Técnicas

The Elements of Poetry

Marjan Shokouhi, PhD
 Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne
child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, this I pray:
Fragment 1
Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart
with pains and sorrows.

5 But come here, if ever before,

when you heard my far-off cry,
you listened. And you came,
leaving your father’s house,

yoking your chariot of gold.

10 Then beautiful swift sparrows led you over the black earth
from the sky through the middle air,
whirling their wings into a blur.
 Rapidly they came. And you, O Blessed Goddess,
a smile on your immortal face,
15 asked what had happened this time,
why did I call again,

and what did I especially desire

for myself in my frenzied heart:
“Who this time am I to persuade
20 to your love? Sappho, who is doing you wrong?

For even if she flees, soon she shall pursue.

And if she refuses gifts, soon she shall give them.
If she doesn’t love you, soon she shall love
even if she’s unwilling.”
Come to me now once again and release me
from grueling anxiety.
All that my heart longs for,
fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love’s battle.

Sappho’s “Ode to Aphrodite” , translated by Julia Dubnoff

https://www.uh.edu/~cldue/texts/sappho.html
Fragment of Sappho’s ‘brothers poem’ on
papyrus
Fragment 16 Some say an army of horsemen,
some of footsoldiers, some of ships,
is the fairest thing on the black earth,
but I say it is what one loves.

5 It’s very easy to make this clear

to everyone, for Helen,
by far surpassing mortals in beauty,
left the best of all husbands
 and sailed to Troy,
10 mindful of neither her child
nor her dear parents, but
with one glimpse she was seduced by

Aphrodite. For easily bent...

and nimbly...[missing text]...
15 has reminded me now
of Anactoria who is not here;

I would much prefer to see the lovely

Sappho’s “Ode to Anactoria”, way she walks and the radiant glance of her face
translated by Julia Dubnoff than the war-chariots of the Lydians or
https://www.uh.edu/~cldue/t
exts/sappho.html 20 their footsoldiers in arms.
Elements of Poetry
Theories of Poetry

Each theory of poetry, as seen in the previous session examples, is rooted in the
history, ideas, philosophical positions, and literary values that were current
when it was formulated.
Neoclassical poets valued reason and order. This perspective emerged during
the Age of Enlightenment, a period when people championed science, logic, and
structured thinking. The poetry of this era reflects this structured mindset,
showcasing clear, logical progressions of thought. A prime example is Alexander
Pope.
Romantic poets, on the other hand celebrated spontaneity and beauty and
valued human imagination and individualism above others. Think of
Wordsworth or Shelley.
What is a poem?

A poem is a condensed composition in verse with a lavish use of rhetorical

devices and figures of speech. It concentrates on the line and combines them to
form stanzas or sections. The lines vary in length and may or may not rhyme.

Almost all poems are written in a metrical structure and are usually condensed.

The language is rearranged from the order of ordinary speech and seems
compressed, leaving out words or pulling them together.

The use of figurative language (simile, metaphor, metonymy) makes poetry a

highly charged language, hence difficult to understand at times.
Poetry – from the Greek word term poiesis (making)

Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities

of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic
meaning. At the most basic level, poetry is an experience produced by
two elements of language: sense, or the meaning of words, and sound. In
poetry, the sound of the words is raised to an importance equal to that
of their meaning, and also even higher.

According to this, and for poems to evoke particular meanings on their

audience, the language of poetry relies on a series of techniques, such
as: rhythm, sound, rhyme, layout, language varieties/registers, lexical
choices, grammatical behaviour, repetitions, forms, or imagery.
 Stanza

A stanza (from Italian stanza, stopping place, room, etc. and

from Latin stare to stand) is a collection of lines that together
make up a verse paragraph. There is usually a space between
each stanza. In general, a stanza comprises three or more lines
of verse, with a repeating pattern of meter and rhyme scheme.
The most common stanza forms in English poetry are the
couplet (two rhyming lines), the triplet (three rhyming lines) and
the quatrain (four rhyming lines of abab)
 Diction – Choice of words

Diction is the type of words poets choose to use in their poems. A poem that uses slang
expressions can be just as powerful as a poem that uses a lot of big words. As in any other
act of communication, register is essential in order to effectively reach a particular
audience.

