بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم
Cultural Considerations as Facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry with Focus on Figures of Speech
A case study of , three Sudanese Universities.
Ishragah Ahmed Abdul-Rahman
Date: 31/ July/ 2016
1
بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم
Cultural Considerations as a Facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry with Focus on Figures of Speech
A case study of , three Sudanese Universities.
Ishragah Ahmed Abdul-Rahman
M.A (ELT) Faculty of Education – Hantoub,
University of Gezira (2011)
B.A. in English Language, Faculty of Education – Hantoub, University of Gezira (2006)
A Thesis
Submitted to the University of Gezira in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of
Philosophic Doctorate
in
English Language Teaching ( English Literature )
Department of English Language,
Faculty of Education – Hasahesa
June 2016
2
Cultural Considerations as a Facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry with Focus on Figures of Speech
(A case study at EFL University Students' of Faculty of Arts –Omdurman Islamic University, University of Al fashir and Faculty of Education - University of Gezira )
Ishragah Ahmed Abdul-Rahman
Supervision Committee
Name Position Signature
Dr. Lubab El Tayeb Main Supervisor ………...…
Dr. Ahmed Gasmelsid Co- Supervisor ……………
Date: July / 2016
3
Cultural Considerations as a Facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry with Focus on Figures of Speech
(A case study at EFL University Students' of Faculty of Arts –Omdurman Islamic University, University of Al fashir and Faculty of Education - University of Gezira )
Gezira State, Sudan (2016)
Ishragah Ahmed Abdul-Rahman
Examination Committee
Name Position Signature
Dr. Lubab El Tayeb Elmokashfi Chairperson …………
Prof. Abdel Mageid El Tayeb External Examiner …………
Dr. Abdel Gadir Mohammed Internal Examiner …………
Date: July / 2016
4
Declaration
I declare that this thesis is the result of my own work, and has been done under the overall guidance of my supervisors Dr. Lubab El Tayeb El Mikashfi, and Dr. Ahmed Gasmelsid, at University of Gezira. And this thesis has not been submitted previously by and other researcher to any other university or institute. Whenever I have used outside sources, I have given due credit to them in the text and also document their works in the final references.
5
Dedication
To a special woman ….
Whose heart is of purest gold !!
My Mom…
6
Acknowledgement
First , all praise is for Allah who bless me to do this work. I am grateful to the main supervisor Dr. Lubab , she is really my spiritual mother , and no words could express my thanks and feelings towards her. I also thank my co-supervisor Dr. Ahmed Gasmelsid for his advice. The gratitude extends to the authorities at University of Al fashir – Faculty of Arts, Omdurman Islamic University – Faculty of Arts. Special thanks to Dr. Imad Ahmed Ali for his help in gathering the data of University of Gezira – Faculty of Education , and to my best friend Raja Elnour for her supports and help.
7
Cultural Considerations as a Facilitating means in Appreciating English poetry with Focus on Figures of Speech
A case study of , three Sudanese Universities.
Ishragah Ahmed Abdul-Rahman
Abstract
Poetry like other literary genres exists to be enjoyed and appreciated. The difficult task facing any instructor is to develop this sense of appreciation and enjoyment in students. The cultural considerations are very essential factors that help in appreciating English poetry. EFL Learners at University encounter many obstacles to understand and appreciate English poetry. Thus, knowledge of cultural aspects helps the students to overcome such problems. The study aimed to investigate cultural considerations as a facilitating means in appreciating English poetry. The study followed the descriptive analytical method. A diagnostic test and a corpus were chosen as tools of data collection. The test was distributed among (80) of EFL learners at faculties of Arts, Omdurman Islamic University and Al Fashir University. While the corpus was (40) students of English language at Faculty of Education- Hantoub, University of Gezira. The data were analyzed manually using percentage and mean . The obtained results reveal that cultural considerations can facilitate understanding and appreciating English poetry(61.25%). Since University students prove that they have a high ability to understand and appreciate English poetry in case they were exposed to the
8
cultural aspects included in the poems(75%). The study recommends that lecturers of poetry courses at university should encourage their students to study different aspects of culture and get aware of its importance in clarifying the images of poems and then increase their abilities to know how to work out the cultural meanings of words in the poem and that lead to poetry appreciation. It also advises teachers of poetry courses to use helpful techniques to increase learners appreciation of English poetry.
9
االعتبارات الثقافية وسيلة تسهل تذوق الشعر اإلنجليزي مع التركيز على الصور البالغية دراسة الحالة لطالب ثالثة جامعات سودانية
إشراقه أحمد عبد الرحمن محمد نور
ملخص البحث
الشعر مثل غيره من ضروب االدب, وجد ليستمتع به, يعجب به و يقدر حق قدره. من اصعب المهام التي تواجه االساتذة المختصين هو تهيئة الطالب لالستمتاع و التذوق باألدب. تعد االعتبارات الثقافية من العناصر الجوهرية التي تساهم في تبسيط و تسهيل تذوق الشعر اإلنجليزي. كما يواجه طالب اللغة اإلنجليزية في الجامعات عقبات تعيق استيعابهم و بالتالي تذوقهم للشعر اإلنجليزي. ان معرفة االوجه و االبعاد الثقافية تساعد الطالب في التغلب على مثل هذه العوائق. تهدف الدراسة الى معرفة دور االعتبارات الثقافية في تسهيل تذوق الشعر اإلنجليزي. اتبعت الدراسة المنهج الوصفي التحليلي . استعانت باالختبار التشخيصي و اختبار مسبق بوصفهما ادوات لجمع البيانات. بعد التأكد من ثباتهما و صدقهما وزع االختبار لعدد )80( طالب بقسم اللغة اإلنجليزية في كلية اآلداب – جامعتي ام درمان اإلسالمية و جامعة الفاشر, بينما جمع االختبار المسبق لعدد )40( طالب بقسم اللغة اإلنجليزية في كلية التربية – جامعة الجزيرة. تم تحليل البيانات باستخدام عمليات احصائية . برهنت الدراسة ان االعتبارات الثقافية هي حقا وسيلة لتسهيل تذوق الشعر اإلنجليزي)%61.25(. كما اظهرت ان الطالب لديهم قدره عالية الستيعاب و تذوق الشعر اذا تعرفوا على االوجه الثقافية للقصيدة )%75(. ثم اوصت الدراسة االساتذة المختصين بتدريس الشعر االنجليزي بتشجيع طالبهم لدراسة اوجه الثقافة المختلفة و ادراك اهميتها في توضيح الصور البالغية للقصيدة و من ثم معرفة كيفية استنباط المعاني الثقافية للكلمات و بالتالي تذوق الشعر. كما اوصت االساتذة باستخدام طرق و تقنيات تزيد من استمتاع الطالب و تذوقهم للشعر اإلنجليزي.
10
Table of Content
No. Content Page
Declaration iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgement v
Abstract (English and Arabic) vi
Table of content viii
List of Tables xi
Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Statement of the problem 1
1.3 Objectives of the study 2
1.4 Questions of the study 2
1.5 Hypotheses of the study 2
1.6 Significance of the study 3
1.7 Methodology of the study 3
1.8 Limits of the study 3
Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.0 Introduction 4
2.1 Historical Background 4
11
2.2 Definitions of Culture 4
2.3 Concept of Culture 6
2.4 Characteristics of Culture 6
2.5 Elements of Culture 8
2.6 Culture and Related Terms 10
2.6.1 Culture and Nation 10
2.6.2 Culture and Race 11
2.6.3 Culture and Ethnicity 11
2.6.4 Culture and Identity 11
2.7 Aspects of Culture 12
2.7.1 National Culture 12
2.7.2 Regional and Non – regional Cultures 12
2.7.3 Company Culture 12
2.7.4 Religious Culture 12
2.8 Cultural Change 13
2.9 Culture and Language 13
2.10 Culture and Symbols 14
2.11 Connotation VS Culture 15
2.12 Arabic and English Cultures 16
2.12.1 Arabic Culture 16
2.12.2 English Culture 17
12
2.13 Examples of Major Cultural Differences 17
2.14 Cultural Gaps and Problems of 18 Misinterpretation
2.15 Concept of Poetry 19
2.15.1 Definitions of Poetry 19
2.15.2 History of Poetry 20
2.15.2.1 The Earliest English poetry 20
2.15.2.2 The Renaissance (1485 – 1660 AD( 21
2.15.2.3 The Restoration and Enlightenment ( 23 (1660 – 1798 AD
2.15.2.4 The Flowering of Romanticism (1798 – ( 23 1832 AD
2.15.2.5 The Victorian Age (1832 – 1901 AD) 24
2.15.2.6 Emerging Modernism (1901 – 1950 AD) 25
2.15.2.7 Contemporary Poetry (1950 – Present) 25
2.15.3 Genres of Poetry 26
2.15.4 Elements of poetry 38
2.15.5 Form of English Poetry 41
2.16 Theories and schools of poetry 42
2.17 Inspiration of the Poem 45
2.18 Tools for reading poetry 46
2.19 Steps of Analyzing Poems 47
13
2.20 Figurative Language and Diction of 48 Poetry
2.21 Techniques for Facilitating 60 Understanding and Appreciating English poetry to EFL University Students
2.22 Poems for Analysis 63
2.23 Previous Studies 69
Chapter Three: Methodology of the study
3.0 Introduction 72
3.1 The Sample 72
3.2 Tools of Collecting Data 72
3.2.1 Content of the Test 72
3.2.1.2 Validity of the Test 73
3.2.2 Content of the Corpus 73
3.2.2.2 Validity of the Corpus 74
3.3 Tools of Data Analysis 74
Chapter Four: Results and Discussion
4.0 Introduction 75
4.1 Results of the students' Test 75
4.2 Results of the Corpus 78
4.3 Discussion of the Results in Relation to 79
14
the Hypotheses of the Study
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Recommendations
5.0 Introduction 80
5.1 Conclusion 80
5.1.1 Findings 80
5.2 Recommendations 80
References 83
Appendix 90
15
List of Tables
No. Title page
4.1.1 Students' Understanding of the Poem 75
Students' Appreciation of the Lines of the 75 4.1.2 Poem
Students' Abilities to Recognize and 76 4.1.3 Discuss Figures of Speech
Students' Recognition of the Cultural 76 4.1.4 element in the Poem
Students' Abilities to Extract and Discuss 77 4.1.5 Figures of Speech
Students' Understanding and 77 4.1.6 Appreciation of the Lines of the Poem
Cultural Back ground role in Facilitating 78 4.1.7 Appreciation of English Poetry
Cultural Background Effect on 78 4.2.1 Appreciating English Poetry
Students' Abilities to Appreciate English 78 4.2.2 Poetry
16
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Poetry as one genre of literature has something special to others. Poetry is rich with aesthetic and expressive values. The aesthetic value of the poem emphasizes the beauty of words, figurative language, connotations in addition to others. The expressive feature emphasizes the poet's thought, emotion, beliefs, and culture. In a poem, the beauty is not only achieved by the choice of words and figurative language like that in novels and short stories, but also with the creation of rhyme, rhythm, meter, and specific expressions and structures that may not conform to the ones of the daily language use. Thus, appreciating English poetry needs something more than appreciating other genres of literature.
Culture is a cumulative experience which includes knowledge, beliefs, morals, traditions, and any habits acquired by a group of people in a society. Culture also includes the total system of habits and behaviors of which language is an essential subset. In other words, language is a reflection of culture. In the language of poetry readers may encounter no problems in understanding universal words, but there are other connotative meanings that are characteristic of different cultures. These differences among cultures represent an area of difficulty, hence, unawareness of cultural aspects would result in misunderstanding, thus, hindering the appreciation of English poetry. Knowledge of cultural aspects helps the readers to overcome problems resulting from cultural diversity.
Figurative language is the language that is used in ways that differ from the literal meanings and definitions of individual words or phrases. Poets use these figures of speech to bring out emotions and to help their readers
17 form images in mind. Figurative language is a useful way of conveying an idea that readers cannot understand. It also helps in analyzing the literary text.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Understanding and appreciating English poetry needs knowledge of the English cultural usage of language . Thus, cultural expressions and figurative language play a vital role in appreciating English poetry. It is noticed that a considerable number of EFL learners at university face difficulty in understanding English poetry. This difficulty is due to the lack of English cultural knowledge. Therefore, the researcher attempts to investigate the cultural aspects as a facilitating means in understanding and hence appreciating English poetry.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
1- To detect the role of cultural dimensions in appreciating English
poetry.
2- To explore to what extent can figures of speech facilitate understanding
English poetry.
3- To suggest appropriate techniques to help students understand and hence
appreciate English poetry.
1.4 Questions of the Study
1-To what extent does the knowledge of cultural dimensions contribute to the
appreciation of English poetry?
18
2-What is the role of figures of speech in facilitating understanding and
appreciating English poetry?
3- What are the suggested techniques that can be adopted to facilitate
understanding and appreciation English poetry?
1.5 Hypotheses of the Study:
1- Knowledge of the cultural elements and dimensions promotes understanding and appreciating English poetry.
2-Knowledge of figures of speech can facilitate understanding and then appreciating English poetry.
3- Adoption of appropriate techniques can facilitate understanding and appreciating English poetry.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This study is hoped to be valuable to university lecturers who teach literature in general, and poetry courses in particular. It is also hoped to be helpful for the researchers of the field of literature. Moreover, the study is expected to be useful to the readers of English poetry in general. It is also hoped to be of benefit and value to the authorities in the field of literature and those who are interested in literary studies.
1.7 Methodology of the Study
In this study, the literary descriptive analytical method will be adopted. The sample of the study is a purposive one which consists of (120) EFL university students who study in the faculties of Arts and Faculty of Education, who are exposed to a wide range of literary courses. Two tools will be used for gathering data: the first tool is a diagnostic test while the
19 second one is a corpus of test . The computer program (SPSS) will be used as a tool for data analysis.
1.8 Limits of the Study
This study is limited to the cultural considerations as a facilitating means in appreciating English poetry with focus on the major figures of speech. It is also limited to (40) students of Faculty of Arts - University of Al fashir, (40) students of Faculty of Arts – Omdurman Islamic University, and (40) students of Faculty of Education - Hantoub – University of Gezira, in the academic year 2015 - 2016. The study will be conducted during the years (2013 – 2016).
20
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction This chapter is intended mainly to cover the literature that is related to the topic. It shows the relation between poetry and culture, moreover, it reveals the major figures of speech that may have a role in understanding English poetry. In addition to the theoretical material, and previous studies will be discussed and compared to this study.
2.1 Historical Background Culture is a modern concept based on a term used by the Roman orator Cicero who wrote "cultura animi" which means "cultivation of soul"; using an agricultural metaphor for the development of a philosophical soul. This non – agricultural use of the term "culture" re – appeared in modern Europe in the 17th century referring to the refinement of individuals, especially through education. During the 18th and 19th centuries, it came to refer more frequently to the common reference points of whole people. It is often connected to national aspiration or ideals. Some scientists such as Edward Taylor used this term to refer to a universal human capacity. In the 20th century, culture emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be directly attributed to genetic inheritance.
2.2 Definitions of Culture
In fact, it is really not an easy matter to identify culture. In general, the word "culture" has been used to refer to the way of doing things. According to Brown, (1987: 124) culture could be defined as a set of ideas, customs, arts, and skills which distinguish a certain group in a certain time.
21
Lyons (1984: 302) c.f (Hudson, 1980) defines culture as the knowledge that someone can acquire as a result of being a member of a particular society. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2005) gives this definition of culture as: "Way of life of a particular country or group, for example: Islamic or African culture".
The classical definition of culture was provided by the 19th century English Anthropologist Edward Taylor (1871), who says that culture is the complex whole which includes arts, morals, knowledge, beliefs, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. In other words, culture is the system of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people. Whereas, Anderatta and Ferraro (2013)say that culture means all those historical created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational and non – rational which exist at any given time as a potential guides for the behavior of men.
Apte (2010), says that culture is defined in different ways, but most simply, as the learned and shared behavior of a community of interacting human beings. Whereas, Avruch, (1999) asserts that culture is a system for differentiating between in – group and out – group people. Thus, culture in this sense is a system of collectively held values. Bhaba (1994) defines culture as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and effective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of one group distinguishing them from another group. On the other hand, Brewer (2013) states that culture is the total range of activities and ideas and their material expressions in objects and processes peculiar to a group of people, as well as their particular environment. Lederach (1995:9) defines culture as the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them.
