or enhance interest; or sounds may be affective or mnemonic. Sound patterns also function as a sign of the poet’s pedigree, affiliations, or tastes. But in any event critics can probably make only modest claims about the significance of acoustic effects in the vernacular – some measure of irregularity is just a natural consequence of writing in Middle English. Rhyme is the most familiar sound pattern, and it basically demands that the poetic composition be oriented around the music (not the other way around). As a result, the semantic may be subordinated to the sonic or phonetic: e.g., syntax is inverted or contorted so as to get the proper rhyme in place; rhyme words are chosen less for sense than for sound. But of course rhymes may also produce interesting semantic juxtapositions or recapitulations, and occasionally Chaucer among others uses rhyme deftly to produce harmony and discordance, parallelism and antithesis. The main types of rhyme are the following. • end rhyme (most common) • internal rhyme (within a line) • masculine (single-sllable, or when final stressed syllable rhymes as in cat/hat) • feminine (rhymed stressed syllable followed by unstressed as in butter/clutter) • exact rhyme and rime riche (on the same sounds) • near rhyme (not a failed rhyme, it has the salutary effect of avoiding monotony) You will recognize these additional sound effects: • onomatapoia • assonance • alliteration • consonance Metrics: Alliterative and Accentual-Syllabic Some Medieval English verse is alliterative (that of Langland and the so-called poems of the Alliterative Revival), but much is what we call accentual-syllabic.
    [Show full text]
  • Trochees and Iambs2
    CHAPTER III. Some Remarks on the Nature of Trochees and Iambs and their Relationship to Other Metres ‘The iambic is the characteristic rhythm of people as they talk […]. The trochaic rhythm, again, is too much akin to the comic dance, as may be seen in tetrameter verse, for the rhythm of tetrameters is light and tripping. (Aristotle, 1932: 3.8, 1408b). The present study assumes that poetic rhythm in the tonic-syllabic system current in English poetry can be best accounted for by three sets of patterns: First, an abstract matrix of expectations consisting of regularly alternating strong and weak positions. Secondly, the stress-pattern of spoken language. Some aspects of this stress pattern confirm the abstract schema (one could even say that it is from these that the reader abstracts the metric pattern); some aspects deviate from it, and produce tension. These deviations, far from being signs of imperfection, of “unmetricality”, are major prosodic and expressive assets. When the reader encounters some deviation from the abstract metric pattern, he makes adjustments in its performance, so as to preserve both his metrical set, that is, his feeling of regularly alternating strong and weak positions and, at the same time, the stress pattern of his spoken language. The adjustment frequently consists in overarticu- lation, overstressing, and additional grouping of stresses. This constitutes the third pattern, the pattern of performance. The greater the deviation, the greater the adjustment required and the tighter the additional grouping, One of the basic assumptions of the present study is, then, that the rhythm of a poem is accessible only through some kind of performance; an adequate account of a poem’s rhythm can be given only by considering the interplay of three patterns: those of metre, stresses and performance.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of Scansion in William Wordsworth's
    AN ANALYSIS OF SCANSION IN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S POEMS SKRIPSI Submitted Partial Fulfillment of the Requiretments For the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd) English Education Program BY : HARIANI 1502050280 FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2019 i i ii i ABSTRACT Hariani. 1502050280. An Analysis of Scansion in William Wordsworth’s Poems. Thesis : English Education Program of Teachers’ Training and Education. University of Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara. Medan. 2019. This study deals with the use of scansion in the William Wordsworth‟s poems. There were two main objectives in this study. The first was to find out the metrical foot and line in William Wordsworth‟s poems. The second was to find out the kind of metrical feet dominantly appeared in William Wordsworth‟s poems. Documentation method was used in collecting the data. This study used descriptive qualitative method for analyzed the data and to describe the findngs. There were 10 poems in this research as the source of data, Surprised by Joy, To a Butterfly, With Ships The Sea Was Sprinkled, Glad Sight Whenever New With Old, It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm, and Free, The Daffodils, I Travelled Among Unknown Men, Great Men Have Been Among Us, At Furness Abbey, The World Is Too Much With Us. The findings showed there were five kinds of metrical feet found in William Wordsworth‟s poems, Monosyllabic (Masculine or Feminine Ending), Iambic, Trochaic, Dsctylic, and Anapestic.The total number of Monosyllabic (Masculine Ending) was (3), (Feminine Ending) was (12), Iambic was (609), Trochaic was (44), Dactylic was (11), and Anapestic was (8).