Formal Diction: Words that appear a bit more elegant or extravagant. Often formal
diction will contain words that are polysyllabic.

Neutral Diction: Words that appear ordinary and that you hear every day. Contractions
are often used in poetry that has neutral diction, as well as a simpler vocabulary.

Informal Diction: Words and phrases that are slang expressions, or the colloquial – the
language of relaxed activities and friendly conversations.
 Dialect

Similarly, a poet may choose to use dialect in order to affirm the cultural
background or ideology associated with a certain community or people.
Robert Burn’s “To a Mouse” is written in the Scottish dialect of English.
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
 Genre

A term, French in origin, that denotes a type or class of literature. The genres into
which literary works have been grouped at different times are very numerous, and the
criteria on which the classifications have been based are highly variable.

The main literary genres, according to the Plato and Aristotle’s classification >> Lyric,
Epic (narrative), drama

Lyric >> uttered throughout in the first person

Epic or narrative >> in which the narrator speaks in the first person, then lets the
characters speak for themselves

Drama >> in which the characters do all the talking

The three classical genre are often translated as poetry, prose fiction, and
drama in the modern period.

There are broader classifications, both classical and modern, and within
each genre we have sub-genres or categories, too. For instance, novel is a
modern genre, which corresponds to the prose fiction genre or the
narrative genre of the Greeks’ classification. Satire, Comedy and tragedy
were also classified as genres by the Greeks.

For instance, the main genres of poetry include: lyric, narrative, and
dramatic. Sonnets or odes for instance are lyrics.
 Figurative Language

“Figurative language” is a conspicuous departure from what competent users of a

language apprehend as the standard meaning of words, or else the standard order
of words, in order to achieve some special meaning or effect. Figures are sometimes
described as primarily poetic, but they are integral to the functioning of language
and indispensable to all modes of discourse.

Most modern classifications and analyses are based on the treatment of figurative
language by Aristotle and later classical rhetoricians; the fullest and most influential
treatment is in the Roman Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory (first century AD), Books
VIII and IX.
Figurative language has often been divided into two classes:
(1) Figures of thought, or tropes (meaning turns/conversions), in which
words or phrases are used in a way that effects a conspicuous change in
what we take to be their standard meaning. The standard meaning, as
opposed to its meaning in the figurative use, is called the literal meaning.
(2) Figures of speech, or “rhetorical figures,” or schemes (from the Greek
word for “form”), in which the departure from standard usage is not
primarily in the meaning of the words but in the order or syntactical pattern
of the words.
This distinction is not a sharp one, nor do all critics agree on its application.
Simile

In a simile, a comparison between two distinctly different things is explicitly

indicated by the word “like” or “as.”
Examples:
“O my love ’s like a red, red rose.” (Robert Burns)
“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun” (Sonnet 130 - Shakespeare)
The following simile from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” also specifies the feature (“green”) in which icebergs are similar to
emerald:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
 Metaphor

In a metaphor, a word or expression that in literal usage denotes one kind of thing
is applied to a distinctly different kind of thing, without asserting a comparison.
For example, if Burns had said “O my love is a red, red rose” he would have
uttered, technically speaking, a metaphor instead of a simile.

Here is a more complex instance from the poet Stephen Spender, in which he
applies several metaphoric terms to the eye as it scans a landscape:

Eye, gazelle, delicate wanderer,

Drinker of horizon’s fluid line.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the
sun! (William Shakespeare – Romeo & Juliet)
 Tenor and Vehicle in Metaphor

In these examples we can distinguish two elements: the

metaphorical term and the subject to which it is applied.
“O my love is a red, red rose”
Subject of comparison >> tenor (my love)
Metaphorical term >> vehicle (red rose)
Implicit metaphor

In this type of metaphor the tenor is not specified, but only implied. There’s a
ground for comparison, an aspect, a similarity or association >> grounds of a
metaphor

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank” (Shakespeare’s Merchant of
Venice, V. i.)