22
Recently, Oatey (2008:3) expresses the view that culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to live, beliefs, procedures and behavioral conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence but not determine each member's behavior and his / her interpretations of the meaning of other people's behavior. Yule (2010:267) defines culture as all ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that they learn when become members of social groups. In other words, it is the socially acquired knowledge. Azmi et.al (2011: 60) define culture as a combination of different codes concerning the way of life, tradition, rituals, beliefs, values, morals, shared customs and all the habits that are practiced by a particular community using a particular language as means of expression. Culture is also used by historians to refer to any socially inherited element in the life of man, material and spiritual one. Therefore, within this complex network of traditionally inherited habits, language usage or attitudes, culture can be considered as the identity card of a society. Since no two identity cards are the same, no two cultures are identical either, especially within societies that are widely different from one another, like eastern versus western communities. What is important here is that culture produces social meanings through language, which does not include only verbal and written forms, but also other elements like body signs and movements that are used as a means of communication. Culture is also defined according to http://www.regent.edu/acad/schom/phd/com707/def_com.html as a way of life of group of people – the beliefs, values, and symbols – that they accept without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next. It is also defined as the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people and are transmitted from one generation to another. Moreover, it is a collective
23 programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.
2.3 Concept of Culture Ferraro (1999) cites many definitions of culture, ranging from "learned behavior" to "ideas in mind", "a logical construct", "a statistical fiction" and so on. But the conception that is preferred by them is that culture is an abstraction from behavior.
Avruch (1999:7) provides a historical perceptive to some of the ways in which the term culture has been interpreted; much of the difficulty of understanding the concept of culture stems from the different usages of the term as it was increasingly employed in the 19th century. Broadly speaking, it was used in three ways all of them can be found today as well. First, as exemplified in Mathew Arnold (1867), culture referred to special intellectual or artistic endeavors or products, what might be called today as "high culture". By this definition, only an apportion of any social group has culture. This sense of culture is related to aesthetics than to social science. The second as pioneered by Edward Taylor (1870) referred to a quality possessed by all people in all social groups, which is called "popular culture". The third and last usage of culture developed in anthropology in the 20th century works of Franz Boas and his students. Boas dismissed the value judgments that found inherent in both the Arnoldian and Taylorean views of culture. For Boas, one should not differentiate high from low culture, and one ought not differentially valorize culture as savage or civilized.
2.4 Characteristics of Culture
Culture can be distinguished as a concept as follows:
24
1) Culture affects behavior and interprets behavior; Hofstede (1991:8) makes the important point that although certain aspects of culture are physically visible, their meaning is invisible. For example, a gesture such as the "ring gesture" (thumb and forefinger touching) may be interpreted as an agreement, approval or acceptance in the U.S.A, U.K and Canada, but as an insult or obscene gesture in several Mediterranean countries. 2) Culture can be differentiated from both universal human nature and unique individual personality; Hofstede (1994:6) ensures that culture is learned not inherited. It derives from one's social environment, not from one's genes. Culture should be distinguished from human nature on one side, and from an individual's personality on the other side. Human nature is the human ability to feel fear, anger, love, joy, sadness, and the need to associate with others. The personality of an individual, on the other side, is his/her unique personal set of mental programs which he/she does not share with any other human being. 3) Culture influences biological processes; Ferraro (1999:20) ensures this characteristic point. He says that human behavior is acquired through learning and interacting with other members of the culture. Even those responses to the purely biological needs – such as eating, coughing, defecating – are frequently influenced by nature. For example, all people share a biological need for food. Unless a minimum number of calories is consumed, starvation will occur. Therefore, all people eat, but what to eat, how often to eat, how much to eat, with whom to eat, and according to what set of rules are regulated, at least in part, by the culture. 4) Culture is associated with social group; as Ferraro points out (1999:16) culture is shared by at least two or more people, and of course real, live societies are always larger than that. In other words,
25
for an idea, a thing, or a behavior to be considered cultural, it must be shared by some type of social group or society. 5) Culture is learned; Koester and Lus (2000:31) state that culture is learned from people around in the society. Watching how adults react and talk to new babies is an excellent way to see the actual symbolic transmission of culture among people. Two babies born at exactly the same time in two parts of the globe may be taught to respond to physical and social stimuli in very different ways. For example, some babies are taught to smile at strangers, whereas others are taught to smile only in very specific circumstances. 6) Culture is a descriptive not an evaluative concept; some interpretations of culture is often linked with terms and concepts such as civilized, well educated, refined, cultured, and is associated with the results of such refinement – a society's art, literature, music, and so on. However, the notion of culture is not something exclusive to certain members; rather it relates to the whole of a society. Moreover, it is not value – laden. It is not that some cultures are advanced and some backward, some more civilized and polite while others are coarse and rude. Rather, they are similar or different to each other.
2.5 Elements of Culture
Culture is a huge topic of study for sociologists. Culture exists anywhere humans exist, and no two cultures are exactly the same. There are many elements of cultures, these elements look different across cultures, and may change with time as a society evolves.
1-Symbols
The first element that exists in every culture is a variety of symbols. A symbol is anything that is used to stand for something else. People who
26 share a culture often attach a specific meaning to an object, gesture, sound, or image. For example, a "cross" is a significant symbol to Christians. It is not simply two pieces of wood attached to each other, nor is it just an old object of torture and execution. To Christians, it represents the basis of their entire religion, and they have great reverence for the symbol. Another example is a calligraphy of important concepts or phrases, such as "shahada", "basmala", "takbir" and so on is often used as symbolizing Islam.
2-Language
The second element present in every culture is a language. Language is a system of words and symbols used to communicate with other people. This includes full languages such as English, Spanish, French, Arabic and so on. But it also includes body language, slang, and common phrases that are unique to certain groups of people. For example, even though English is spoken fluently in both America and Britain, there are slang and phrases that mean different things. American "French fries" are British "chips", American "cookies" are British "biscuits", and so on. Another example of how cultural languages differ beyond vocabulary is the fact that eye contact represents different meanings in different cultures. In America, eye contact suggests that you are paying attention and are interested in what a person has to say. In other cultures, eye contact may be considered rude and to be a challenge of authority.
3-Value
Another cultural element is a system of values, which are culturally defined standards for what is good or desirable. Members of the culture use the shared system of values to decide what is good and what is bad. For example, in America, people are individualistic - they encourage competition and emphasize personal achievement. A person who accepts a promotion in this culture is praised for their individual hard work and talent. But such
27 values are in stark contrast with the collectivistic values of other cultures as in Arabic culture, where collaboration is encouraged, and a person's success is only as good as their contributions to the group. The same person that is offered a promotion who lives in a collectivistic culture would consult with his family before accepting to ensure that it would be the most beneficial to the group as a whole.
4-Customes and Traditions
Customs and traditions are cultural elements, they are kind of law or usual way which is in practice since a long of time. They are anything which lots of people do, and have done for a long time. Usually, the people come from the same country, culture, time or religion. In other words, they are actions and belief system that are a cultural norm. They are seen as a proper habitual choices. For instance, what and when to eat , what not to eat, how to interact with people, who to interact with. Another examples as in some cultures it is polite and respectful to bow to old people, in other cultures the people must take their shoes off before entering the house, and in some places they sit on the floor and eat.
5-Religion
Religion is an important aspect of most societies. It affects the ways in which members of a society relate to each other and to outsiders. Religion also affects the business environment in other important ways. Often religion impose constraints on the roles of individuals in society. For example, in Saudi Arabia and Iran, limit job opportunities for women, in the belief that heir contact with adult male should be restricted to relatives. The impact of religion on international business varies from country to country depending on the country's legal system, its homogeneity of religious beliefs, and its toleration of other religious view point.
28
6- Norms
Cultures differ widely in their norms, or standards and expectations for behaving. Norms are often divided into two types, formal norms and informal norms. Formal norms, also called mores and laws, refer to the standards of behavior considered the most important in any society. Examples in the United States include traffic laws, criminal codes, and, in a college context, student behavior codes addressing such things as cheating and hate speech. Informal norms, also called folkways, refer to standards of behavior that are considered less important but still influence how people behave. Table manners are a common example of informal norms, as are such everyday behaviors as how to interact with a cashier and how to ride in an elevator. Many norms differ dramatically from one culture to the next. Some of the most interesting norms that differ by culture govern how people stand apart when they talk with each other (Hall & Hall, 2007). In the United States, people who are not intimates usually stand about three to four feet apart when they talk. If someone stands more closely, especially if people are of northern European heritage, they feel uncomfortable. Yet people in other countries—especially Italy, France, Spain, and many of the nations of Latin America and the Middle East—would feel uncomfortable if they were standing three to four feet apart. To them, this distance is too great and indicates that the people talking dislike each other. If a U.S. native of British or Scandinavian heritage were talking with a member of one of these societies, they might well have trouble interacting, because at least one of them will be uncomfortable with the physical distance separating them.
2.6 Culture and Related Terms
There are many terms which are related either directly or indirectly to the term culture. Here they are:
2.6.1 Culture and Nation
29
Koester and Lus (1999:36)draws attention to the fact that people commonly treat "culture" and "nation" as equivalent terms. Although some nations are predominantly inhabited by one cultural group, most nations contain multiple cultures within their boundaries. Nation is a political term referring to a government and a set of formal and legal mechanisms that have been established to regulate the political behavior of its people. For example, the United States, has several major cultural groups living within its geographical boundaries; European Americans, African Americans, native Americans, Latinos, and various Asian American cultures are all represented in the United States. All the members of these different cultural groups are citizens of the nation of the U.S. Another example is the nation of the Sudan; many of Sudanese people are considered as 'Arabs' rather than 'Africans'. Arabic is the official national language. However, Sudanese people often have both Arab and African ancestry.
2.6.2 Culture and Race
Koester and Lus (1999:37)differentiate between culture and race; they mention that race commonly refers to genetic or biological based similarities among people, which are distinguishable and unique and function to mark or separate groups of people from one another. Sometimes race and culture do seem to work hand in hand to create visible and important distinctions among groups within a larger society; and sometimes race plays a part in establishing separate cultural groups. For example, the African American people, their culture provides a strong and unique source of identity to the members of black race in the United States. To explain more, although a Nigerian and an African American are both the same race, they belong to distinct cultures.
2.6.3 Culture and Ethnicity
30
Ethnic group is another term often used interchangeable with culture. Ethnicity is actually a term that is used to refer to a wide variety of group who might share a language, historical origins, religion, identification with a common nation state, or cultural system. The nature of the relationship of a group's ethnicity to its culture will vary greatly depending on a number of other important characteristics. For example, in Yugoslavia there are at least three major ethnic groups – Slovenians, Croatian , and Serbians – each with its own language and distinct culture, who were forced into one nation – state following World War II.
2.6.4 Culture and Identity
Hofstede (2001:10) maintains that culture is not the same as identity. Identities are the places where people belong to. In other words, populations that fight each other on the basis of their different felt identities may very well share the same values.
2.7 Aspects of Culture
Cain (2001:341) provides the aspects of culture with names. While it is extremely difficult to define culture, there remains a need to name it. So, what is in a name? The process of naming a culture provides the illusion of existence of that culture.
2.7.1 National Culture
Cultures are what make countries unique. Each country has different cultural activities and cultural rituals. Culture is more than just material goods, that is things the culture uses and produces. Culture is also the beliefs and values of the people in that country. Culture also includes the way people think about and understand the world, and their own lives.
2.7.2 Regional and Non – regional Cultures
31
Culture can also vary within a region, society or a sub – group. A work place may have a specific culture that sets it apart from similar work places. A region of a country may have a different culture than the rest of the country. For example, Atlantic Canada has different culture from the rest of Canada which expressed by different ways of talking, different types of music, and different types of dances.
2.7.3 Company Culture
Companies or other organizations can have a separate culture. For example, Japanese manufacturing companies often have a different culture to western companies; the work day starts with exercise, and the workers are very loyal to the company. Another example, companies in high – technology sector often have a different culture than other companies. Software and computer companies sometimes allow employees to play games during the work day, or take time off work to relax, because these companies believe that this will help the workers to think better.
2.7.4 Religious Culture
Religion is sometimes a central element of culture. In many indigenous populations for example, culture is essentially an expression of religious beliefs. Historically, travelers and others have always faced internal (and oftentimes external) conflicts over cultural differences. This has led to the concept of “cultural relativism,” or the idea that a person’s individual beliefs (and actions stemming from those beliefs) should be viewed within the context of that person’s – and not the viewer’s – own culture.
The term religious culture refers to all the behaviors that committed by group of people as a religious reaction, or in other words, as a result of religious effect. For example, "Hijab" and "Ihram" reflect Islamic culture, while "candles" reflect the Christian culture.
32
2.8 Cultural Change
Cultures are extremely affected via contact between societies, which may produce or inhibit social shift and changes in cultural practices. War or competitions over resources may impact technological development or social dynamics. Additionally, cultural ideas may transfer from one society to another, through diffusion acculturation. In diffusion, the form of something move from one culture to another. For example, "hamburgers", fast food in the United States, seemed exotic when introduced into China. "Stimulus diffusion" which is the sharing of ideas referring to an element of one culture leading to an invention or propagation in another. "Direct borrowing" on the other hand, tends to refer to technological or tangible diffusion from one culture to another.
Acculturation has different meanings, but this context refers to replacement of the traits of one culture with those of another, such as what happened to certain native American tribes and to many indigenous people across the globe during the process of colonization.
2.9 Culture and Language
Concerning language and culture, Commings and Simmons (1983) ensure that a language is part of culture and culture is part of language. In other words; they are interdependent on each other, so no one can separate the two without losing the significance of the other. Literature as a part of language and a mirror of culture is affected by cultural differences. As a clarifying point, Satti (2006: 85) c.f (Mutawi: 1998) gives these examples of cultural differences. The number (13) in American culture connotes bad luck, 'raven' in English culture is a bird of bad omen which signifies death, while in Arabic culture 'crow' connotes bad omen. Moreover, in Arabic culture 'green' connotes 'beauty, paradise…' and in English 'sunny' connotes 'brightness, cheerfulness, Warmth… etc…'.
33
Language and culture are inseparable parts, they are interrelated. Stephen (1992:16) ensures that there is only one way in which cultures has been defined, it is the way ordinary people organize their daily existence. In order for organizations to take place, communication must be affective. Thus, language either verbal or otherwise and culture become inseparable parts. Further, Clyne (1993:16) views language as the means of identifying people; it makes group boundaries. Language can indicate where people come from, what group, socio – economic, national, gender, religious, generational or otherwise which they belong to. Moreover, Cain (2001:31) says that language use is a tool employed by many types of social communities, including professional cultures, youth cultures, or the cultures of minority groups. Cain herself (2001:36) founded the term "culturally – specific language" and defined it as a code passed among members of a cultural sphere, like the jargon of a certain profession or the slang of a teenager where the code unifies those who understand it, and alienate those who do not. Furthermore, Crystal (1987) reflects that instances of cultural language differences are evidenced in that some languages have specific words for concepts whereas other languages use several words to represent a specific concept. For example, the Arabic language includes many words for designating a certain type of horse or camel. To make such distinctions in English, where specific words do not exist, adjectives would be used preceding the label, such as quarter horse or dray horse. It is worth mentioning that further awareness of the role of cultural environments in the acquisition of language was influenced in the 1980s by ethnographic research techniques that were used by language researchers. Ethnographic studies have contributed significantly to the understanding of the linguistic diversity. Ethnography uses participants observation in real – life setting and focuses on individuals within their social and cultural contexts. Heath (1983:294) explores children's acquisition of language at home and school in two
34 communities in the southern United States. Heath finds differences in communication in working - class black and white families as well as among middle – class townspeople of both ethnic groups. Heath concludes that the contrasts found in language were not based on race, but on complex cultural influences in each community.
2.10 Culture and Symbols
Gray (1997:168) illustrates that there is a term connected to culture and related to poetry which is symbolism, since some symbols are fixed to a particular tradition or culture. Littell (2000:992)defines symbols as persons, places, objects, or actions that stand for things beyond themselves to convey major ideas and themes. For example, the "heart" is used as a symbol for love. Littell himself explains that literary symbols take one meaning within the context of the works in which they occur, and sometimes literary symbols have more than one meaning. For example, the "rose" in William Black's poem might symbolize goodness, innocence, or all of humanity. Following, are some lines of "The Sick Rose", by William Black:
O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm
The flies in the night
In the howling storm. . .
