Prosody: the study of
metrical structures in poetry
scansion
= the meter and rhyme "scheme" of a poem; scanning = looking for that
scheme
accent/stress
= more force is given to one syllable in speaking than is given to another
syllable
foot
= basic unit of meter, measured by stressed (/) and unstressed (U) syllables: u
/ is one iam foot
iambic u
/ u / u / (walking): “From low to high doth
dissolution climb...”
trochee/trochaic
/ u /
u / u (beating
an anvil) : “Tyger Tyger burning bright”
dactyl/dactylic
/ u u /
u u
/ u u (frenzied dance): “Half a league, half a league/rode the six
hundred”
anapest/anapestic u
u / u u /
u u /
(galloping): “It was many and many a year ago”
spondee/spondaic ___
___ “Too bad”
tetrameter: 4 feet to a line
u /
u / u /
u /
pentameter: 5 feet to a line (and so forth) u
/ u / u / u
/ u /
free
verse = poetry without formal pattern of rhyme or meter
blank
verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter lines
end-stopped = a line ends in a full pause,
usually indicated by a mark of punctuation
enjambment/run on = the sense of
the line does not stop at the end but carries on into another line without
pause
caesura
= strong pause in the middle of a line (II) "He
hangs between: (II) in doubt to act or
rest."
alliteration
= initial consonants of words repeat in a line: "bold boys bred there, in
broils..."
assonance
= vowel sounds repeat in a line or across lines: "soon full soon the
moon"
rhyme = two or more words contain syllables
identical in sound; usually this sameness of sound occurs at the end. Ex: hay
and sleigh
internal rhyme = rhyme that occurs in the
middle of verse rather than at the ends of lines
slant
rhyme/off rhyme = words that sound similar to each other
feminine ending = when lines end with an
unstressed rather than a stressed syllable: (Ex: flying rather than tonight).
Why feminine? because the ending seems less strong and
weighty, of course! Notice that iambic meter shouldn't have feminine endings,
so when it does, the deviation may be to get your attention for some reason.
couplet
= a pair of lines that rhyme with each other
heroic couplet = a pair of lines, in
formal iambic pentameter, that rhyme with each other
quatrain
= four-line unit of a poem; octave = eight-line unit of a poem
sestet
= six line unit of a poem
stanza
= a group of lines whose pattern is repeated throughout the poem
verse paragraph: when you read long poems that
don't use stanza forms, notice that they use paragraphing just like prose
refrain
= words, phrases, or lines repeated at intervals in a song
figurative
language = any "trope," meaning a turn or
conversion done to normal language use
metaphor = any “trope”, association
between two unlike things to create a thought (Is all language then
metaphoric?)
conceit (related to "concept")
= antique term for a figure of speech
metonymy = a term for one thing is
applied to another with which it has become closely associated in experience:
"whale-road" stands for "sea"
synecdoche
= a part of something is used to signify the whole: "Deep pockets gave me
a raise."
image = expression that evokes a specific
sense-perception in a reader, esp. visual
symbol = a thing which is
understood to have conceptual significance beyond itself, often from a
community's habitual associations with it: the Flag, Blackness, a Rose
allegory
= a narrative which makes sense on a primary level of meaning, but whose
symbols function as codes signifying other levels of meaning; that is, another narrative
is needed to interpret it.
subtext = any kind of inexplicit
meaning, allusion, argument that underlies the overt textual meaning
irony = occurs when there is a gap between the
explicit or literal meaning and an implied meaning that undercuts the literal.
Notice that irony separates those who "get" the implied meaning from
those who read literally, who are then considered less sophisticated readers.
mixed metaphor = use of two or more diverse
metaphors too incompatible to make coherent sense
simile
= comparison using "like" or "as"
onomotopoeia = words whose sound
seems to resemble the sound it represents: "hiss" "bang"
"buzz"
personification = an inanimate
object or abstract concept is talked of as though it had human qualities
paradox = seems at first sight absurd or
self-contradictory but can be used to think with
hyperbole = overstatement,
exaggeration--opposed to "understatement"
motif
= a recurring aesthetic element
theme
= presiding or pervasive subject of a work
POETICS = a theory of poetry or
one poet's particular way of making poetry
Genre: a literary
"kind"—distinguished sometimes by form, sometimes by subject matter
Mode: Northrop Frye's term
for the genres, suggesting that tragedy, romance, comedy, and irony are mythic
structures pervading culture.
Practices: prose - continuous
written text modeled on ordinary speech
drama
- staged symbolic action
poetry
- "making" (according to Aristotle)
Writers may mix genres
or set them against one another much as a composer orchestrates with
instruments.
Epic: Grandeur; wide
expanse of time and place; hero is superhuman; the founding of a whole
culture [see Conventions below]
Tragedy: (autumn) High
seriousness; hero superior to ourselves, but fatally flawed; falling
from heights
Romance: (summer)
Nostalgia, the return of the past; hero(ine) is like ourselves--sallying forth
in search of psychological Virtues, undergoing tests and hardships; wandering
(The word "error" comes from Latin "errare", to wander)
Comedy: (spring)
regeneration through laughter, marriage, happy endings; hero(ine) lesser than ourselves; fertility; celebration of
the material body and overcoming of obstacles set by previous generation.
Satire: (winter) the
satirist--out to change the world, but feels his writing to be ineffectual;
anti-hero; irony. [Juvenalian satire: harsh attacks, often naming
villains; Horatian: urbane, graceful, gentlemanly; criticizes Types but
doesn't name names]
lyric = short, nonnarrative
poem with a single speaker expressing a state of mind or process of thought and
feeling
ode = serious, elevated
lyric poem in complex stanza forms: Pindaric-passionate; strophe,
antistrophe, epode; Horatian-urbane, sophisticated; single stanza form
repeated
Sonnet
= 14 lines, iambic pentameter, Elizabethan [4-4-4-2] or Petrarchan [8-6] rhyme
schemes
ballad = simple song form usually in 4-line stanzas
elegy = poem lamenting someone's death
occasional poetry = written for a specific situation,
event, or ceremony
pastoral = shepherds and sheep; georgic = agricultural instructions
dramatic monologue = poem spoken
by a single speaker from whose speech a dramatic context can be deduced
essay = an attempt; epistle = a letter; biography = life writing;
novel = ?
parody = a text that wholly imitates another text or a
genre in order to make fun of it
Epic
Conventions:
1.
Poem of great national or even cosmic importance, about a hero of superhuman
powers, who represents the human race. Poem is about the foundation of the
nation.
2.
Wide scope of time and place.
3.
Great confrontation scenes; Action involves superhuman deeds in battle, usually
single combat
4.
Gods or other supernatural beings intervene in the action: supernatural
"machinery"
5.
Ceremonial style deliberately distanced from ordinary speech; use of long
poetic comparisons, called "epic similes".
6.
Poet begins in medias res. (in the middle of the
action)
7.
The narrator begins by stating his argument, or "epic question." Invokes the muse.
8.
Lengthy cataloguing of weapons, warriors, etc.
9.
Long speeches that characters use to define themselves.
10.
Journey to the underworld
11.
Narrator takes a stance of "objectivity", unbiased judgment of the
action.
12.
Apotheosis
13.
Dream message from the gods; sacrifice,
14.
Virgil's Aeneid had 12 books, in deference to Homer's longer epics.