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade. (Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden” (1681)
Note: Not all metaphoric terms or vehicles are nouns, but other parts of
speech may also be used metaphorically.

For instance, in the Shakespeare’s example, a verb (sleep) is used

metaphorically and in Marvell’s the vehicle is an adjective (green).
Find the tropes in the following excerpts:
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.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Sonnet 18 – Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date …

Emily Dickinson

Fame is a bee.

It has a song—

It has a sting—

Ah, too, it has a wing.

Soliloquy

Soliloquy is the act of talking to oneself, whether silently or aloud. In drama

it denotes the convention by which a character, alone on the stage, utters
his or her thoughts aloud.

Playwrights have used this device as a convenient way to convey

information about a character’s motives and state of mind, or for purposes
of exposition, and sometimes in order to guide the judgments and responses
of the audience. (Do not confuse Soliloquy with Dramatic Monologue)

The best-known of dramatic soliloquies is Hamlet’s speech which begins “To

be or not to be.”
To be, or not to be, that is the question,

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? (Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

 Mixed Metaphor

A mixed metaphor conjoins two or more obviously diverse metaphoric vehicles.

Densely figurative poets such as Shakespeare often mix metaphors in a functional
way.

One example is Hamlet’s expression of his troubled state of mind in the previous
soliloquy: “to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them”.

Another is the complex involvement of vehicle within vehicle, applied to the process
of aging, in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65:

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of battering days?

 Sonnet 65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
Dead metaphor

A dead metaphor is one which, like “the leg of a table” or “the heart of
the matter,” has been used so long and become so common that we have
ceased to be aware of the discrepancy between vehicle and tenor. The
recorded history of language indicates that a great many words that we
now take to be literal were, in the distant past, metaphors. This point to
the figurative nature of language >> Remember the term ‘persona’?
 Symbol

In the broadest sense a symbol is anything which signifies something else; in this
sense all words are symbols. In discussing literature, however, the term “symbol”
is applied only to a word or phrase that signifies an object or event which in its
turn signifies something, or suggests a range of reference, beyond itself.

Some symbols are “conventional” or “public”: thus “the Cross,” “the Red, White, and
Blue,” and “the Good Shepherd” are terms that refer to symbolic objects of which
the further significance is determinate within a particular culture.

The colors of the American flag: “White signifies purity and innocence. Red means
hardiness and valor, and Blue signifies vigilance, perseverance, and justice.”
Poets use both conventional and private or personal symbols. Often they do so by
exploiting widely shared associations between an object or event or action and a particular
concept; for example, the general association of a peacock with pride and of an eagle with
heroic endeavor, or the rising sun with birth and the setting sun with death, or climbing
with effort or progress and descent with surrender or failure.
Some poets, however, repeatedly use symbols whose significance they largely generate
themselves, and these pose a more difficult problem in interpretation. W. B. Yeats, for
instance, uses ‘rose’, ‘winding stair’, or ‘moon’ as personal symbols. The rose, which
symbolized his own suffering for unrequited love was later used as a symbol for Ireland
(Note that Shamrock, not roses, are usually used a symbol for Ireland). Another example is
the white whale in Melville’s Moby Dick or Blake’s ‘rose’ in ‘The Sick Rose’ poem.
Compare the ‘rose’ in these excerpts:

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune (Robert Burns)

She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And then she danced—O Heaven, her dancing! (Winthrop Mackworth
Praed)
Nobody knows this little Rose—
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it—
Only a Butterfly,

Hastening from far journey—

On its breast to lie—
Only a Bird will wonder—
Only a Breeze will sigh—
Ah Little Rose—how easy
For such as thee to die! (Emily Dickinson)
“The Sick Rose” by Blake

O Rose, thou art sick.