Anthropologists believe that people use symbols to communicate or express their experiences. Anthropologists call this use of symbol "culture". In this sense, culture can be defined as a symbolic communication, some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meaning of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions. Banks and McGee (1989)
35 claim that most social scientists view culture as a consisting primarily of the symbolic, ideational ,and tangible cultural aspects of human societies. The essence of a culture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural elements, but how the members of the group interpret, use and perceive them. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts and behaviors in the same or similar ways.
In poetry, symbols can convey the themes of the poem. For example,
Turing and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer, …
This is the two first lines from "The Second Coming" by Yeats. He uses the symbol "gyre" or spiral to express his view of history and his belief that life repeats itself even as it moves forward.
2.11 Connotation VS Culture
The aspect of lexis which is more noticeable in literature particularly poetry is connotation. Dictionaries tell only little about the connotative potential of lexical items; that is because they depend largely on culture. Connotation in poetry is particularly subtle and lively, and it can be said that they are culture- bound.
2.12 Arabic and English Cultures
Each culture in the world has its own concepts and characteristics that distinguish this culture from others.
2.12.1 Arabic Culture
Nydell (2006:71) distinguishes the Arabic culture as a term used to describe the various cultures Arabs have. A common misconception about the Arab world is that the Arabs are simply a homogenous mass with the
36 same religion, language, and customs. In reality, cultures, religions, and dialects differ from country to country and city to city. Damascene culture is different from Beiruti culture, which, in turn, is different from the culture one would encounter in Egypt. However, there are certain aspects which almost every Arab sub-culture has in common.
From the known things about Arabs is that, it is common to be an hour late for a visit or appointment. In general, Arabs are a very relaxed people and punctuality is not stressed as a major virtue. Arab identity is separated into three categories: Family, Honor, and Religion. Family is one of the most important parts of Arab culture. Westerners often tend to define their family as their immediate relatives- parents, siblings, children. They usually define family as their extended (or tribal) relations- parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, and children. Arabs usually consider themselves as part of "the tribe", rather than as individuals.
Gannon, (2004:77) ensures that honor is everything to Arab. A poor person with honor is more valued than a rich person without it. While the Arabs are a highly relaxed and easy-going people, insults are taken personally and rarely- if ever- forgotten. In the past, feuds between families (or villages) can rage on for decades. Due to this, most Arabs ascribe to the belief that when fighting, victory or death are the only alternatives . Arabs also believe that honor demands of them a certain code of hospitality. Often, Arabs will invite complete strangers into their houses for dinner or tea. Among various Bedouin tribes of Syria and Jordan, a guest may stay with a tribe for three days before the tribe has the right to ask what their guest's business is. As a result, Arab society is highly communal. Neighbors consider it their duty to look out for each other. Concerning religion, it is a major part of every Arabs' life, Muslim, Christian, or Jew. The Arab world is very influenced by Islam and it practices even if though not all Arabs are Muslims. In Arab
37 society it is common to include blessings while talking to other persons. Nydell (2006:78) says that one of the characteristics of Arabs is generosity and they usually show it by being courteous with each other.
2.12.2 English Culture
The English culture is defined as the particular cultural norms of England and the English people. Owing to England's influential position within the United Kingdom, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate English culture from the culture of the United Kingdom as a whole. The English are said to be reserved in manners, dress and speech. They are famous for their politeness and self-discipline. Basic politeness (please, thank you, excuse me) is expected. A handshake is the most common form of greeting among the English and British people and is customary when introducing somebody new. It is only when meeting friends, whom have not seen for a long time, kissing the cheek of the opposite sex. In Britain one kiss is generally enough. British people place considerable value on punctuality, it is often considered impolite to arrive even a few minutes late. If a person is unable to keep an appointment, it is expected to call the person s/he is meeting. “ Drop in anytime” and “come see me soon” are idioms often used in social settings but seldom meant to be taken literally. It is wise to telephone before visiting someone at home. The "pub", or public house, is an important part of British life. The pub is where the community gathers to eat, drink, and gather. It is typical to order both food and drink directly at the bar, as most pubs do not offer table service. The English people favor individualism rather than group orientation. A modern trend of thought is "If it feels good to me, I will do it" – without consideration for others. The family consists of mother, father, and children. Many children move away from home around the age of eighteen. Elderly parents either live alone for as long as they are able or enter a home for the aged people. An adult child will oversee such an arrangement but does not feel an obligation to take the
38 parent into his/her own home, because they are not financially responsible for their elderly parents.
2.13 Examples of Major Cultural Differences
Many studies have analyzed intercultural confusions where certain hand gestures have opposite meanings in two cultures or more. For example, shaking one's head for 'yes' and nodding for 'no'. Simple cultural misunderstanding occur constantly through the ignorance of the culturally specific meaning of a gesture held to be universally recognized. Another example, in English, making an “O” by putting the thumb and forefinger together means “OK", while in Arabic culture it means "threaten". Also the Arab would be offended if they saw any one using left hand to eat, because they use their left hand for bathroom hygiene, but such action is normal in English people. Similarly, when translating, a substantially different slant may be given to a situation by the use of a more or less harsh vulgarity. Like all things deemed socially acceptable or otherwise, the taboo loading of a word is a social construct – hence, logically, difference will occur between cultures.
The differences in language use are the result of the existence of personal , social, and cultural pressure on a particular language. Azmi et.al (2011:60) provide this example, the case with Arabic language which has its – "which is "uncle "عم" specific nature and cultural features. Words such as which is also "uncle" – who is "خال" who is father's brother – and the word are words of specific cultural " عم و خال " mother's brother - . These words usage, but their equivalent in English is only one word "uncle". The same In English . "عمة أو خالة " case in the word "aunt" which means in Arabic culture, there is only one reference to each which is "uncle or aunt". These cultural kinship terms will probably become confusing area when dealing with such terms.
39
This leads to the fact that the different contexts in which a word is used , and their associated cultural features in the source language culture, make it more difficult to find the right communicative equivalent in the target language culture. So, in order to understand certain texts for the purpose of giving the correct meaning, it is important to have good background information about the social and cultural codes which are used, while keeping in mind the strong links the culture and the language usage.
2.14 Cultural Gaps and Problems of Misinterpretation
This section focuses mainly on the role of cultural gaps in causing problems of misinterpretation between Arabic and English languages. Azmi, et.al (2011: 61) say that the cultural overlap can be found between two cultures depend on the degree of the contact and the relation between these two cultures. This cultural overlap is related with two important facts, namely; the use of words having meanings that are not familiar in the second culture and the features of the language in use. However, travel, trade, scientific cooperation or translation and mass media nowadays play important roles in bridging the gap between cultures through introducing some culture bound words and expressions to people from another cultures. For example, the word "pizza" - a famous Italian dish – its equivalent is not yet found in Arabic culture. In this case, it becomes a problem when trying to find the proper meaning for it in Arabic, thus, the best way of dealing The same ."بيتزا" "with it is to write it as it is pronounced in English: "pizza idea in "Bloody Marry" which is a cocktail drink, such name is not known in it loses its real meaning and "ماريه الدموية" Arabic culture. If it translated as
."بلودي ماري " causes confusion, thus, the best to deal with expression as
It is worth mentioning that some words have negative meanings in one language , but positive meanings in another language or culture. Azmi et.al
40
(2011: 63) provide this example, the word "owl" in English is associated is associated with bad " بومه " with wisdom while its Arabic equivalent omen. Thus, it is very important to have good information about the different cultures of the world and not only depending on the dictionary meaning when dealing with such culture bound words.
2.15 Concept of Poetry
Under this sub – title the definitions, historical back ground, genres, forms, and elements of poetry will be presented.
2.15.1 Definitions of Poetry
Actually identifying poetry is a difficult matter for many linguists as well as the poets themselves. For many poets, poetry is too elusive to be defined. Poetry for Wordsworth is "the spontaneous over-flow of powerful feelings". Coleridge defines poetry as the best words in the best order, Hopkins sees poetry as speech framed to be heard for its own sake and interest. For Mathew Arnold, poetry is the criticism of life, while for Auden poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings. Other poets define it as memorable speech, or imaginative passions or even musical thought.
All previous definitions work to express the nature of poetry in abstract terms without arriving to a precise definition. Linguistically, poetry is defined as the rhythmical composition of words that express an attitude designed to arouse emotional response. Generally, poetry expresses various emotions which are expressed by the use of a variety of techniques including similes and onomatopoeia. The emphasis is on the aesthetics of the language. In other words, poems make much use of imagery and word associations to quickly convey emotions.
Concerning the language of poetry, when the poet writes any poem he/she tries to find the word that suits his/her needs and expresses his/her
41 feelings. This word may carry more than one meaning, that is to say, these related meanings can be called connotative meanings. Hence the poet chooses his/her words according to their particular shade of meaning. Thus when reading or listening to poems there must be alertness to the precise meanings of the words. To sum up, by using connotative words, the poet is able to give the exact experience that he/she wants to communicate. In addition to that, he will also be able to bring out the expressive potentialities that the words possess.
2.15.2 History of Poetry
Poetry as one aspect of literature is known from a long time across different ages. In the following section the researcher will cover the history and development of poetry:
2.15.2.1 The Earliest English poetry
This age is divided into two periods, the first from (449 AD) up to (1066 AD)and called the Anglo – Saxon period. The second one extended from (1066 AD) up to (1485AD) and it is called the Medieval period. Littell (2000:19) demonstrates that although the early Anglo – Saxon did have a writing system called the runic alphabet, they used it for inscriptions on coins, movements, and the like. Their literature was composed and transmitted orally. In the mead halls of kings and nobles oral poets called scopes celebrated the deeds of heroic warriors in long epic poems. They also sing shorter lyric poems. Many of the lyrics composed after the advent of Christianity expressing religious faith or offer moral instructions. Others reflect a more playful nature: the brief Anglo – Saxon riddles, for example, describe familiar objects like a ship or a bird, in ways that force the audience to guess their identity. The most famous survivor is the epic Beowulf, about a legendary hero of the northern Europe past. A manuscript known as the Exeter Book contains many of the surviving Anglo – Saxon lyrics, including
42
"The Seafarer", "The Wife's Lament" and over 90 riddles. The Medieval period on the other hand, was characterized by the religious faith as a vital element of the Medieval life and literature. One of the most distinctive products of the age is the long poem known as "Piers Plowman", a dream vision that explores the Christianity's spiritual mysteries. For centuries the oral poets of Britons in Wales had celebrated their legendary hero Arthur just as Anglo – Saxon scopes had celebrated Beowulf. Then, about (1135AD), the monk Geoffrey of Monmouth produced Latin history based on the old Welsh legends. In about (1375AD), an anonymous English poet produced "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", recounting the marvelous adventures of a knight of Arthur's court. A century later, in the "Le Mortd' Arthur", Sir Thomas Malory retold a number of the French Arthurian tales in Middle English.
2.15.2.2 The Renaissance (1485 – 1660 AD)
Although the zenith of English renaissance literature was not reached until the Elizabeth's reign, a number of earlier writers paved the way. Among them were Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, early of Surrey, court poets of Henry VIII's reign who introduce into England the Italian verse form called the sonnet. During the Elizabethan times, the sonnet became the most popular form of love lyric. Sonnets were often published in sequences, such as Edmond Spenser's "Amoretti", addressed to his future wife. William Shakespeare's magnificent sonnets do not form a clear sequence, but several address a mysterious figure known as the Dark Lady, who some scholars think may have been the poet Amelia Lanier. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson were fine lyric poets. Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" is a famous example of "pastoral verse", which praises the simple joys of rural life. Jonson's lyric influenced many of the younger poets of the age, such as Robert Herrick and Richard Lovelace. Jonson's contemporary, John Donne, broke with poetic conventions,
43 employing unusual imagery and elaborate metaphors to produce what comes to be called "metaphysical poetry". His blend of passion and intellect was especially influential among younger religious poets, such as George Herbert. The English renaissance was also a high point in the history of epic poetry. Edmund Spenser dedicated his action packed romantic epic "The Faerie Queen to Elizabeth I". Some decades later, the Puritan poet John Milton penned the lofty epic "Paradise Lost" retelling the story of the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. The Bible, Milton's main source of inspiration, had been made accessible to all English people in (1611), with the publication of the magnificent King James Bible – the culmination of years of effort by many translators, most notably the Protestant reformer William Tyndale. Although his translations rival Shakespeare's plays in its use of memorable poetic language, most sections are in fact prose. Among the era's other influential prose work are the essays of Sir Francis Bacon, who pioneered the essay form in English , and the sermons and meditations of John Donne.
Metaphysical Poetry
During the 17th century, a number of poets rejected the highly ornamented style of late Elizabethan lyric poetry. They wrote what becomes known as metaphysical poetry which was written in the manner of every day speech, that is, of someone deeply introspective and slightly irreverent. Such a personality is evident throughout the works of John Donne, who is considered the movement's central figure. His down – to earth yet philosophical approach also characterizes the works of the other metaphysical poets, including Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan.
When reading the metaphysical poetry, the ideas expressed in it may seem confusing. The metaphysical poets experimented with language in
44 imaginative ways. On device they used, was the metaphysical conceit, an extended metaphor that makes a surprising connection between two quite dissimilar things. An example is Donne's description in "A Validation: Forbidding Mourning" of how two lovers' souls are connected, despite their physical distance:
If they be two, they are two so,
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
The speaker likens the lovers' souls to the legs of a compass used for drawing circles. One lover is the "fixed foot" that remains home, while the other is the foot that journeys away – but always in a circle. The conceit suggests that, though the lovers are not together, their souls are so joined that they will always be in sympathy with each other. The metaphysical poets' use of such fanciful and extended conceits led the writer and critic, Samuel Johnson to complain about their "Violent Yoking together of heterogeneous ideas". Another characteristic of metaphysical poetry is paradox – a statement that seems contradictory but nevertheless suggests a truth. In this poem "A Fever" , Donne ties together the contradictory concepts of love and heat in a startling way:
Oh, do not die, for I shall heat
All women so when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate
When I remember. Thou wast one.
45
The speaker's feelings reveal a paradox: he loves a woman so much that he will not praise her if she dies.
2.15.2.3 The Restoration and Enlightenment (1660 – 1798 AD)
The literary style that prevailed from the restoration nearly to the end of the 18th century is called neoclassicism (new classicism). Neoclassicism writers modeled their works on those of ancient Greece and Rome - especially those of Rome – emulating the supposed restraint, rationality, and dignity of classical writing. Neoclassicists stressed balanced, order, logic, sophisticated wit, and emotional restraint, focusing on society and the human intellect and avoiding personal feelings. The neoclassical era in English literature is often divided into three periods: the Restoration (1660 – 1700), the Augustan (1700 – 1750) and the age of Johnson (1750 – 1784). In the Restoration Age, in poetry, the classical forms of the heroic couplet and the ode became popular. With the opening of the theaters appeared plays written in couplets and others in prose that fell in the category of the comedy of manners. Major works include Milton's Paradise Lost . In the Augustan period flourished the poetry of Alexander Pope, with his exquisite mastery of the couplet in Essay on Man (1734); many of Pope's lines became famous sayings that are familiar in modern times such as this one from Essay on Criticism (1711): "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." The Age of Johnson was dominated by Samuel Johnson and the consummate work of his is "The Dictionary of the English Language (1745-1755)". In poetry, there was a rise of the ballad and sentimental poetry as written by Thomas Gray, William Cowper, Robert Burns, and George Crabbe, which in some ways anticipates the style and sentiment of the romantics to follow.
2.15.2.4 The Flowering of Romanticism (1798 – 1832 AD)
Although the beginning of the Britain's romantic period is traditionally assigned to the year 1798, aspects of romanticism are evident in
46 earlier British literature. Writing in the dialect of Lowland Scotland, Robert Burns, who died in 1796, produced heartfelt lyrics about love, nature, and Scottish past, many of which were meant to be sung to familiar tunes. William Black, who began publishing in the 1780s, expressed his rebellious spirit and his mystical view of the nature of good and evil in such works as "The French Revolution", "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", and contrasting poems of songs of innocence and songs of experience. Nevertheless, the real flowering of romanticism came with the 1798 publication of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's landmark collection Lyric Ballads. The two men, who has first met in 1795, were united by their shared desire to explore new modes of literary expression. Wordsworth and Coleridge belong to the so – called first generation of romantic writers. The leading poets of the second generation, which rose the prominence during the regency, were Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. The poets of the romantic period turned their attention from the common experience of society in order to focus on the individual, believing that emotion was more important than reason as a way of understanding life. Many rejected the formal style of the neoclassicists and instead employed more lyrical poetic forms to express themselves. Romantic poets looked in particular to the natural world as a source of truth and inspiration.