    [Show full text]
  • MUS 327 Analysis: Rhythm and Meter Week 5 Vocab 3: Poetic Rhythm
    MUS 327 Analysis: Rhythm and Meter Week 5 Vocab 3: Poetic Rhythm Try it yourself: Scansion of Friedrich Schiller, “Ode an die Freude” (Trochaic tetrameter) Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber binden wieder Was die Mode streng geteilt; Alle Menschen werden Brüder Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt. From Purdue Online Writing Lab, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/570/02/ Syllables can either be accented, meaning they are naturally given more emphasis when spoken, or unaccented, meaning they receive less emphasis when spoken. Signs for accented/unaccented syllables: u = unaccented syllable – = accented syllable / = break between poetic feet A poetic foot is a unit of accented and unaccented syllables that is repeated or used in sequence with others to form the meter. Poetic feet are referred to using these terms: Iambic: u – (destroy) Anapestic: u u – (intervene) Trochaic: – u (topsy) Dactylic: – u u (merrily) An enjambment is the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. Line Length shows the number of feet per line. In the case of tetrameter, there are basically four feet per line. The types of line lengths are as follows: One foot: Monometer Two feet: Dimeter Three feet: Trimeter Four feet: Tetrameter Five feet: Pentameter Six feet: Hexameter A Stanza is a group of lines, a quatrain is a group of four lines, and a couplet is a pair of lines. Declamatory Schema maps beat numbers in a given musical meter onto accented syllables in the poem in order to provide a basic outline of declamatory rhythm and patterns that recur within the song.
    [Show full text]
  • Chaucer's Prosody
    Chaucer’s Prosody and Poetics Dr. A Mitchell The following is meant to remind you of the available technical terminology for analyzing Chaucer’s verse, and can serve as a handy checklist when thinking and writing about his poetry (and many other cultural artefacts besides literary ones). Use this sheet along with my “Checklist for Close Reading” to ask questions about the literature you study. None of this is a substitute for a good dictionary of literary terms, which every student should have on the shelf. Here are just some of the common tools of the trade so that you can consider what needs to be added to your toolkit – so as to enhance your critical capabilities and vocabulary. You need to handle relevant terms when analyzing Chaucer’s writing. So begin here. A. Figurative Language Medieval poets tended to cultivate formal qualities that moderns have not especially prized in their own writing, including mannered forms of address, consistently elevated language, and fixed forms of verse (such as the ballade). Their verse also tends to be greatly ornamented, richly embroidered with rhetorical figures. The thing to look out for in Chaucer is the subtle ways in which he innovates on forms and norms handed down to him. To see how he works, however, you must be able to identify the conventions. Language • concrete and abstract diction • denotation and connotation • register: formal and informal, colloquial, dialect, jargon • syntax (the order of words) Speaker, Persona, Tone • speaker, persona • address: direct address, free indirect • objective or impersonal versus personal voice Figurative Language • imagery (appeal to senses) • simile (using like or as) • metaphor (tenor and vehicle, implied or extended) • metonymy (a thing substituted for another by association) o Pen is mightier than the sword; He’s taken to the bottle • synecdoche (part for whole or vice versa) o Take my hand in marriage; Flesh and blood • oxymoron; puns or syllepsis • personification or prosopopeia; allegory B.
    [Show full text]