The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
In Burn’s poem, the rose is a simile (the poet’s love is compared to a
rose).
In the second excerpt, ‘rose’ is a metaphor for a woman.
In Emily Dickinson’s poem, a rose is a rose, a flower, a part of nature.
Dickinson celebrates the rose and its ephemeral beauty while
reminding us that we merely project our own associations onto it.
In Blake’s poem, however, the rose is not a metaphor or simile.
There is no neat comparison as in the previous examples. Rather, the
rose – in conjunction with other words, such as ‘sick’, ‘bed’, ‘worm’ –
conveys an image, representing something else.
In other words, this rose is not the vehicle for a simile or metaphor,
because it lacks the paired subject—“my love,” or the girl referred to as
“she,” in the examples just cited—which is an identifying feature of
these figures. Blake’s rose is a rose—yet it is patently also something
more than a rose: words such as “bed,” “joy,” “love,” which do not
comport literally with an actual flower, together with the sinister tone,
and the intensity of the lyric speaker’s feeling, press the reader to infer
that the described object has a further range of suggested but
unspecified reference which makes it a symbol.
Blake’s rose is a personal symbol. Only from the implicit suggestions
in Blake’s poem itself—the sexual connotations, in the realm of
human experience, of “bed” and “love,” especially in conjunction with
“joy” and “worm”—supplemented by our knowledge of similar
elements and topics in his other poems, are we led to infer that
Blake’s lament for a crimson rose which has been entered and
sickened unto death by a dark and secret worm symbolizes, in the
human realm, the destruction wrought by furtiveness, deceit, and
hypocrisy in what should be a frank and joyous relationship of
physical love.
Repetitions

Either in prose or in fiction, repetitions contribute to emphasizing or

clarifying certain ideas or concepts.
Repetitions are often present in poetry in many different ways,
producing certain emotional effects on its audience. The repetition of
sounds may intensify the power of an image or set of images, as we will
see when dealing with sound patterns. (see Alliteration and Assonance)
As a rhetorical device, it could also be a word, a phrase or a full sentence
or even a poetical line that is repeated to emphasize its significance in
the entire text.
The Function of Repetition

The beauty of using figurative language is that the pattern it arranges the
words into is nothing like our ordinary speech. It is not only stylistically
appealing but it also helps convey the message in a much more engaging and
notable way. The aura that is created by the usage of repetition cannot be
achieved through any other device. It has the ability of making a simple
sentence sound like a dramatic one. It enhances the beauty of a sentence
and stresses on the point of main significance. Repetition often uses word
associations to express the ideas and emotions in an indirect manner. When
reading a piece with repetition we, as readers, have to decipher such
associations and understand the underlying meanings.
Types of Repetition

Anaphora: Repetition of words at the start of clauses or lines.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears

And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Homework 1 >> Find the significance of the ‘lamb’ in
Blake’s ‘Tyger’.
The repetition of a series of questions which start with “what”
creates a rhythm that creates the effect of awe in readers.
Epiphora

Repetition of the same word at the end of each clause or line:

Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,

Which, like a userer, abound’st in all,

And uses none in that true sense indeed

Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene iii

In these stanza, “thy shape, thy love, thy wit” comes twice within
four lines. It makes considerable emphasis on three attributes of
Romeo.
Anadiplosis

Repetition of the last word in a line or clause and the beginning of the
following one.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.” (Richard III)
Homework 2 >> Research the following terms and
bring some examples to class.

● Allegory
● Alliteration
● Allusion
● Metonymy
● Paradox
● Personification
Part III - Prosody
Prosody (from Greek prosodia, accompaniment to a song set to music, or
the tone or accent on a syllable) is the science of versification. It includes
the theory, principles, and practice of verse, encompassing such matters as
rhythm, accent, meter, rhyme, scansion, and versification.
a) Rhyme
How important is rhyme to poetry? Can we have a poem
without rhyme?
What makes the music in a poem?
Remember Sir Philip Sidney?