2.15.2.5 The Victorian Age (1832 – 1901 AD)
Though no longer the radical movement it once was, romanticism continued to influence Victorian writings; but a new movement, called realism, increasingly began to take hold. Realism sought to capture everyday life as it is really lived. Instead of turning away from science and industry as romanticism had done, realism focused on the effects of the industrial revolution, often bringing social problems to public attention.
47
Later in the century, new ideas in the natural and social sciences prompted the style known as Psychological Realism, which focused not on external realities but on the inner realities of the mind, and naturalism, an offshoot of realism that viewed nature and society as forces indifferent to human suffering. Poetry throve during the Victorian times. Alfred Lord Tennyson, who became poet laureate in 1850, wrote musical public verse like "The Charge of the Light Brigade", as well as more personal poetry such as that of "In Memoriam (1850)". Elizabeth Barret Browning produced a bestseller with "Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)", a volume of love poems to her husband Robert, who himself pioneered the verse form called the dramatic monologue. Poets of the pre – Raphaelite movement, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister Christiana, repudiated Victorian excess and sought to return to the clarity of medieval Italian works. The more pessimistic mood of late Victorian times is evident in the verse of Thomas Hardy and A. E. Housman. Gerard Manley Hopkins is noted for his modern experiments in poetic rhythm.
2.15.2.6 Emerging Modernism (1901 – 1950 AD)
During the first decade of the 20th century – known as the Edwardian era – the major literary movements of Victorian times continued to flourish. A strong romantic spirit marked the work of Rupert Brooke, John Masefield, and other Edwardian poets. Romanticism was also evident in the early poetry of William Butler Yeats, the writings of Lady Gregory, and other works of Irish literary renaissance – a movement propelled by the growing Irish nationalism and a renewed interest in the Celtic myths and legends of Ireland's past.
By 1910, however, Victorian ideas were yielding to the spirit of modernism, the movement that would dominate Western literature in the first half of the 20th century. Modernists stressed innovation as they attempt
48 to create a new age. Such modernist poets as T. S. Eliot – and later Yeats – abandoned traditional patterns of stanza and meter for the more natural flow of free verse. Influenced by the French symbolists, they discarded the refined sentiment of the 19th century, preferring to convey emotions by means of strong images and unusual symbols.
In the 1930s and 1940s, the growth of fascism and communism and the trauma of World War II prompted many British writers to focus again on social concerns. W.H. Auden and Stephen Spender examined and criticized society in much of their poetry. Aspects of modernism were increasingly accepted as they became more familiar, and more novelty. Free verse remained popular, but such poets as Auden and Dylan Thomas were with more traditional forms.
2.15.2.7 Contemporary Poetry (1950 – Present)
British writers have responded in several ways to the changes of the contemporary era. During 1950s, a group of young poets called the Movement – including Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn, Elizabeth Jennings, and Philip Larkin – achieved recognition by rejecting complex styles and producing clear, rational, understated poetry on subjects drawn from everyday experience. Even more simple in style was the work of Stevie Smith, who helped popularize the oral reading of poetry for modern audiences. Themes or central ideas in contemporary poetry are usually implied rather than stated and can therefore be difficult to understand. Structure in poetry involves the arrangement of words and lines to produce a desired effect and emphasize certain aspects of content.
2.15.3 Genres of Poetry
Many types or genres of poetry can be distinguished; they are also called 'poetic forms':
49
1. Sonnet The sonnet originated in Italy in the 13th century; the word sonnet comes from the Italian "little song". The great Italian poet Petrach (1304 – 1374) perfected the Italian sonnet, which is often called the Petrachan sonnet in his honor.
The sonnet is a fourteen lines poem which has a fixed form or pattern. In other words, it has a complicated rhyme scheme and a defined structure. Because of the technical skill required to write a sonnet, the form has challenged English poets ever since it was introduced into England almost 500 years ago. The sonnet itself has three main types:
a. The Italian sonnet; consists of octave (eight lines of verse) and sestet (six lines of verse). b. The Spenserian sonnet: three quatrains and a couplet. c. The Shakespearean sonnet: it is also called the English or the Elizabethan sonnet. It consists of 14 lines of "iambic pentameter" divided into three quatrains, or four - line units, and a final couplet. The typical rhyme scheme is "abab cdcd efef gg". There is also usually a turn, or a shift in thought, in the poem, occurring most often at the couplet or at the beginning of the third quatrain. With the advent of free verse, the sonnet was seen as somewhat old- fashioned and fell out of use for a time among some schools of poets. However, a number of modern poets, including Don Paterson, Paul Muldoon and Seamus Heaney continued to use the form. The sonnet has become popular among different poets because it has a great adaptability to different purposes and requirements. Rhythms are strictly followed. It could be a perfect poetic style for elaboration or expression of a single feeling or thought with its short length in iambic pentameter. In fact, it gives an ideal laboratory to a poet for exploration of strong emotions. Due to its short length, it is easy to manage for both the writer and the reader.
50
Example:
From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die. But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring, Within thine own bud buriest thy content And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding. Pity the world, or else this glutton be, To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee
(William Shakespeare)
The rhyme scheme of Shakespearian sonnet is abab -cdcd- efef- gg and this is difficult to follow. Hence only Shakespeare is known to have done it.
2. Ballad
Originally, a ballad was a narrative poem that was intended to be sung. Although traditional folk ballads were written by unknown authors and handed down orally, literary ballads are the products of writers' conscious efforts to imitate the folk – ballad style. The literary ballad became popular during the romantic period. For example, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge; it is a famous example of a literary ballad, a poem by a known writer that imitates the style of an anonymous folk ballad.
51
In other words, it is a song, transmitted orally to tell a story. Gray (1997: 14) defines literary ballad as "a narrative poem written by learned poets in deliberate imitation of the form of popular ballad". Events in ballads are the stuff of tabloid journalism, domestic crimes, unhappy marriage and others.
Example:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere;
The ceremony of innocence is drowned,
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
( from The Second Coming. By: W.B. Yeats)
3. Ode
It is a kind of poem made up of stanzas, each stanza includes unfixed number of lines. It discusses one personal theme or idea. Pla (2011:11) defines ode as a poem that celebrates or praises something. For example, "Ode to the West Wind", by Shelley. It is also defined as a lyric poem usually marked by exaltation of feeling and style, varying length of line, and complexity of stanza forms.
Example:
52
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
( from Ode to Autumn. By: Jone Keats)
4. Elegy
A kind of poem written to mourn over the death of someone and mention the good points and traits of the loved one. In other words, it is a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead. Actually elegy is one of the richest poetry forms because it has the capacity to hold emotions that deeply influence people. The strongest of the tools elegy uses is its reliance on memories of those who are no more. Most of the poets who wrote elegies were evidently awed by the frailty of human beings and how the world completely forgets about the deceased at some point.
Example:
53
“With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.”
(In Memory of W. B. Yeats, by W. H. Auden)
5. Epic
It is a very long narrative poem, that discusses important events and adventures in the life of a nation. For example Milton's literary epic "Paradise Lost". Lott (1986: 171) defines an epic as a verse about the deeds of heroes. Littell (2000:28) ensures Lott definition when he defines epic as a long narrative poem that celebrates a hero's deeds. He adds that the epic came into existence as spoken words and were retold by poet after poet from one generation to another one. Littell himself (2000:29) limits the characteristics of an epic. He maintains that epics from different languages and ages do not always have the same characteristics. However, the following characteristics are shared by most epics:
1- The hero, generally a male, is of noble birth or high position, and often of great historical or legendary importance. 2- The hero's character traits reflect important ideals of his society. 3- The actions of the hero often determine the fate of a nation or group of people. 4- The poet uses formal diction and a serious tone.
54
5- The plot is complicated by supernatural beings or events and may involve a long and dangerous journey through foreign lands. 6- The poem reflects timeless values, such as courage and honor. 7- The poem treats universal themes, such as good and evil or life and death.
Concerning the difference between an epic and a ballad is that a ballad and an epic both are poems, which narrate stories. However, a ballad is shorter in length than an epic, while it is composed to be sung on some occasions, and not narrated. They are also known as folk ballads as well as popular ballads. Most of the ballads have unknown origin and source and usually pass on orally from generations to generations. On the other hand, an epic poem tells a story, but about the heroic ideals of a specific society. The actual difference between the two is the length and the fact that one is usually meant to be sung, while the other is to be narrated. Both differ in style where a ballad is composed in a simple language, while an epic demonstrates mastery in style such as "Paradise Lost".
6- Haiku
As Pla's definition in (2011:10), it is a Japanese three lines poetic form – usually about nature – with lines of three , seven, and five syllable, respectively. In Webster dictionary, it is defined as an unrhymed verse form of Japanese origin having three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively. In France, haiku was introduced by Paul-Louis Couchoud around 1906. Couchoud's articles were read by early Imagist theoretician F. S. Flint, who passed on Couchoud's ideas to other members of the proto-Imagist Poets' Club such as Ezra Pound. Amy Lowell made a trip to London to meet Pound and find out about haiku. She returned to the
55
United States where she worked to interest others in this "new" form. Haiku subsequently had a considerable influence on Imagists in the 1910s, notably Pound's "In a Station of the Metro" of 1913, but, notwithstanding several efforts by Yone Noguchi to explain "the hokku spirit," there was as yet little understanding of the form and its history. For example:
I call to my love
On mornings ripe with sunlight
The songbirds answer.
7- Pastoral Littell (2000:293)says that a pastoral is a poem presenting shepherds in rural settings, usually in an idealized manner. In other words, it refers to the countryside, particularly an idealized view of the country. The rustic character tend to use very formal, courtly language; however, renaissance poets were drawn to this form not as a means of accurately portraying rustic life but as a means of conveying their own emotions and ideas in an artistic way. Example:
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur. Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. ( from Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey. By: Wordsworth)
56
8- A Dramatic Monologue Littell, (2000:859) defines the dramatic monologue as a poem in which a speaker describes a crucial experience to a silent or absent listener. The effect on the reader is that of hearing just one side of a conversation. Dramatic monologue allows the poet to take the reader inside the speaker's mind by revealing his/her feeling, personality, and motivations. In "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browing, the poet reveals the speaker's exultation after Porphyria's declaration of love. That moment she was mine, mine, fair, Perfectly pure and good, . . . These lines provide a glimpse of the speaker's obsession and, perhaps, prepare the reader for what is to come. Another example: And indeed there will be time To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare? Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair… In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.’ (The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot) This entire poem is written in the form of a dramatic monologue in which the poet is trying to explore the causes of pain and suffering of insecure young man, who is confused about attending the party whether he should or not. Eliot reveals his thoughts to an audience how Prufrock feels that in case he goes to the party, it might disturb the entire universe.
9- Parody
This term can be described as imitation of others poems in tone, characteristics, form and language to make people laugh. It is also defined in Webster dictionary as a literary or musical work in which the style of an
57 author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule. It can be said that parody originated with the ancients in Greece. In ancient Greece, a parody was a song or poem that imitated the style and flow of another poem. The word "parody", has Greek root words, with "par" meaning “beside” and "ody" referring to an “ode” or “song.” Parody has been popular in literature for thousands of years. Authors use parody for many reasons, including to comment on styles they find ridiculous or overly stale.
O why do you walk through the fields in boots,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,
Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
When the grass is soft as the breast of coots
And shivering-sweet to the touch?
(O Why Do You Walk. By: A. E. Housman)
10- Dirge
A poem written and sung over the death of someone, it tends to be shorter and less meditative. For example, "Ring out Your Bells" by Sir Philip Sidney.
Example:
Sing a dirge with crowns of marigolds.
But not for me for I am much alive, my dear.
Listen to the lovely lively rain,
Pitter-patter on the thriving flower beds,
58
Let them grow in all hues and shapes.
I’ll pick the marigolds’ white petals.
See, I love you not, I love myself.
Next autumn I’ll fill my lovely cottage
With the most beautiful fragrant narcissus.
( Marigolds. By: Victor Buhagiar 2016)
11- Hymn
A poem praising God or the divine, often sung. In English the most popular hymns were written between the 17th and 19th centuries. For example "Our God, Our Help" by Isaac Watts. Is also defined as is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek "hymnos", which means "a song of praise". The singing of hymns is called hymnody. Collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books.
Example:
Where shall my wondering soul begin?
How shall I all to heaven aspire?
A slave redeemed from death and sin,
A brand plucked from eternal fire,
How shall I equal triumphs raise,
Or sing my great deliverer's praise
(by: Charles Wesley)
59
12- Eulogy
(Nastasi, 2011) says that it is a song or poem intended to praise someone for good deeds. In other words, it is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially a set oration in honor of a deceased person. There are many different types of eulogies. Some of them are strictly meant to be a biography of the person’s life. The short biography is a simply retelling of what the individual went through in his life. This can be done to highlight major points in the deceased’s life. Another version is by telling a more personal view on what the individual did. It entails retelling memories that are shared between the storyteller and the deceased. Memories, impressions, and experiences are all things that can be included in a retelling of the personal eulogy.
Example:
We had a wonderful mother,
One who never really grew old;
Her smile was made of sunshine,
And her heart was solid gold,
Her eyes were as bright as shining stars,
And in her cheeks fair roses you see.
We had a wonderful mother.
And that' s the way it will always be.
But take heed, because
She's still keeping an eye on all of us,
60
So let's make sure
She will like what she sees.
13- Satire
The opposite of eulogy, a poem intended to criticize someone. A writer may point a satire toward a person, a country or even the entire world. Usually, a satire is a comical piece of writing which makes fun of an individual or a society to expose its stupidity and shortcomings. In addition, the writer hopes that those he criticizes will improve their characters by overcoming their weaknesses. Satire and irony are interlinked. Irony is the difference between what is said or done and what is actually meant. Therefore, writers frequently employ satire to point at the dishonesty and silliness of individuals and society and criticize them by ridiculing them.
Concerning the difference between parody and satire, there is a great deal in common with parody and satire, as they are both used to comment on and/or ridicule something in a culture that already exists. Satire, however, is broader in that in can deal with a wider range of problems in society and has at its disposal many different literary devices with which to ridicule those problems, such as double entendre and sarcasm. Parody treats with one author, style, or genre in which it subtly uses and then distorts or subverts the conventions of the original. An audience must understand the original off which a parody is written to fully “get the joke.” Still, many satires make use of parody to produce their witty or biting effect. The role of satire is to ridicule or criticize those vices in the society, which the writer considers a threat to civilization. The writer considers it his obligation to expose these vices for the betterment of humanity. Therefore, the function of satire is not to make others laugh at persons or ideas they make fun of. It intends to warn the public and to change their opinions about the prevailing corruption/conditions in society.
61
Example:
In elder days, in Saturn's prime, Ere baldness seized the head of Time, While truant Jove, in infant pride, Play'd barefoot on Olympus' side, Each thing on earth had power to chatter, And spoke the mother tongue of nature.
Each stock or stone could prate and gabble, Worse than ten labourers of Babel.
Along the street, perhaps you'd see A Post disputing with a Tree, And mid their arguments of weight, A Goose sit umpire of debate.
Each Dog you met, though speechless now, Would make his compliments and bow, And every Swine with congees come, To know how did all friends at home. (from The Owl and the Sparrow. By: John Trumbull)
62
14- National Anthem
This refers to poem or song sung by a nation to express loyalty in ceremonial occasions. National anthems are usually written in the most common language of the state. There are multiple claimants to the position of oldest national anthem. Among the national anthems, the first to be composed was the Dutch national anthem the "Wilhelmus", which was written between 1568 and 1572. The Japanese anthem, "Kimigayo", employs the oldest lyrics of any national anthem, taking its words from the "Kokin Wakashū", which was first published in 905, yet these words were not set to music until 1880. The first anthem to be officially adopted as such was the Spanish anthem "Marcha Real", in 1770 .
