Poetry Packet Ms. Tucker “Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe.” – Adrienne Rich Name: ___________________________ Class Period: ____ (Please return to room 101) "1 Part 1: Important Terms for Discussing Poetry EXPLICATION/EXPLICATE: 1.Parts of Poem Line - A line is a subdivision of a poem, specifically a group of words arranged into a row that ends for a reason other than the right-hand margin. Stanza - a group of lines equal in number forming the basic recurring unit in a poem. Strophe- a group of lines varying in number forming the basic recurring unit in a poem. 2.Types of Prosody PROS·O·DY/noun 1. 2. All prosody is either: Quantitative: Normative: Spatial: arrangement by______________ Syllabic: Arrangement by ______________ EX: EX: "2 Verbal: Arrangment by _________________ Accentual: Arrangement by ____________________ EX: EX: Acctentual-Syllabic: Arrangement by _____________________ AND _____________________ EX: "3 3.Meter me·ter/noun 1. The measured arrangement of words in poetry, as by accentual rhythm, syllabic quantity, or the number of syllables in a line 2. The rhythmic pattern of a stanza, determined by the kind and number of lines. Foot: the most basic unit of a poem's meter. A foot is a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. Unstressed syllable: the syllable within the metric foot given little or no emphasis when spoken out loud. • Parts of Speech which are ALWAYS unstressed:_______________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ • Parts of speech which are usually unstressed: _________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Stressed syllable: the syllable within the metric foot given heavy emphasis when spoken out loud. • ___________________________ are ALWAYS stressed! Iambic Pentameter: An arrangement of poetry in to 10syllable lines (five 2syllable feet) consisting of primarily iambs. The most common meter used in the English language. Ex. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate Common feet in iambic pentameter Iamb: ____________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ Trochee: ___________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ Occasional feet in iambic pentameter Spondee: ___________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ "4 Phyric: _____________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ Uncommon feet in iambic pentameter Anapest: ___________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ Dactyl: ____________________________________________________________________________ Symbol: __________ Ellision: the omission of a sound or syllable to accommodate a certain number of syllables in a line of verse, the usual mark for elision is ' Ex. o'erwhelmed Scansion: The metrical analysis of verse. The usual marks for scansion are ˘ for a short or lightly stressed syllable, ̷ for a long or heavily stressed syllable, |for a foot division, and // for a caesura. 4.Meter (Continued) Common Meter ______meter: a line of verse consisting of _________ metrical feet. Ex. When I |was one-|and-twenty I heard |a wise |man say, 'Give crowns| and pounds| and guineas But not| your heart| away; -E. Housman ______meter: a line of verse consisting of _________ metrical feet. Ex. I wand|ered, lone|ly as| a cloud That floats| on high| o’er dales| and hills When, all| at once, | I saw| a crowd A host |of gold|en daff|odils. -Wordsworth ______meter: a line of verse consisting of _________ metrical feet. Ex. Where are |the songs |of Spring? |Ay, where| are they? Think not |of them, |thou hast |thy mus|ic too, -John Keats "5 ______meter: a line of verse consisting of _________ metrical feet. Ex. The moon| rains out| her beams, | and Heav|en is |overflow'd. -Percy Shelley Naming Meter: Meter is named according to its primary foot and foot count. The above meter is all iambic, so it would be named iambic trimeter, iambic tetrameter, iambic pentameter and iambic hexameter. Below are a couple examples of the same meters with different primary feet: Dactylic Hexameter (Heroic verse) $ % % $ % % $ % % $ % % $ % % $ % Ex. This is the| forest pri|meval. The| murmuring |pines and the| hemlocks, -Wadsworth Anapestic Trimeter % % $ % % $ % % $ Ex. I am lord |of the fowl |and the brute. Scansion Practice: Write the scansion out for the following lines of verse, then, name the meter. Note whether the verse is normative or quantitative first! Example: $ % % $ % $ % line of “Hope” is |the thing |with feathers – in prosody, a % $ % $ % $ : and usually That perch|es in| the soul – Feminine endingunstressed % $ % $ % $ % $ verse having an And sings| the tune| without| the words – extrametrical (additional to the length of % $ % $ % $ the typical line in the particular poem) And nev|er stops| - at all syllable at its end. ____Quantatative_____________ Iambic Trimeter with one line of Tetrameter Practice 1: He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. ___________________________ ___________________________________________________ "6 Practice 2: It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell ___________________________ ___________________________________________________ Practice 3: I ’M nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there ’s a pair of us—don’t tell! They ’d banish us, you know ___________________________ ___________________________________________________ Write your own line of Iambic Pentameter below (remember to mark your feet!): _______________________________________________________________________________________ Write your own line of Anapestic Trimeter below (remember to mark your feet!): _______________________________________________________________________________________ Write your own line of Dactylic Hexameter below (remember to mark your feet!): _______________________________________________________________________________________ "7 Continued Scansion Practice: SONNET 130 BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Referencing the section on meter, continuing writing $ % % $ % $ % $ % $ out the scansion for Sonnet Shall I |compare|thee to| a summ| er’s day; 130. % $ % $ % $ % $ % $ Tips: Thou art|more love|ly and|more tem|per ate; Begin by marking the feet Mark the article, prefixes and Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, suffixes as unstressed after you mark the feet And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Remember an IAMB is the most Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, common foot And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. "8 The Sonnet Intent In "Remember," Rossetti anticipates her own death, and clearly conveys a wistful yet romantic tone as she starts writing: Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay. Her syllable count is impeccable – 10 syllables per line as she twists the rhyme scheme into abbaabba-cddc-gg. Yet, it’s easy to lose count as she sweeps us into the poem. To follow the logic of Rossetti’s sonnet, view the first quatrain as establishing a problem or motive for the poem. Here, Rossetti wants her reader to remember her while also demonstrating the difficulty of letting go. This has the mark of a good sonnet, in that it takes a course dictated by logic and emotion. Further your motive Rossetti plants pauses – catches of breath – in the next quatrain, while increasing the level of romance and allure. Remember me when no more, day by day, You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be too late to counsel then or pray. Is she talking about her own demise? Or about a love not allowed to blossom? Another step in writing a sonnet – constant forward movement – ripples through her work. Turn the core Rossetti provides the classic sonnet closing, while keeping the poem deeply personal for all 14 lines – a vital ingredient in the sonneteer’s recipe. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad. In the beginning of the sestet, Rossetti twists the core of the poem – that of remembrance – to forgetting. She turns us toward the finish by again displaying the immediate emotion of the grieving heart, but the more detached, longer vision of a life worth remembering. While the opening octave of the sonnet is dedicated towards encouraging an immediate remembering, the sestet provides a twist to the original intent, and remembering is considered in a fresh, altered light. As you begin writing your own sonnet, remember to use your octet to express your motive for the poem, with the closing sestet providing a reconsideration and resolution