It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a

long gown maketh an advocate. Imaginative writings in prose can
also be called poetry.
“It is not riming and versing that makes poesy. One may be a poet
without versing, and a versifier without poetry” (The Defense of
Poesy)
 Rhyme

In English versification, standard rhyme consists of the repetition,

in the rhyming words, of the last stressed vowel and of all the
speech sounds following that vowel: láte–fáte; fóllow–hóllow.
End rhymes, by far the most frequent type, occur at the end of a
verse line.
Internal rhymes occur within a verse line, as in the Victorian poet
Algernon Swinburne’s ‘Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow.’
A stanza from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
illustrates the patterned use both of internal rhymes (within
lines 1 and 3) and of an end rhyme (lines 2 and 4):

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine.
Masculine and Feminine Rhymes in Wordsworth’s “The Solitary Reaper”

1. Whate’er her theme, the maiden sang a

2. As if her song could have no ending; b
3. I saw her singing at her work c
4. And o’er the sickle bending— b
5. I listened, motionless and still; d
6. And as I mounted up the hill, d
7. The music in my heart I bore, e
8. Long after it was heard no more. e
Lines 1 and 3 do not rhyme with any other line. Both in lines 5
and 6 and in lines 7 and 8 the rhyme consists of a single
stressed syllable, and is called a masculine rhyme: stíll–híll,
bóre–móre. In lines 2 and 4, the rhyme consists of a stressed
syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, and is called a
feminine rhyme: énding–bénding.
Double and triple rhymes

A feminine rhyme, since it involves the repetition of two

syllables, is also known as a double rhyme. A rhyme involving
three syllables is called a triple rhyme; such rhymes usually
have a comic quality.
In Don Juan (1819–24), Byron often uses triple rhymes such
as comparison–garrison, and sometimes intensifies the
comic effect by permitting the pressure of the rhyme to
force a distortion of the pronunciation.
Full/true rhyme and eye rhyme

If the correspondence of the rhymed sounds is exact, it is called

perfect rhyme, or else “full” or “true rhyme.”
Until the twentieth century almost all English writers of serious
poems have limited themselves to perfect rhymes, except for an
occasional poetic license such as eye rhymes: words whose
endings are spelled alike, and in most instances were once
pronounced alike, but have in the course of time acquired a
different pronunciation: prove–love, daughter–laughter.
Imperfect rhyme or slant/pararhyme/partial rhyme

Many modern poets, however, deliberately supplement

perfect rhyme with imperfect rhyme (also known as partial
rhyme, or else as approximate rhyme, slant rhyme, or
pararhyme). This effect is fairly common in folk songs such as
children’s verses, and it was employed occasionally by various
writers of art lyrics such as Henry Vaughan in the
seventeenth, William Blake in the late eighteenth, and very
frequently by Emily Dickinson in the nineteenth century.
Example of pararhyme

This is an example of pararhyme in Wilfred Owen’s poem, where the

vowels are only approximate or else quite different, and occasionally
even the rhymed consonants are similar rather than identical:

The centuries will burn rich loads

With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreamy lids,
While songs are crooned.
But they will not dream of us poor lads,
Lost in the ground. (‘Miners’)
Example of Slant Rhyme in Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides –
You may have met him – did you not
His notice sudden is –

The Grass divides as with a Comb –

A spotted shaft is seen –
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on …
He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor too cool for Corn -
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash

Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone -
Several of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow

Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
What is Emily Dickinson describing in this
poem? Who is the persona? Can you spot any
literary tropes?
Can you paraphrase the following lines from The
Canterbury Tales? What type of rhyme does Chaucer
use in here?
(the pilgrims go to Canterbury)
…. the holy blissful martyr for to seke
That hem hath holpen whan they were seke.
Rime Riche