Example:
"Nahnu Jund Allah Jund Al-watan"
("We Are the Army of God and of Our Land")
15- Epitaph
In literature, an epitaph is used to describe any verse commemorating someone who has died. Although a few humorous epitaphs have been composed, most are serious in tone. Littell (2000:461) provides this example, "On My First Son" by Ben Johnson. In Johnson's poem, phrases such as "O could I lose all father now!" and "Rest in soft peace" reflect the poet's deep grief over the death of his son. Such lines effectively convey the poet's sadness to the reader. Another example:
Here sleeps at peace a Hampshire Grenadier Who caught his early death by drinking cold small beer. Soldiers, be wise at his untimely fall, And when you're hot, drink strong or none at all.
63
( Thomas Thatcher tombstone epitaph in Winchester Cathedral)
Another classification for poetry is provided by Al-Faki (2006: 103) c.f (Farrelt 2000)) classifying poetry into:
A. Dramatic poetry: is kind of poem where a single character addressing a silent listener, explains his actions at an important moment in his life. For example "The Cock Tail Party" and "The Family Reunion" by T. S. Eliot.
B. Narrative Poetry: The kind of poetry tells a story. It includes epic and ballad. For example the "Iliad" and "The Odyssey" by Homer.
C. Lyric Poetry is any fairly short non narrative poem representing a single speaker who expresses a state of mind or a process of thought and feeling. It includes the elegy, hymn and ode. It is worth mentioning that lyrics are characterized by their simplicity of language, intensity of imagination, and sincerity of feeling.
2.15.4 Elements of poetry Robert Frost defined poetry as when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. From this definition it is easy to know the elements of poetry. Gurrey (1948: 22) points out that elements of poetry are grouped under the terms 'form' and 'content' as 'thought, associations, imagery, emotion, sound, rhythm and verse form.
1. Thought
For Gurrey, thought is a very essential part for the appreciation of poetry. The poet's actual words give distinction and vitality to the thought,
64 therefore, they are of greatest importance. Littell (2000:1229) adds that themes and central ideas in contemporary poetry are usually implied rather than stated and can be difficult to understand. Poetic thought is characterized by deep sensitivity to one’s environment and a sound philosophy possessed by an individual, which in turn stir a person’s heart and question things. A poet’s mind cannot be contented by the mundane or carried on by the status quo; it is thirsty to seek out the human condition and to look deep into people’s characters. The theme of the poem is the meaning of the poem – the main idea that the poet is trying to communicate. The theme may be stated directly or it may be implied.
2. Associations
These refer to the implied meanings of words in poetry. They are important because these meanings and associations give precision and reality to the general idea. The poet chooses each word carefully so that both its meaning and sound contribute to the tone and feeling of the poem. The poet must consider a word's denotation - its definition according to the dictionary and it’s connotation - the emotions, thoughts and ideas associated with and evoked by the word.
3. Imagery
Bradby (1939: 68) identifies imagery as a term used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to in a poem or other work of literature, whether by literal description, by allusion, or in the analogies used in its similes and metaphors. While Littell (2000:738) states that among the many tools of poets, few are more important than imagery, the use of words and phrases that create vivid sensory experiences for the reader. Imagery Littell as ensures can appeal to all five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. For example, the image in these lines from "Tin tern Abbey" by Wordsworth – appeals to both sight and hearing:
65
These waters, rolling from their mountain – spring
With a soft inland murmur once again.
Johnson (2006:44) recognizes imagery as the use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. A poem has effective imagery when its words allow the readers to imagine that they can see, smell, touch, or taste the things the poem describes. In other words, imagery evokes the meaning and truth of human experiences not in abstract terms, as in philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms. This is a device by which the poet makes his meaning strong, clear and sure. The poet uses sound words and words of color and touch in addition to figures of speech. As well, concrete details that appeal to the reader’s senses are used to build up images.
4. Emotion
Emotion is the feelings expressed. It is one of the most important principles of aesthetics; the appreciation of a work of art requires feelings and emotion.
5. Sound
Word-melody has its own value in most poetry. It should not attract readers and listeners attention so closely to itself and separate them from the accurate thought and lively image.
6. Rhythm
Al-Faki (2006: 98) c.f (Warren and Brooks (1950)) states that rhythm means the pattern of stressed and unstressed sounds in a line of poetry. It is very essential in poetry because it gives poetry its musical quality. It is the basic beat in the line of poem.
7. Verse form
66
The verse form according to Al-Faki (2006: 98) c.f (Warren and Books (1950)) is divided into either stanza or free verse. A stanza is a group of lines of verse within a poem. It has different names according to the number of lines. For example, two lines are a couplet three lines are a trecet, four lines are a quatrain….etc. Concerning free verse, it is written in broken- up lines like poetry, not continuously like prose. It is usually very rhythmical.
8. Rhyme and Meter
As elements of poetry, Lott (1986) defines them as meter is a fixed arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse, while rhyme is the sameness of sounds at the end of verse lines. Johnson (2006:44) adds that rhyme is the repetition of the same sound in two different words, in other words, rhyme is the linking of sounds at the end of words. Poems do not have to rhyme, but they often do. In different electronic references the most common types of meter were mentioned; these types are iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic, spondaic. The rhyme actually have two types: internal rhyme; in which the rhyming words are placed within the poetic line, and external rhyme at the end of the line.
9. Tone
Littell (2000:111) points to the tone as an important element of poetry. He contributes saying that the tone of a literary work expresses the writer's attitude towards the work subject or characters. A tone can be formal or informal, amused or impatient. The mood or tone of a poem is the feeling that the poet creates and that the reader senses through the poet’s choice of words, rhythm, rhyme, style and structure. Poems may express many moods – humorous, sarcastic, joyous, angry or solemn.
67
10. Structure
Littell (2000:122) illustrates that the structure in poetry involves the arrangement of words and lines to produce a desired effect and emphasize certain aspects of content. Pla (2011:20)divides the structure of the poem into five parts:
1- Poetic line: is the words that form a single line of poetry. For instance, "shall I compare thee to a summer day". 2- Stanza: is a section of a poem named for the number of lines it contains. For example: a couplet is a stanza of two lines. 3- Enjambment: when there is no written or natural pause at the end of a poetic line, so that the word – flow carries over the next line. 4- Placement: is the way words and poetic lines are placed in the page of the poem. 5- Capitalization and punctuation: in poetry, these rules are not always followed, instead, they are at the service of the poet's artistic vision.
11. Refrain
Pla (2011:6) defines it as a line or stanza repeated over and over in a poem or a song. As in " Jingle Bells", the following refrain is repeated after every stanza:
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way !
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one – horse open sleigh !
2.15.5 Form of English Poetry
68
Poetic form refers to the shape and appearance of the poem in lines and stanzas. The basic unit of poetic form is the line; a group of words extending toward the right margin. Poets often group lines into stanzas, which may repeat regularly. Stanzas in a poem are something like a paragraph in prose. With the tools of line and stanza, poets build poems of many different shapes. Often, a chosen form helps in conveying a meaning or a feeling a poet wants to express.
2.16 Theories and schools of poetry
The schools of poetry are defined by grouping poets who share similar styles of writings poetry. They can be described in a very approximate, chronological sequence, however it is not exact; some poets belong to two or more schools of poetry. A number of common schools and movements will be discussed in the following sections.
1. Prehistoric or oral tradition
This is too broad to be a strict school, but it is a useful grouping of works whose origins either predate writing, or belong to cultures without writing.
2. Castilian Band School
The name is given to the group of at court of James VI – in the 16th century – when James wanted to attract musicians and poets who were encouraged to make translations, experiment with metrical forms, and collaborate with each other for new compositions. There was a lot of unrest within this group and it promptly came to an end. The major poets of this school are Alexander Montgomery, William Fowler and John Stewart.
3. The Metaphysical Poets
69
Metaphysical essentially means beyond the physical. It is difficult to define because it is largely based on context. Metaphysical poets write in a style that is largely rigorous, uneven, and energetic one. Their ideas are drawn from the existentialism who speak about how human exist in the world. This school appeared in the 17th century, the works of this school are marked by philosophical exploration, colloquial diction, irony and metrical flexible lines. John Donne is considered the grandfather of this school, along with George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Abraham Cowley, Richard Crashaw, and Henry Vaughan.
4. The Cavalier Poets
In a broad description of the school is the poets who came from the classes that supported king Charles I during the civil war. Much of this poetry is light in style. They are "cavalier" in the sense, not only of being royalists. They accept the idea of the renaissance gentle man who is at once lover, soldier, wit, man of affairs, musician, and poet. They avoid the subject of religion, their poetry lacks depth and they prefer straightforward expressions. The most known poet of this school is Ben Jonson.
5. Romanticism
This school started in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries in western Europe. Lyrical ballads were some of the most important forms to emerge from this movement. It stressed strong emotion, imagination, a reflection of art and the rejection of established social conventions. It gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt to the aristocratic social and political norms of the "Age of Enlightenment" and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. The major poets of this school are William Wordsworth, William Blake, George Gordon, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. These poets produced works that expressed spontaneous
70 feelings, found parallels to their own emotional lives in the natural world, and celebrated creativity rather than logic.
6. Pastoralism
It referred to the lifestyle of pastoralist, such as shepherding livestock and maintaining subsidence. This art depicts shepherd life, usually in an idealized manner and for urban audiences. The pastoral literature began with the poetry of the Hellenistic Greek Theocritus.
7. Modernism
Modernism is broadly defined as multinational cultural movement that took hold in the late 19th century and reached its most radical peak on the eve of World War I. It evolved from the romantic rejection of enlightenment positivism and faith in reason. Modernist writers broke with romantic pieties and clichés and became self – consciously skeptical of language and its claim on coherence. In the early 20th century Ezra Pound vowed to "make it new" and "break the pentameter", while T. S. Eliot wrote "The Waste Land" in the shadow of World War I. Shortly after "The Waste Land" was published in 1922, it became the archetypical modernist text, rife with allusion, linguistic fragment, and mixed registers and languages. In other words, it was developed out of a traditional of lyrical expression, emphasizing the personal imagination, culture, emotions, and memories of a poet. For the modernist, it was essential to move away from the merely personal towards an intellectual statement that poetry could make about the world. The major poets of this school are T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, W.B. Yeats, and E.E. Cummings.
8. Imagism
This school was emerged in the early 20th century and favored precision of imagery and colloquial, clear, sharp language rather than traditional poetic
71 diction and meter. There was focus on the 'thing' as a 'thing', that is to say, there was an attempt to isolate a single image to reveal its essence. Thus, it uses concrete images to reveal the truth about an abstract concept. The most known poets of this school were Ezra Pound, T. E. Hulme, William Carlos, and Amy Lowell.
9. Symbolist Movement
A group of late 19th century writers, who favored dreams, vision, and the associative powers of the imagination in their poetry. They rejected their predecessors' tendency toward naturalism and realism, believing that the purpose of art was not to represent reality but to access greater truths by the "systematic derangement of the senses". The most known poets at this school were Arthur Rimbaud and Edgar Allan Poe.
10. New Formalism
A late 20th - and early 21st – century movement that promoted a return to rhyme and meter in poetry. New formalist poets responded to the popularity of the dominant free – verse poetry of the 1960s and 1970s by exploring the possibilities of prosody and form in the work. Though not an orchestrated, coherent movement, new formalist had been attacked for its perceived retrogressive favoring of traditional metrical artifice over more recent, experimental modes of free verse. The poets of this movement were Dana Gioia, X. J. Kennedy, Brad Leithauser, and Marilyn Hacker.
11. Language Poetry
Language poetry a movement that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a response to the mainstream American poetry. Rather than emphasizing traditional poetic techniques, Language Poetry tends to draw the reader's attention to the uses of language in a poem that contribute to
72 the creation of meaning. The poets of this school were Michael Palmer, Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, Susan Howe, Rae Armantrout, and many others.
During the 20th century many movements appeared such as: Beat generation, Confessionalist, Black mountain poets, The Movement, British poetry revival, Absurdism, Aestheticism, Black art movement, Deep image, Lake poets, Poetic trans realism, Rhymers' club, Rochester poets, Spasmodic poets, Uranian poetry, and more others.
2.17. Inspiration of the Poem
Every line of good poetry contains its music and its treasures. As readers and interpreters of poetry work, it is important to use the proper reading and speaking tools to uncover the diamonds hiding within the words. A good poem arises from the confluence of four places, like four rivers joining together:
1. Soul
When a poem arises, it feels like the bosom of the poet lifts up and births the spoken or written moment. The point of origin lies at the furthest depths of the poet, often calling into play ancestral memories, divine or universal inspiration, and insights or truths that magically resonate with the reader.
2. Mind
The intellect plays a vital part in the creation of a poem, bringing perspective, structure, and word choice to the experience conveyed on each line. Worldviews, social and cultural attitudes, depth of thought, comparison and contrast, and conclusions all of them inform the poet as s\he writes.
3. Heart
73
Nothing moves a poem like expressed emotion. The vast majority of poems spring from seven emotions: anger, joy, sadness, fear, courage, lust, and excitement. Word choice, pace, punctuation, and meter convey the poet's state of emotion. If they are transferred purely to the poem, they will likely provoke the same feeling in the reader.
4. Experiences and Observation
A poem is a single experience or observation, distilled to a fine spirit by the poet's life experience and refined by the poet's intellect and choice of words. Every poem conveys an experience or observation of some kind. If the readers are familiar with this experience or have researched it, they are better able to interpret the poem. The example below can clarify the point by looking at this famous first line from "After the Sea – Ship" by Walt Whitman.
After the sea – ship, after the whistling winds
The following inferences can be drawn from this line of poetry:
1. The poem will be about what happens to the sea – an actual sea, mind, or heart – after the ship passes literally and figuratively.
2. The poem conveys tremendous emotion if taken figuratively when a ship passes through the life during a storm and then moves on – a relationship, a friend, a peak event – emotional state tends to swoon.
3. The line ends without punctuation – movement.
4. The voice is clear and precise. This is an experience that will be directly conveyed.
5. The poem opens on the back end of a storm, communicating great intensity and energy.
74
The second line further establishes where the poem is going:
After the grey – white sails taut to their spares and ropes
By feeling the experience, as well as tracking it with the minds, it can form this line: a. The mariners were faced with a robust open – ocean storm. b. The crew used tremendous energy and skill to avoid capsizing. c. While "grey – white" is the color of sails, it also reflects the color of the sky. d. There is no punctuation; the ocean is roiling.
When reading the first line it is helpful to peruse the entire poem.
2.18 Tools for reading poetry
A few simple tools can help to transform any poetry reading experiences from incomprehensive to an enjoyable study on the way words, lives, emotions, souls, and experiences moves through eyes , minds, and hearts of who wrote these works. To understand and appreciate poetry, the readers of poetry should:
1. Read more about the source of the poet's inspiration.
2. Try reading each line aloud.
3. Study the movement.
4. Consider a poet's word choice.
5. Study the structure.
6. Explore additional layers.
7. Read from inside and outside the poet's cultural context.
75
2.19 Steps of Analyzing Poems
Littell (2000:772) shows different strategies to increase the readers understanding before analyzing any poem. He advises the readers at first to use the text annotations and the dictionary to help in defining the difficult words or phrases. Then they read the poem several times aloud and silently and try to paraphrase the lines until the sense becomes clear. Littell himself offers these steps for analyzing poems: firstly, reading the poem at least three times to clarify the meaning, also reading it aloud to hear its music.
Then, analyzing the poem's form, studying the way the poet arranges lines and stanzas and uses patterns of rhyme, rhythm, and other sound devices so as to know whether the poem is fixed or regular. After that as the readers read the poem, they use details and imagination to help seeing what is happening, in other words, visualization of the setting and the situation. The readers then are able to determine the theme of the poem; that is to say, what the important ideas does the poem convey about life or human nature.
Finally, Littell advises the readers to monitor the reading strategies and modify them when the understanding breaks down. In addition, the title of some literary works are straightforward, stating exactly what the reader can expect to discover in the work.
Generally speaking, the steps for poems analysis are summed up as the following:
1. Reading aloud in order to feel, enjoy and understand the poem.
76
2. Paraphrasing: that means explaining the meanings in the poem so as
to make it clear.
3. Extracting the main theme or thought of the poem and then relating
it to the actual experience of the world.
4. Discussing the style of the poem, that is to say, tracing the language
usage. That includes the structure of the poem, the grammar used, the
choice of words, figures of speech, tone, and the techniques used by
the poet.
5. The final step is general evaluation of the poem. This step depends
largely on the appreciation of the poem.
