Helpful Terms for Poetry Analysis Prose V. Verse

Helpful Terms for Poetry Analysis Lisa Mendelman English 4w/Spring 2015 Prose v. Verse: Prose is ordinary speech or writing, without any metrical structure. Verse is a more compressed and regularly rhythmic form of writing. Meter: Meter is defined as the means by which rhythm is measured and described. Scansion is the analysis of a poem’s meter. This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed (accented versus unaccented) syllables in each line and then, based on the pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet. - Poetic foot: the unit that is repeated to give steady rhythm to a poem, often according to the following patterns… o Iamb: unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in unite, repeat, or insist. o Trochaic: inversion of the iamb (stressed followed by an unstressed syllable), as in unit, reaper, or instant. o Anapestic: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, as in intercede, disarrange, or Cameroon. o Dactylic: stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, as in Washington, Ecuador, or applejack. o Spondaic: two successive stressed syllables, as in heartbreak, headline, or Kashmir. - Verse length: the number of poetic feet in a single line o Monometer: one foot (rare) o Dimeter: two feet (also rare) o Trimeter: three feet o Tetrameter: four feet o Pentameter: five feet o Hexameter: six feet o Heptameter: seven feet (rare) - Often, we combine these terms to describe poetic verse. Shakespeare frequently wrote in iambic pentameter. Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter. - If a poet writes with end-stop lines, each line ends with a strong mark of punctuation; run- on lines are known as enjambment (as French scholars will note, this literally means “straddling”). - Poets like Walt Whitman and many of his 20th- and 21st-century counterparts write in free verse, in which the verse has neither a fixed metrical foot nor a fixed verse length, but instead relies on a pattern of cadences for its rhythm. - A stanza is the recurring unit of a poem, consisting of a number of verses (like a paragraph in prose). o Couplet: two rhyming lines o Quatrain: four lines that usually rhyme abab or abcb o Like songs, some poems have a refrain, a line that is repeated at the end of each stanza. Sound: - Alliteration: several nearby words or stressed syllables beginning with the same consonant - Assonance: repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds within a passage - Consonance: the same thing as above, but with consonants instead. - Onomatopoeia: words that sound like they’re spelled, as in buzz, splash, and twang. Figurative language: - First the (hopefully) familiar terms… a simile is a comparison marked by the use of a specific word of likening (“like,” “as”). When a comparison is implied, this is a metaphor. - Irony implies an attitude quite different from (and often opposite to) that which is literally expressed. - Perhaps less familiar is synecdoche, in which a figure substitutes the part for the whole, as when you ask someone to “lend you a hand” (most of the time you’re asking for more than just their palm and fingers). - Similarly, metonymy is the substitution of one term for another with which it is closely associated (i.e., “The pen is mightier than the sword,” wherein the pen represents written thoughts and the sword stands for physical violence). - Hyperbole is willful exaggeration, as when someone jokes that he is “dying of hunger.” - Personification is the direct, explicit attribution of human qualities to an inanimate object (the ocean) or an abstract concept (Power). o A specified form of this is the pathetic fallacy, in which human feelings, thought, or sensations are attributed to nonhuman objects (as when flowers “weep”). Whereas personification is direct and explicit, pathetic fallacy is often more broad and allusive (indirect). A few specific types of poems to know… Sonnet The conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its long history. By the thirteenth century, the term “sonnet” came to refer to a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Traditionally, English poets (ie, Shakespeare) employ iambic pentameter when writing sonnets. In the Romance languages, the hendecasyllable (a line of eleven syllables) and the Alexandrine (a line of twelve syllables) are the most widely used meters. Shakespearean Sonnet The Shakespearean sonnet consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic “turn” called a volta; the couplet usually summarizes the theme of the poem or introduces a fresh new look at the theme. The usual meter is iambic pentameter, although there is some accepted metrical flexibility. The usual rhyme scheme is end-rhymed (abab/ cdcd/efef/gg). Ode Another form with a long history (in this case one that dates back to Ancient Greece; the word “ode” means “sung” in Greek), the ode is typically a lyrical verse written in praise of, or dedicated to, someone or something that captures the poet’s interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode. While ode-writers from antiquity adhered to rigid patterns, by Walt Whitman’s time, the form had undergone enough transformation that it represented a manner rather than a set method (ie, rhyme and meter) for writing a certain type of lyric poetry. .

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