Rime riche (French for “rich rhyme”) is the repetition of the consonant that
precedes, as well as the one that follows, the last stressed vowel; the
resulting pair of words are pronounced alike but have different meanings:
stare–stair, night–knight. The device is common in French poetry and was
adopted by Geoffrey Chaucer. Early in the General Prologue to The
Canterbury Tales, for example, he rhymes “seke,” which has two diverse
meanings, “seek”and “sick.” The pilgrims go to Canterbury

the holy blissful martyr for to seke

That hem hath holpen whan they were seke.
The use of rime riche is very rare in English poetry after
Chaucer.
Early English poetry (written in Old English and Middle
English) did not rhyme. Instead, the poets used another
technique to achieve structure and musicality. Can you
guess what that is?
Nū scylun hergan hefaenrīcaes Uard,
metudæs maecti end his mōdgidanc,
uerc Uuldurfadur, suē hē uundra
gihuaes,
ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ
hē ǣrist scōp aelda barnum
heben til hrōfe, hāleg scepen.
Thā middungeard moncynnæs Uard,
eci Dryctin, æfter tīadæ
fīrum foldu, Frēa allmectig.
Cadmon’s Hymn– The earliest extant English poem

Now [we] shall honour / heaven-kingdom's Ward,

the measurer's might / and his mind-plans[a],
the work of the Glory-father[b] / as he of each wonder,
eternal lord, / the origin established;[c]
he first created[d] / for the children of men[e]
heaven for a roof, / holy shaper.[f]
Then Middle-earth / mankind's Ward,
eternal Lord, / after created,
the lands for men,[g] / Lord almighty.
 Alliteration

“Alliteration” is the repetition of a speech sound in a sequence of nearby words. Usually

the term is applied only to consonants, and only when the recurrent sound is made
emphatic because it begins a word or a stressed syllable within a word.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea. (‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’)
In Old English alliterative meter, alliteration is the principal organizing
device of the verse line: the verse is unrhymed; each line is divided into
two half-lines of two strong stresses by a decisive pause, or caesura; and
at least one, and usually both, of the two stressed syllables in the first
half-line alliterate with the first stressed syllable of the second half-line.
(In this type of versification a vowel was considered to alliterate with any
other vowel.) A number of Middle English poems, such as William
Langland’s Piers Plowman and the romance Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, both written in the fourteenth century, continued to use and play
variations upon the old alliterative meter. In the opening line of Piers
Plowman, for example, all four of the stressed syllables alliterate: In a
sómer séson, when sóft was the sónne….
In later English versification, however, alliteration is used only for
special stylistic effects, such as to reinforce the meaning, to link related
words, or to provide tone color and enhance the palpability of
enunciating the words. An example is the repetition of the s, th, and w
consonants in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste….
Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of a sequence of two or more

consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowel: live-love,
lean-alone, pitter-patter. W. H. Auden’s poem of the 1930s, “ ‘O
where are you going?’ said reader to rider,” makes prominent use of
this device, with successive lines ending in “rider to reader,” “farer to
fearer,” and “hearer to horror.”
Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar

vowels—especially in stressed syllables—in a sequence of nearby
words. Note the recurrent long i in the opening lines of Keats’ “Ode
on a Grecian Urn” (1820):
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time….
The richly assonantal effect at the beginning of William
Collins’ “Ode to Evening” (1747) is achieved by a
patterned sequence of changing vowels:
If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song,
May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy pensive ear….
Going back to Coleridge’s ‘Rime’, what other devices
can you find? How about the rhyme pattern?