2.20 Figurative Language and Diction of Poetry
According to http://specialed.com/literary/figurative. html , a figure of speech is a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning to a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the word. Hayllar et. al (1988: 6) believe that the poet works with words, skillfully putting them together so as to draw a picture in the mind, the words that express this picture are called figures of speech. Blasko and Connine (1993) claim that figurative language allows people to communicate meanings that differ in various ways from what they literally say. People speak figuratively for reasons of politeness, for express ideas that are difficult to communicate using literal language, and to express thoughts in a compact and vivid manner.
Grice, (1990) draws the attention to one traditional assumption, still held in some areas of cognitive science, is that figurative language is deviant and requires social cognitive process to be understood. Whereas literal
77 language can be understood via normal cognitive mechanisms, listeners must recognize the deviant nature of a figurative utterance before determining its nonliteral meaning. For instance, understanding a metaphorical comment such as " Criticism is a branding iron", requires that listeners must first analyze what is stated literally, then recognize that the literal meaning - criticism is literally a tool to mark livestock - is contextually inappropriate, and then infer some meaning consistent with the context and the idea that the speaker must be acting cooperatively and rationally – criticism can psychologically hurt the person who receives it. This traditional view suggests that figurative language should always be more difficult to process than roughly equivalent literal speech.
Murrey and Winterowd, (1985: 194) state that figurative language goes beyond the literal meaning of words to create a new image, or a fresh impression in the minds.
Figures of speech-such as simile, metaphor, and personification- provide emphasis, freshness of expression or clarity. However, clarity may suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. Figurative language can be also called language of rhetoric or locution.
According to Robert (2009:451) the primary function of figurative language is to help the readers to imagine what a writer wants to express. Though, figurative language is not meant to convey literal meaning, and often it compares one concept with another in order to make the first concept easier to understand, however, links two ideas with the aim of influencing audience to understand the link even if it does not exist. Poets use this technique to bring out emotions and help their readers form images in minds. Thus, it is a useful way of conveying an idea that readers cannot
78 understand otherwise, due to its complex and abstract nature. In addition, it helps in analyzing a literary work.
Redpath, (1987: 345) distinguishes two kinds of figures; figures of thought, and figures of speech. Figures of thought or 'tropes' means the words are used in a way that affect the meaning, while in rhetorical figures the effect is not primarily in the meaning but in the order of the words. In other words, figures of thought still hold even if the words used are changed, whereas figures of speech vanish if one changes the words. Redpath , (1987: 358) classifies figures of speech into four classes:
1. Figures of diction: They consist of changes of letters or syllables
within words.
2. Figures of construction; in which normal grammar is departed from
construction.
3. Other figures: such as repetition in various forms.
4. Tropes: where words take on meanings which are different from their
ordinary senses. That is to say, connotation.
Here are list of figures of speech:
1. Simile
It is the act of direct comparison between different things, in dissimilar things an element of similarity is affected by means of a connective such as : "like, as, than, seems, or appears" for example:
79
1. How sharper than a serpent's tooth is To have a thankless child
Shakespeare (1569-1616)
2. O' my love is like the melody That's sweetly play in tune.
As fair thou art, my bonie lass
So deep in love am I;
Robert Bum (1759-1796)
Johnson (2006) explains the point:
3. Now like a lion at one bond Achilles left the room
The poet used a simile to compare the Greek warriors to a lion in the speed and strength.
2. Metaphor
Redpath (1987) ensures that metaphor is the act of comparing two things but without using connectives. For example;
Eye, gazelle, delicate wanderer,
Drinker of horizon's fluid line.
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
Stephen Spender (1962)
In these lines, the poet wants the reader to understand that "the weakening eye of day" is the sun made clearly dull by the effect of the cold weather. While Johnson, (2006) states that the metaphors
80 are comparisons of two unlike things without using like or as. The two things being compared are usually linked by a form of the verb to be. Examples: "I am a rock" and "You are my sunshine". Further, there are three kinds of metaphor: implicit metaphor, mixed metaphor and dead metaphor.
a. Implicit metaphor; the tenor is not stated, but is implied by the verbal context. For example: "That reed was too frail to survive the storm of its sorrows"
b. A mixed metaphor means to involve metaphor within metaphor. For example: O, How shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days?
c. A dead metaphor: is very common in usage, for example when saying: "The heart of the matter". 3.Anologies Poets often express an image or idea through a comparison not meant to be taken literally. One type of comparison is an analogy – a comparison that illustrates a point by showing similarities between situations or things that are mostly not alike. In the following example from "Me" by Walter de la Mare, the speaker is compared to a tree: "I shall always be My self – and no other , Just me Like a tree.
4. Synecdoche
81
A figure of speech which mentions a part of something to suggest the whole. Synecdoche is a literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part. It may also use larger groups to refer to smaller groups or vice versa. It may also call a thing by the name of the material it is made of or it may refer to a thing in a container or packing by the name of that container or packing. As in, "All hands on deck," meaning all sailors to report for duty. Hands = sailors. Concerning the difference between synecdoche and metonymy is that both may resemble each other to some extent but they are not the same. Synecdoche refers to the whole of a thing by the name of any one of its parts. For example, calling a car “wheels” is a synecdoche because a part of a car “wheels” stands for the whole car. However, in metonymy, the word we use to describe another thing is closely linked to that particular thing, but is not necessarily a part of it. For example, “crown” that refers to power or authority is a metonymy used to replace the word “king” or “queen”. Coleridge employs synecdoche in his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
“The western wave was all a-flame. The day was well was nigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun”
The “western wave” is a synecdoche as it refers to the sea by the name of one of its parts which is "wave".
5. Hyperbole
Hyperbole, derived from a Greek word meaning “over-casting” is a figure of speech, which involves an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis. This means exaggeration or making something seem either excessively large, or great or excessively small. For example; Thou art so true, that thoughts of the suffice.
82
To make dreams truths, and fables histories;
Another example from W.H Auden’s poem “As I Walked One Evening”,
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street, I’ll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry
The use of hyperbole can be noticed in the above lines. The meeting of China and Africa, the jumping of the river over the mountain, singing of salmon in the street, and the ocean being folded and hung up to be dried are exaggerations not possible in real life.
6. Personification
A figure of speech in which a thing or animal or even nature is made like human beings. For example:
'The wind stood up and gave a shout…"
In other words, Jonson, (2006) views personification as the assignment of human qualities, actions, or form to inanimate objects or abstract ideas. As in "The wind coughed".
The house groaned in the night. Loved knocked on my door .
Here is another example from A.H. Houseman in his poem “Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now” personifies the cherry tree,
“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough,
83
And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.”
He sees a cherry tree covered with beautiful white flowers in the forest and says that the cherry tree wears white clothes to celebrate Easter. He gives human attributes to a tree in order to describe it in human terms.
7. Kenning
Littell, (2000:96) defines kenning as a figure of speech that is firstly used by the Anglo – Saxon poets, it is descriptive terms and phrases substituted for simple nouns. In translation of old English poetry, a kenning may appear as a compound words like "wave – tumult" used for the sea in "The wife's Lament". A kenning may also appear as a group of two or more words, like "swan road", another common kenning for the sea. Johnson, (2006:45) says kennings are compound, figurative phrases used in place of a name or a noun, especially in old English and old Norse poetry. For example, the sea was often called the "Whale road", and a sword might be called a "Battle friend". Here is another example:
There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers On sunny days a moment overcast…..
(The Oven Bird by Robert Frost)
84
In the given example, Frost has also employed kenning. For instance, “mid-wood” refers to a bird. And the second obvious kenning is “petal-fall” which represents autumn or the fall season.
8. Metonymy
Schreiber (1999:10) says that metonymy is the use of one thing foe that of another to which is closely related. For example, in the saying: "The pen is mightier than the sword", the pen stands for the writer who creates with it, the sword stands for the warrior who wields it. The statement means that "The written word in the cause of peace can be often more persuasive than the threat of brute force". In other words, it is the substitution of the name of something to another thing closely associated to it. In other words, in this figure a thing is called, not by its true name, but by something associated to it. Generally, metonymy is used in developing literary symbolism that means it gives more profound meanings to otherwise common ideas and objects. By using metonymy, texts exhibit deeper or hidden meanings and thus drawing readers’ attention. In addition, the use of metonymy helps achieve conciseness. For example:
"On the death of his brother he succeeded to the throne". Here the expression "succeeded to the throne" means being a king. Another example:
"Their ocean-keel boarding, they drove through the deep, and Dane land left. A sea-cloth was set, a sail with ropes, firm to the mast; the flood-timbers moaned; nor did wind over billows that wave-swimmer blow across from her course".
(Beowulf by Tr. John Crowther)
85
In the Old English epic poem Beowulf there are many examples of metonymy. In this particular excerpt, the author uses the terms “ocean-keel” and “wave-swimmer” to refer to the entire ship. The author goes on to describe other parts of the ship very poetically, calling the sail the “sea- cloth” at first and referring to the boards of the ship “as flood-timbers.” This was a very popular technique in Old English works, and the use of metonymy here draws the reader’s attention to the different ways to understand the form and function of the ship and its parts. Thus metonymy creates new connections in this example.
9. Repetition
As a figure of speech, repetition takes many forms, such as:
a. Alliteration: the use of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words that are close together, usually consonant, for example: 'A bracelet of bright hair about the bone…'
b. Anadiplosis: repetition at the start of a line of a poem of the last word of the preceding line, for example: 'Having put love at last to show this face;
This face, by which he could command…'
c. Anaphora: repeating a word at the beginning of two or more lines, for example: 'Let sea-discovers to new world…
Let maps to others, world on world..
Let us possess our world…."
d. Antanaclasis; repeating a word changing its sense, for example: "My ranges of heart can like, wish and a dove
86
But after one such love, can love no more,"
e. Epanalepsis: repeating at the end of a line the word that started it: 'He thinks that else none can, nor will
That any loves but he…'
f. Epizeuxis: immediate repetition of word.: '…all, all, some proprieties invest,..'
g. Polyptoton: repeating the word in the same phrase after a short interval in a different case: 'If they be two, they are two so,
As stiff twin compasses are two..'
h. Assonance: is the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, especially in stressed syllables, with different consonant sounds between them. i. Parallelism: is the repetition of a grammatical structure in order to emphasize an idea or concept. j. Consonance: is the repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words like that of /st/ and /z/ sounds in this line: "Thou watches the last oozing hours by hours".
10. Chiasmus
Is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism. Chiasmus was particularly popular in the literature of the ancient world, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, where it was used to articulate the balance of order within the text. In other words, it is the order of words in the first of two parallel
87 clauses inverted in the second . Chiasmus is a rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures in order to produce an artistic effect.
'The fairest woman, but thy ghost,
But corrupt worms, the worthiest men."
11. Apostrophe
In literature, apostrophe is a figure of speech sometimes represented by exclamation “O”. A writer or a speaker, using an apostrophe, detaches him/herself from the reality and addresses an imaginary character in his/her speech. It is a figure of speech in which an object, an abstract quality, or an absent or imaginary person is addressed directly, as if present and able to understand. For example, the poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" by Lord Byron, the apostrophe is to the ocean. Another example:
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.”
(Jane Taylor :The Star)
12. Periphrasis
Periphrasis originates from a Greek word 'periphrazein' which means “talking around”. It is a stylistic device that can be defined as the use of excessive and longer words to convey a meaning which could have been conveyed with a shorter expression or in a few words. It is an indirect or
88 roundabout way of writing about things. For example, using “I am going to” instead of “I will” is periphrasis. It means substitution of an explanatory phrase for a word.
For example:
"Our voices carry, and though slumber-bound,
Some few half wake and half never their choice,
Give tongue, proclaim their hidden name, 'Hound voice'
Another example:
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
(Kubla Khan by S.T Coleridge)
13. Paronomasia
Paronomasia is a rhetorical device which can be defined as a phrase intentionally used to exploit the confusion between words having similar sounds but different meanings. It is like a word play and is also known as a pun. It gives thoughtful meanings to literary texts aside from providing humorous and witty comments. Through paronomasia, the writers demonstrate the shrewdness of characters and their own ingenuity by
89 playing with the words. Besides, in literary works, paronomasia functions as a purposeful effort of the writers to provide a source of comic relief to show their artistic ability.
' So, in forgetting, thou rememb'rest right,
And , unawares, , to me shalt write'.
14. Oxymoron
Is a phrase or a term that consists of juxtaposed words that appear to contradict one another. It is sometimes used to produce a comic effect, but is also often meant to emphasis the contradictory or confusing nature of an emotion or situation. For example: "His mother was awfully nice". Another example:
“Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh?”
(Shakespeare)
It is noticed a series of oxymoron being employed when Romeo confronts the love of an inaccessible woman. An intense emotional effect is produced to highlight his mental conflict by the use of contradictory pairs of words such as “hating love”, “heavy lightness”, “bright smoke”, “cold fire”, and “sick health”.
15. Onomatopoeia
90
Sometimes called echoism, it is the words that seem to resemble their sounds. In other words; the similarity is due as much to the meaning, and to the feel of uttering the words as to their sounds. For instance: hiss, buzz, bang, dig, knock, splash and cuckoo. Littell (2000:741) defines onomatopoeia as the use of words whose sounds suggest their meanings - such as buzz and murmur – or of language that echoes the sound of what is being described. Onomatopoeia can, however, involve more than the use of such words. Skilled writers, especially poets, choose words which sounds suggest both their denotations and connotations. For example, in this line from "Kubla Khan" by Coleridge, the rhythm and the repeated /m/ and /n/ sounds suggest the sound of lazily winding river that is being described:
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through the wood and dale the scared river ran,
Jonson (2006:45) clarifies the term more when saying it is the use of sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. For example, the word 'buzz' sounds like the sound which a bee makes. The word 'hiss' sounds like a snake, and the word 'chirp' makes the sound a bird. Using such words in a poem about these subjects creates a link between sound and meaning and allows the reader or listener to experience the poem more richly.
16. An Inference
It is a logical guess based on evidence. In other words, an inference is an idea or conclusion that's drawn from evidence and reasoning. It is an educated guess. It is needed to figure out what is unstated yet implied in a literary work, the poets provides some clues which can be used to infer – simply from the way a character acts – that the character is jealous of another character. Inference is a literary device used commonly in literature
91 and in daily life where logical deductions are made based on premises assumed to be true. Another definition of inference suggests that it is rational but non-logical, which means that through the observation of facts presented in a particular pattern, one ultimately sees different or new interpretations and perspectives.
17. Satire
Littell (2000:953) defines satire as a literary technique in which ideas, customs, behaviors, or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving the society. The tone of satire may be gently witty, mildly abrasive, or bitterly ironic.
Other figures of speech include polce, tapinosis, parambole, oxymoron, exclamation, epistrophe, epimorphosis, aposiopesis, antimetabole, paradox, rhetorical question, antithesis, epiphrasis…etc..
2.21 Techniques for Facilitating Understanding and Appreciating English poetry to EFL University Students
Actually, facilitating understanding and appreciating English poetry to EFL learners at university means teaching poetry in general. Poetry depends largely on cultural considerations, connotations and figurative language. Here are appropriate techniques that can be adopted while teaching English poetry.
Hayllar et. al (1988: 1) see that the difficult task facing any teacher is that of developing the sense of appreciation and enjoyment in students since poetry exists to be enjoyed and appreciated. They state that students must learn how to examine poems critically and thoughtfully. This thing requires work of some sort. The work can be at both talking and writing levels. At the talking level, teacher and students discuss the aspect of a poem and try to refine its impact on them through thoughtful analysis. In the writing level,
92 the students try to evaluate and communicate in written form the effect of the poem. To achieve that a sensitive teaching approach is needed in addition to the teacher's enthusiasm for poetry.
Hayllar et.al's book (1988) offers raw material which can be shaped into a poetry course aiming at developing appreciation of poetry.
Rogers (1996:90) advises the educationalist that the students may learn to appreciate good writing if they are introduced to it gradually and as a part of a structured program.
Mansour (1999:28) suggests this technique discussing the importance of engaging students in activities based on literary theory so that students can communicate their appreciation in a professional environment. He argues that engaging students in activities is of great importance in motivating them. However, without giving students a theory they will not be able to produce a valuable discourse on that text. In teaching poetry, Mansour advises the teachers to be subjective during the process of interpretation and to be objective when introducing the theories. After the literary theories, he uses the abstract painting activity. In this step, teachers should ask a volunteer to sketch an abstract painting on the board, then ask each student to write lines explaining the sketch, then they read aloud their lines. After that the teacher gives the chance to the student who sketched the figure to talk about it. When using this technique, students should think of the poem as a text that is open to all sorts of impressions and interpretations.
From the researcher's point of view, the success of this technique depends largely on three factors. Firstly, the teacher's personality, that is to say, his ability in administrating and directing his students (classroom management). Secondly, teacher's enthusiasm towards poetry. Finally, avoiding the ready-made interpretation of any literary text although they are preferable by students and offered by teachers.
93
Johnson (2006: 44) presents different activities that may help in introducing students to poetry in general through using the steps of reading and interpreting poetry in English. She also offers many activities to encourage students to write their own poems. As a first step, Johnson advises teachers to introduce their students to poetry by having a general discussion about poetry. For examples:
"Do you like poetry? Why or why not?"
"Who are your favorite poets?"
"Do you prefer reading poetry or listening to it?"
As a second step, the teacher asks his/her students if they know any poetic devices, that is to say, presenting the poetic devices and then check the understanding by giving examples from their own. Thirdly, rhyme and rhythm; the teacher must remind the students that words that rhyme are not always spelled in similar ways. Then, Johnson draws the attention to the term "Kenning" which stands for compound figurative phrases used in place of a name or a noun, for example, "sword" might be called "a battle friend". Through presenting this term it is better to encourage students to write their own examples. The following step is interpreting poems which depends largely on the discussion questions. These discussions should include images, metaphors, and other figurative language, and should look for meanings that are not stated explicitly (connotations). In other words, reading between the lines.
Commitante et.al (2010:124) provide these ideas for motivating students to understand and appreciate English poetry:
1- Use photographs or paintings to get students understanding.
94
2- Use objects, personal timelines, memories, and places to familiarize the students with the general atmosphere of the poem. 3- Encourage the students to write a poem as an argument. 4- Fill in the blanks poems. 5- Writing ideas from poets.
Khatib (2011:33)says that the process of teaching English poetry could be of four parts as follow:
1- Pre – reading activities: to awaken initial interest in the poem. 2- While – reading activities: in this part the poem is followed by many activities like choosing the best paraphrasing and discussions. 3- Follow – up: in this part students are asked to produce a short poem. 4- Reading alone: and this part depends on students' final evaluation.
Then the steps that the instructors should act while teaching poetry are:
1- Distribute the poem to be covered at the beginning of each session. 2- Read the poem aloud with voice coloring 3- Ask the students to read the poem a few times and then express the poet's intentions. 4- Present a short biography of the poet to the students. 5- Discuss the historical , political, social , and cultural background of the poem. 6- Explain the literary devices that are used in the poem. 7- Paraphrase the difficult lines and talk about the main idea that expressed in the poem. 8- Ask one or two students to read the poem on their own style. 9- Finally , ask students to read and similar given poem .
95
Actually, an accurate and clear understanding of the poet's equipment and of his resources is vitally necessary for those who undertake to train others in literary appreciation and criticism.
2.22 Poems for Analysis
1) "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud (The Daffodils)" by W. Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie
96
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
"The Daffodils" is an 1804 poem by William Wordsworth. It was inspired by an April 15, 1802event in which Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy came across a "long belt" of daffodils. It was first published in 1807, and a revised version was released in 1815. In anthologies the poem is sometimes titled "I wandered lonely as a cloud."
The speaker says that, wandering like a cloud floating above hills and valleys. He encountered a field of daffodils beside a lake. The dancing, fluttering flowers stretched endlessly along the shore, and though the waves of the lake danced beside the flowers, the daffodils outdid the water in glee. The speaker says that a poet could not help but be happy in such a joyful company of flowers. He says that he stared and stared, but did not realize what wealth the scene would bring him. For now, whenever he feels "vacant" or "pensive," the memory flashes upon "that inward eye / That is the bliss of solitude," and his heart fills with pleasure, "and dances with the daffodils."
This simple poem is one of the loveliest and most famous in the Wordsworth canon, revisits the familiar subjects of nature and memory, this time with a particularly (simple) spare, musical eloquence. The plot is extremely simple, depicting the poet's wandering and his discovery of a field of daffodils by a lake. The memory of which pleases him and comforts him when he is lonely, bored, or restless. The characterization of the sudden
97 occurrence of a memory--the daffodils "flash upon the inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude"--is psychologically acute, but the poem's main brilliance lies in the reverse personification of its early stanzas. The speaker is metaphorically compared to a natural object, a cloud--"I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high...", and the daffodils are continually personified as human beings, dancing and "tossing their heads" in "a crowd, a host." This technique implies an inherent unity between man and nature, making it one of Wordsworth's most basic and effective methods for instilling in the reader the feeling the poet so often describes himself as experiencing.
2) From " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By: T. S. Eliot
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
98
This poem, the earliest of Eliot’s major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Prufrock, the poem’s speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to “force the moment to its crisis” by somehow consummating their relationship. But Prufrock knows too much of life to “dare” an approach to the woman. In his mind he hears the comments others make about his inadequacies, and he chides himself for “presuming” emotional interaction could be possible at all. The poem moves from a series of fairly concrete (for Eliot) physical settings—a cityscape (the famous “patient etherized upon a table”) and several interiors (women’s arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons, fireplaces)—to a series of vague ocean images conveying Prufrock’s emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-rate status (“I am not Prince Hamlet’). “Prufrock” is powerful for its range of intellectual reference and also for the vividness of character achieved.
3) (The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. By: Christopher Marlowe) 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,
99
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 linèd 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's 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.
The poem begins with a request from the speaker, "come live with me, and be my love," pretty please with a cherry on top, and goes on to list a series of promises from the speaker to the object of his affections about all the fun activities they'll do together if the offer is accepted.
They'll explore valleys, groves, hills and fields, they'll sit on rocks and watch the shepherds, and they'll listen to birds sing to the tune of waterfalls. But that's not all. Fancy duds from the city won't do for all that time in the great outdoors, so the speaker promises to make some clothes and accessories better suited for the occasion: caps of flowers, straw belts, lambs' wool gowns, beds of roses, you get the picture. And we're still not done. The speaker's final promises, gold buckles, coral clasps, amber studs, and dancing shepherds, are loftier still.
100
As the promises continue to drift outside the realm of what the speaker can actually guarantee, the speaker makes a crucial change of gears. The poem opened with a general request—come live with me and be my love—but it closes with a conditional one. The speaker now only wants the love to come if she is "move[d]" by the delights and pleasures that were listed in the poem, delights that it seems increasingly unlikely the speaker will be able to provide (we mean, who has a troupe of dancing shepherds on retainer?). The poem ends with a cliffhanger, as we never get to hear the love's reply.
4) Selected Lines from: "The Frog Prince by Stevie Smith":
To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment
Says, it will be heavenly
To be set free
Cries, heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.
Come, then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly.
101
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly
Bryan (2000) when analyzing this poem states that this poem is told from the point of view of the frog, who begins by telling who he is, how he arrived at his present situation, and what will happen to him. In these chosen lines the word "heavenly" is mentioned several times. In lines (5) and (8) "heavenly" connotes "happy", in line (7) it connotes "cool" since "heavenly" is a slang used by frivolous to mean "cool". In line (13)it connotes "glory", that is to say, "to be glorified person and go to heaven".
In other words, the frog/poet finds contentment and pleasure even in his quiet, simple and restricted life as a frog. And so the thought of being disenchanted is understandably daunting, he tells himself that this fear of disenchantment may be part of the spell and so he ought to welcome being free from the spell. "Heavenly" was also slang used by the frivolous which could be roughly translated as "cool". The line "Cries, heavenly, the girl" by linking heavenly with girl and cries suggests the frivolous meaning perhaps even more than the biblical. The last verse is disconcerting in its suggestion that the frog/ poet cannot be heavenly until he disenchanted. Heavenly and happy are carefully separated, confusing the reader if s/he expect heaven to be enchanting and think it is heavenly to be happy.
Stevie made comments when reading her poems, and at different times she said: "The frog prince had this feeling of hope in death". She also said:
102
"The Frog Prince is a religious poem, because he got too contented with being a frog and was nervous of being changed back into his proper shape and going to heaven. So he nearly missed his chance of great happiness, but, as you see, he grew strong in time".
2.23 Previous Studies
The researcher has surveyed the studies carried out by different researchers in different universities and came to know that the topic " Cultural Considerations as a facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry". has not been investigated yet.
The area of culture has been investigated by Al-jabbari, Sadeg, and Azmi in (2011) in a research paper entitled "Cultural Gaps in Linguistic Communication with Reference to English and Arabic Communities". The paper aimed at examining some of the major problems of communication between cultures that are characterized by obvious cultural gaps. The paper investigated the difficulties of interpreting culture bound words, idioms and proverbs, in an attempt to suggest a number of possible solutions to the problem of cross – cultural communication. The results of the study reveal the fact that that in order to overcome such cultural gaps in linguistic communication, individuals in the target language culture are required to be aware, as much as possible, of the source language cultural features so as to avoid the problem of losing the meanings of words.
The area of poetry in general has been investigated by Ardab (2004) an M. A. thesis "An Attempt at a Stylistic Social-psychological Reading of the Poetry of W. B. Yeats" The study aimed to explore the socio-psychological dimension in poetry and to survey other linguistic tools that could contribute to the interpretation of literary texts. The study finds out that stylistic analysis based on socio-psychological dimension could help to furnish a comprehensive deep reading of poetry. It also can both widen and deepen the scope of knowledge and culture of the readers of poetry. The
103 most important recommendations made by the researcher are that readers of poetry must be acquainted with the latest methods of literary analysis such as sociology and psychology. Another recommendation is that a course of criticism should be included into university syllabuses; particularly faculties of art and education.
Another study was carried out by Elhaj (2006) M. A. thesis "Teaching English poetry at University". The study aimed to show how English poetry should be taught at university level and to develop a positive attitude towards poetry in general and English poetry in particular. The study finds out that the cultural differences between English and Arabic inhibit understanding of poetry. The study also reveals that students had limited participation in the process of paraphrasing poems, hence, they have neither interest nor motivation in poetic language. The recommendations made by the researcher are that more time should be devoted to studying poems, various approaches to poetry criticism and appreciation should be introduced, and it is of great importance to consider the cultural differences between the first and the second language so as to familiarize second language learners with English poetry.
The area of poetry also has been investigated by Taj-Elsir, (2008), in an M.A. Thesis entitled "Investigating Figures of Speech in Wordsworth Poetical Works". The study aimed to investigate how figures of speech functioned in romantic poetry represented by Wordsworth. It also aimed to show how figures of speech reflected the romantic period especially culture. The study finds out that the most dominant figures of speech employed by Wordsworth are metaphors, similes and personification. The recommendations that are made by the researcher are: readers of poetry must be acquainted with figures of speech and how they are used in poetry. Another recommendation is exposing learners as much as possible to many
104 vital examples of figures of speech, from their cultural environment and within their linguistic scope, could be of great help to learners.
In (2001) Dorothea Meihuizen wrote her PhD thesis entitled "The Reading of Poetry: Appreciation and Evaluation". The study aimed to illustrate how poetic devices are employed, and how their use informs and enriches the meaning of the poem. The study found out that understanding poetic devices can enable the readers to obtain greater pleasure from poetry. The researcher recommends the readers of poetry to be more patient so as to understand the poem.
The field of poetry has been investigated by James E. Smethurst (2000), research paper entitled " The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946". The study aimed to consider the relationship between the thematic and formal choices of African-American poets and organized ideology from the proletarian early 1930s to the neo- modernist late 1940s. This study examined poetry by writers across the spectrum: canonical, less well-known, and virtually unknown. The study finds out that the ideology of the Communist Left as particularly expressed through cultural institutions of the literary Left significantly influenced the shape of African-American poetry in the 1930s and 40s, as well as the content. One result of this engagement of African-American writers with the organized Left was a pronounced tendency to regard the re-created folk or street voice as the authentic voice--and subject--of African-American poetry.
The area of poetry has also been investigated in (2014) by Khadija Khidir Osman, in a PhD thesis entitled "Obstacles Confronting Poetry Translators, with Special Reference to English Arabic Texts". The main objective of the study is highlighting the problems hindering poetry translation that are due to the semantic features, linguistic nature, stylistic components and
105 cultural aspects of poetic language. The study finds out that poetic language has a specific semantic, linguistic and stylistic nature as well as special cultural aspects which make poetry translation from English into Arabic difficult. The researcher recommends that the translators should know that translating a poem is a bit like composing a poem but much more difficult.
Whereas, this study " Cultural Considerations as a facilitating means in Appreciating English Poetry with Special Focus on Figures of speech" can be considered as an addition to the literary studies that are conducted in the area of poetry in particular. But it differs from the above mentioned studies in that it is an attempt to investigate cultural considerations as a facilitating factor to understand and hence appreciate English poetry.
In the next chapter the methodology adopted in conducting the study will be presented.
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY
3.0 Introduction
106
This chapter is concerned with the methodology adopted to conduct the study. It describes the sample involved in the study, tools of data collection and the statistical techniques used for analysis. 3.1 The Sample The sample which is involved in this study is a purposive one. It consists of (120) EFL University students who were exposed to a wide range of literary courses especially poetry courses. The students study at departments of English language of different universities. They consisted of (40) students at the Faculty of Education – University of Gezira, (40) students from the Faculty of Arts – Omdurman Islamic University, and the rest (40) from the Faculty of Arts – University of Al Fashir. All of them completed studying semester seven. 3.2 Tools of Collecting Data The researcher adopted the descriptive analytical method to conduct the study. Two tools of data collection were employed. The first one was a diagnostic test for EFL University students. The second was a corpus of test which had already been examined at Faculty of Education. 3.2.1 Content of the Test The test was used as a tool for collecting data and directed to the students it consisted of two poems; each one has six questions, in addition, to the last question which is about both poems. The first poem is selected lines from "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, by: William Wordsworth"
The students were asked to extract the main idea of the poem in order to check whether students understood the lines or not. Then, the students were asked to explain the images that are used in the poem so as to measure students' appreciation of the poem. Next, they were asked to explain the usage of metaphor and personification, and they were asked to tick the other figures of speech, this question aimed to check whether students could recognize or discuss the figures of speech in different lines of
107 poetry. In the last two questions the students were asked to write how far they had enjoyed the lines in their own words and to suggest another title for the poem to know if they understand and appreciate English poems or not. The second poem is selected lines from "The Love Song, by T.S Eliot". In this poem the students were asked to write the theme of the lines in their own words to find out whether the cultural element that held in the poem facilitated appreciating the poem used. The students were also asked to tick the figures of the speech that are used in the poem, and to discuss the effect of the rhyme in revealing the idea. The aims of this question was to check students' abilities to extract different kinds of figures of speech. In order to measure the appreciation of the poem; the students' were asked to choose one of the two titles that were limited to the poem, and to show whether they understood and hence enjoyed the poem. The last question of this test gave the students the chance to freely write which of the two poems the students had enjoyed more. This question aimed mainly to measure whether the cultural elements can facilitate appreciating English poetry.
3.2.1.2 Validity of the Test Hughes (1995: 27) states that the test is said to have face validity if it measures what is intended to be measured. To obtain the validity of the test, the face validity was implemented. The test was designed and then checked by four lecturers from the Department of English Language-Faculty of Education– Hasahesa – University of Gezira. All the lecturers agree that the test is good and will measure what is intended to measure.
3.2.2 Content of the Corpus
The corpus was a final exam in a romantic poetry course. The students had already studied the course and were exposed to a mid –term test and the
108 final examination. That exam consisted of two questions, each question contained a poem. The first poem was "London" , the students were asked to discuss and comment on the poem through all its aspects. The second poem was "She walks in Beauty". In this question the students were asked to write on the things they like in the poem. In addition, they were asked to express what is the real beauty in their own opinions. The students responses for both questions would be used to show whether they could appreciate English poetry and whether the cultural considerations facilitate this process.
3.2.2.2 Validity of the Corpus
Since the corpus is mainly a final exam that means it is a valid test, although the face validity was adopted. The exam was presented to the authorities and they confirmed its validity.
3.3 Data Analysis
The technique used to analyze the data is manually statistical presses that depend on percentages and means to present the results. Tables and graphs were used to show the statistical data.
In the following chapter, discussion of the results will be presented.
109
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.0 Introduction This chapter is allotted to present the results obtained from both test and corpus. The hypotheses of the study will be also discussed based on the results obtained.
4.1 Results of the students' Test
The first Poem
Table (4.1.1) Students' Understanding of the Poem:
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q 1 80 58.75% 41.25% 0.58
110
This result indicates that more than half of the sample understand the selected lines of the poem while, about (41.25%) of the sample did not understand it.
Table (4.1.2 ) Students' Appreciation of the Lines of the Poem:
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q2 80 58.75% 41.25% 0.58
Q5 80 83.75% 16.25% 0.83
Q6 80 51.25% 43.75% 0.51
According to this result a great number of the students could appreciate the poem while less than half of them could not. That is clear in question five, since the majority of the students (83.75%) like the poem which indicate their appreciation. It is also obvious in question two; (58.75%) of the sample do well in expressing images used in the poem. More than half of the students (51.25%) could suggest another title for the lines according to their understanding, which reveals their abilities in appreciating the poem.
Table ( 4.1.3 ) Students' Abilities to Recognize and Discuss Figures of Speech:
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q 3 80 73.75% 26.25% 0.73
111
Q4 80 85% 15% 0.85
The above results reveal that most of the students recognized and extracted figures of speech. The majority of them also discussed and explained the usage of the figurative element since (73.75%) of the sample succeeded in finding the figures of speech that were used in the poem. Also (85%) have the ability to explain the figurative usage correctly. While only (15%) of them could not.
The Second Poem Table (4.1.4) Students' Recognition of the Cultural element in the Poem
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q 1 80 61.25% 38.75% 0.61
This table above illustrates that more than two thirds of the students (61.2%) were aware of the cultural usage in the poem since only (38.75%) of the sample were not able to express the theme of the selected lines.
Table ( 4.1.5) Students' Abilities to Extract and Discuss Figures of Speech:
112
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q 2 80 73.75% 26.25% 0.73
Q4 80 38.75% 61.25% 0.38
According to the above table, it clear that the students have a great ability to find out and extract figures of speech since (73.75%) of them succeeded in marking the figures of speech that were used in the poem. While they fail to express the rhythmical effect of the line. Only (38.75%) could express it.
Table ( 4.1.6) Students' Understanding and Appreciation of the Lines of the Poem.
No. of Positive Negative Sample Mean question responses responses
Q3 80 84% 16% 0.84
Q5 80 83.75% 16.25% 0.83
Q6 80 51.25% 43.75% 0.51
With reference to this result, it is found out that the majority of the students (84%) could understand the poem. Besides, a considerable number (83.75%) of the sample choose the suitable title for the poem which indicated clearly their understanding. Added to that, more than half of the students ( 51.25%) expressed their cheerfulness to the poem which is direct appreciation.
113
Table ( 4.1.7) Cultural Back ground role in Facilitating Appreciation of English Poetry:
Q7 Percentage Mean
The First Poem 55.8% 0.55
The Second Poem 44.25% 0.44
It is clear from this table that above half of the students (55.8%) chose the first poem " I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud " by William Wordsworth as more enjoyable than the second one "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot, since it is full of images that described the side of nature and wonderful views that attract the reader's attention.
4.2 Results of the Corpus
Table (4.2.1) Cultural Background Effect on Appreciating English Poetry
No. of Positive Negative Mean Sample question responses responses The first 40 75% 25% 0.75 poem
This table illustrates that the majority of the students (75%) were affected positively with the cultural background that they had been exposed to while studying the course. Only (25%) of the students responded negatively.
Table (4.2.2 )Students' Abilities to Appreciate English Poetry
No. of question Percentage Mean
114
The First Poem 75% 0.75
The Second Poem 70% 0.7
This result in table ( 4.2.2 ) shows that a great number of students could understand and appreciate the poems, since (75%) of them gave positive responses to the first poem and (70%) to the second one.
4.3. Discussion of the Results in Relation to the Hypotheses of the Study
4.3.1 The First Hypothesis
"Knowledge of the cultural elements and dimensions promotes appreciating English poetry" . Table (4.1.1)shows that ( 58.75%) of the sample were able to understand the poem, table (4.1.2) also reveals that most of the sample appreciate the lines of the poem, since they present (83.75%), (58.75%), and (51.25%) of the whole sample. In addition to table (4.1.4), which demonstrates that (61.25%) of the students could recognize the cultural elements of the poem. And table (4.1.7) shows that more than half of the sample prefer the first poem which to a large extent suits the sample cultural background. Finally, table (4.2.1) which indicates that (75%) of the responses were affected by the cultural back ground. Thus, this hypothesis is verified.
4.3.2 The Second Hypothesis
"Figures of speech can facilitate understanding and then appreciate English poetry" . Table (4.1.3) indicates that the abilities of the students to recognize and extract figures of speech are remarkable since (85%)and (73.75%) are the rate of the responses of the two different questions. Table (4.1.5) also
115 illustrates that (73.75%) of the sample can extract figures of speech correctly. That means this hypothesis is supported and proved.
4.3.3 The Third Hypothesis
"There are many effective techniques can be adopted to facilitate understanding and hence appreciating English poetry". According to table (4.1.4)exposing students to a wide range of English culture is a very effective technique that facilitate understanding and appreciating English poems. The table shows that about (61.25%)of the students benefit from their cultural knowledge. The same thing is expressed in table (4.1.7)since more than half of the students (55.8%) enjoy the first poem which comply with their cultural background. Whereas, table (4.2.2) illustrates that (75%) of the students appreciate the poem "London" after they have studied its cultural sides. So, this hypothesis is proved.
Conclusion, findings and recommendations will be presented in the next chapter .
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.0 Introduction This chapter is the final chapter of the study. It covers the conclusion, findings and the recommendations, in addition to topics suggested for future research. 5.1 Conclusion
116
This study is search in the area of English literature in general and English poetry in particular. It aimed to investigate cultural considerations as a facilitating means in appreciating English poetry with special focus on figures of speech. The study follows the critical descriptive analytical method. A diagnostic test and a corpus were chosen as tools of data collection. These tools were designed ,and their validity and reliability were confirmed. The test was distributed among (80) of EFL Learners at Faculties of Arts, Omdurman Islamic University and Al Fashir University. While the corpus was (40) students of English language at Faculty of Education- Hantoub, University of Gezira. The data were analyzed through using statistical processes The final results of the study reveal that exposing students to the cultural elements that included in the poem affects positively and facilitate understanding and hence appreciating English poetry. 5.1.1 Findings 1. Cultural considerations facilitate understanding and appreciating English poetry (61.25%). 2. EFL university students' cultural background affects their appreciation of English poetry (75%). 3. EFL students at University have a great ability to understand and appreciate English poetry in case they were exposed to the cultural aspects included in the poems (75%). 4. EFL University students are capable of extracting and limiting different figures of speech ( 85% ). 5. EFL University students suffer of weaknesses in discussing and explaining different usages of figurative language (38.75%). 5.2 Recommendations In the light of the above mentioned findings, the researcher recommends the following:
117
1- Lecturers at university especially those who teach English poetry courses should concentrate on various cultural considerations so as to facilitate their students' understanding and appreciating of English poetry. 2- lecturers of English poetry courses at university should encourage their students to study different aspects of culture and get aware of its importance in clarifying the images of poems and then increase their abilities to know how to work out the cultural meanings of words in the poem and that lead to poetry appreciation. 3- Learners of English language at university should be advised to study different aspects of English culture, so as to reinforce their appreciation of English poetry. 4- Exposing learners to a wide range of examples and exercises of figurative language will help them to express their usage easily. 5- Instructors of poetry courses are advised to use helpful techniques to increase learners appreciation of English poetry.
118
REFERENCES
Aijaz, A. (1992), In theory: Classes, Nations, Literature. London. Verso Press Al-Faki, I. M. (2006), 'An Introduction to Literature', Open University of Sudan, Khartoum. Al- 'asad, N. (2003), 'Linguistic Investigations'. Beirut. Arabic Institution for Studies and Publishing. Anderatta, S and Ferraro, G. (2013), Elements of Culture: An Applied Perspective. USA. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Apte, M. (2010), Language in Sociocultural Contexts, The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol.4. Oxford. Pergamum Press. Avruch, K. (1999), Culture and Conflict Resolution. Washington. United States Institute of Peace Press. Azmi, J. et al. (2011), 'Cultural Gaps in Linguistic Communication with Reference to English and Arabic Language Communities'. Jordan. Zarqa Journal for Research and Studies in Humanities. Vol.11 Bachman.L and Palmer, A. (1999), 'Language Testing in Practice'. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Bhaba, H. (1994), The Location of Culture. London. Rutledge Press.
119
Blasko, D. and Connine, C. (1994), 'Effect of Familiarity and Aptness of Metaphor Processing'. Journal of Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. Vol.19 Bradby, G. F. (1939), 'About English Poetry'. London, Oxford University Press. Brewer, J. (2013), 'The Pleasure of Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century'. USA. Rutledge Press. Brown. H. D. (1987), 'Principles of Language and Teaching'. USA. Prentice Hall Regents. Cain, L. (2001), 'Reading Culture: the Translation and transfer of Australian in Contemporary Fiction'. PhD thesis. Centre for Community and Cross Cultural Studies. Queensland University of Technology. Chapman, R. (1989) 'Linguistics and Literature, An Introduction to Literary Stylistics'. London. Edward Arnold Publishers. Chatman. S. (1971), 'Literary Style: A symposium'. London. Oxford University Press. Comings. M. and Simmons. R. (1983), 'Language of Literature, A Stylistic Introduction to the Study of Literature' Pergamum Institute of English. Commitante, A. et al. (2010), Poetry…Do I Dare?. Washington. NYC Department of Education. Dipipoo. A. E. (1972), ' Rhetoric'. New York. Glencoe Press. Ferraro, G. (1999), "The Cultural Dimensions of International Business". 3rd edition. New Jersey. Printic Hall Press. Gay. M. (1997), 'A Dictionary of Literary Terms', (2nd edition) Longman. Longman University Press. Gibbs, R. (1995), 'The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding'. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Gibbs, R. et al. (1997), 'Metaphors in Idioms Comprehension'. Journal of Memory and Language. Vol.36
120
Gurry, P. (1948), 'The Appreciation of Poetry'. London. Oxford University Press. Happe, F. (1994), 'Understanding Minds and Metaphors: Insights from the Figurative Language in Autism. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity'. Journal of Memory and Mind. Vol.10 Harly, A. (2000), 'Fly With Poetry'. Honesdale. Boyd Mills Press Inc. Hayllar, et al. (1988), 'Enjoying Poetry'. Australia. Macmillan Education. Heidrich, D. (2004), 'Figuratively Speaking'. Botsford. Learning Works Inc. Hofstede, G. (1994), 'Culture and Organization: Software of the Mind.' London. Harper Collins Business. Hofstede, G. (2001), 'Culture's Consequences. Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations.' 2nd edition. London. Sage Press. Hornby. A. S (2005), ' Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary'. Oxford University Press. Hughes (1995), 'Testing for Language Teachers'. Britain. Cambridge University Press. Janeczko, P. B. (2011), 'Reading Poetry in the Middle Grades'. New York. Scholastic Inc. James E. Smethurst. (2000), 'The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946.' Oxford. Oxford University Press. Johnson. K. (2006), 'Poetry for the People'. English Teaching Forum. Johnson. K. (2006), 'Reading, Writing and Performing Poetry'. English Teaching Forum. Vol.44. Washington. Khatib, M. (2011), "A New Approach to Teaching English Poetry To EFL Students." Journal of Teaching and Research. Vol.2 . Finland. Academy Publisher. Khidir, K. (2014), 'Obstacles Confronting Poetry Translators, with Special Reference to English – Arabic Texts'. PhD thesis.
121
Lederach, J. P. (1995), 'Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures'. Syracuse University Press. Little. M. D. (2000), 'The Language of Literature'. Boston, A Houghton Mifflin Company. Longman Dictionary of English Language, (1984), Longman Group Limited. Longer, J.A. (1995), "Envisioning Literature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction". New York, Teachers College Press. Lott. B. (1986), 'A Course in English Language and Literature'. London. Edward Arnold Publishers. Lus, M.W. and Koester, J. (2000), 'Intercultural Competence. Interpersonal Communication across Cultures.' 3rd edition. New York. Longman University Press. Lyons. J. (1984), 'Semantics'. Cambridge University Press. Mansour. W. (1999), 'Appreciating Poetry'. English Teaching Forum. Meihuizen, D. (2002), 'The Reading of Poetry: Appreciation and Evaluation'. PhD thesis. University of Zululand. Murray, Y. and Winterowd R. (1985), 'English Writing and Skills'. USA Conorado Publishers. Oatey, S. H. (2008), 'Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication, and Politeness Theory'. 2nd edition London. Continuum Press. Redpath. T. (1987), 'The Songs and Sonnets of John Donne'. London, University Paper Back. Richards et al. (1985), 'Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Language'. Longman University Press. Robert, D. (2009), 'Literature – Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama and the Essay.' 3rd edition. McGraw Hill. Robert, E. et al, (2003), 'Elements of Literature'. Austin. Holt, Rinehart and Winston Press.
122
Rogers, P. (1996), 'The Poetry Sausage Machine Creative Writing as a Teaching Strategy'. English Teaching Forum. Satti, A. (2006), 'Impact of Translation on English Language Learners' Communicative Competence at University. (Ph.D Thesis, unpublished). Schreiber, M. (2000), 'Understanding and Appreciation of Poetry.' USA. Library of Congress Card Catalogue Press. Thawabteh, M. A. (2009), 'Linguistic, Cultural and Technical Problems in English – Arabic Subtitling.' PhD thesis. Al- Quds University. Wolf, A. (2006), 'Immersed in Verse'. New York. Lark Books.
Websites http://www.petry.org.Uk/connotation-Literary.term.htm http://specialed.about.com/od/literaryla/figurative.htm.
Html:file//owner/thefrog.prince.by.Stevie.Smith.poetryArchive.mht. http://www.italki.com@2016italkiHKLimited http://www.study.com.BBBAccreditedbusiness2016 http://www.english-for-students.com/figures-of-speach.html2015
Nastasi, A. (2011, November 1), 10 Inspiring, Confusing, and Humorous Eulogies of the Famous. The
Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/11 http://www.slideshare.net/englandhistory/british-and-english-culture- behaviour2010
123 https://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/press/best-and-worst-british- eyes-world2016 http://www.writebook.com.Elsa.Pla2011 http://www.regent.edu/acad/schom/phd/com707/def.com.html2009 http://www,carla.umn.edu/culture/definitions.html/ http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html/. http://www.changeminds.org/explanati...is culture.html
124
Appendix (A): The Test
بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم
University of Gezira
Faculty of Education – Hasahesa
Department of English Language
A Test for students of Art
Dear student,
The researcher would be grateful if you could answer the following questions after reading the selected two poems which will be used as data collection tool for Ph.D. thesis entitled "Cultural Considerations as a Facilitating means in Appreciating English poetry with Special Focus on Figures of Speech".
1) I wandered lonely as a cloud
By : William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
125
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Q1:What is the message of the poem? …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………
Q2:What do you think about the images that are used in the poem?
…………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………..
Q3:William Wordsworth fuse personification with metaphor. Explain. …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………
Q4:Tick the figures of speech that are mentioned in the poem:
( ) Simile ( ) Metaphor ( )Imagery
( ) Personification ( ) Synecdoche
( ) Hyperbole ( ) Symbolism ( ) Irony
Q5:How far did you enjoy the poem?
……………………………………………………………………………
Q6:Suggest another title for this poem.
…………………………………………………………………………….
126
2) From " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By : T. S. Eliot
LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question…. Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
Q1:What is the theme of this poem? …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………
Q2:Tick the figures of speech that are mentioned in the poem:
( ) Simile ( ) Metaphor ( )Imagery
( ) Personification ( ) Synecdoche
( ) Hyperbole ( ) Symbolism ( ) Irony
Q3:How far do you understand these lines?
…………………………………………………………………………….
Q4:How far did the rhyme describe Prufrock's emotional state? …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………
127
Q5:Which of these titles can express the idea of the poem:
a-" The Love Song"
b-" Prufrock's Memories with Women"
Q6:How far did you enjoy the poem?
……………………………………………………………………………
Q7:Which of the two poems do you enjoy more? And Why?
…………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………
128
Appendix (B): The Corpus
129