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine.
Find the tropes in the following stanzas: focus on
repetitions

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Find the tropes in the following stanzas:

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, repetition

Tears from the depth of some divine despair alliteration
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, rhyme
In looking on the happy autumn-fields, consonance
And thinking of the days that are no more. assonance
(“Tears, Idle Tears” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.” (“Raven”, Edgar Allan Poe)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.” (“Raven”, Edgar Allan Poe)
How many types of rhymes do we have?
Types of Rhyme

Rhymes according to syllables (masculine, feminine and triple rhymes)

Rhymes according to sound (perfect, imperfect, and eye rhymes)

Rhymes according to position (Initial, internal and end rhymes)

Masculine, feminine and triple rhymes

cat/sat

hitting/sitting

tenderly/slenderly
Perfect, imperfect, and eye rhymes

hair/fair
song/gone
sound/wound
 Initial, internal and end rhymes

Silvered is the raven hair,

Spreading is the parting straight,
Mottled the complexion fair,
Halting is the youthful gait, (W. S. Gilbert, Patience)

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear
And the half my men are sick, I must fly, but follow quick.
b) Meter
 Meter

“Meter” is the recurrence, in regular units, of a prominent

feature in the sequence of speech sounds of a language. There
are four main types of meter in European languages:
1) Quantitative meter (duration of syllables) >> classical Greek and Latin poetry
2) Syllabic meter (number of syllables) >> French poetry
3) Accentual meter (number of stressed syllables) >> Germanic languages,
including Old English poetry
4) Accentual-syllabic meter (pattern of accents and syllables) >> English poetry
(1) In classical Greek and Latin, the meter was quantitative; that is, it was
established by the relative duration of the utterance of a syllable, and
consisted of recurrent patterns of long and short syllables. (2) In French
and many other Romance languages, the meter is syllabic, depending on
the number of syllables within a line of verse, without regard to the fall of
the stresses. (3) In the older Germanic languages, including Old English,
the meter is accentual, depending on the number of stressed syllables
within a line, without regard to the number of intervening unstressed
syllables. (4) The fourth type of meter, combining the features of the two
preceding types, is accentual-syllabic, in which the metric units consist of
a recurrent pattern of stresses on a recurrent number of syllables. The
stress-and-syllable type has been the predominant meter of English
poetry since the fourteenth century.
Rhythmic nature of language

The study of the theory and practice of meter is called metrics.

In all sustained spoken English we sense a rhythm; that is, a
recognizable although varying pattern in the beat of the stresses, or
accents (the more forcefully uttered, hence louder syllables) in the
stream of speech sounds.
In meter, this rhythm is structured into a recurrence of regular units of
stress patterns.
Compositions written in meter are also known as verse.
Meter is determined by the pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of verse

The meter is determined by the pattern of stronger and weaker

stresses on the syllables composing the words in the verse line; the
stronger is called the “stressed” syllable and all the weaker ones the
“unstressed” syllables.
Foot

A foot is the combination of a strong stress and the associated

weak stress or stresses which make up the recurrent metric unit of
a line.
The four major feet in English meter include: iamb, anapest, trochee,
and dactyl.
Iambic foot >> unstressed-stressed

An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

(Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”)
The cúr | few tólls | the knéll | of pár | tıng dáy. |
Anapestic foot >> unstressed-unstressed-stressed

Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold.

(Lord Byron, “The Destruction of Sennacherib”)
The As sýr | ian came dówn | lıke a wólf | on the fóld. |
Trochaic foot >> stressed-unstressed

A stressed followed by an unstressed syllable.

There they are, my fifty men and women

(Robert Browning, “One Word More”)
Thére they | áre, my | fíf ty| mén and | wó men. |
Most trochaic lines lack the final unstressed syllable. In the
technical term, such lines, or any verse lines that lack the final
syllable (or, less commonly, the first), are catalectic. So in
Blake’s “The Tyger”:
Tý ger! | týger! | búrn ıng | bríght |
Ín the | fó rest | óf the | níght. |
Dactylic foot >> stressed-unstressed-unstressed

A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

Eve, with her basket, was

Deep in the bells and grass
(Ralph Hodgson, “Eve”)
Éve, wıth her | bás ket, was |
Déep ın the | bélls and grass. |
Iambs and anapests, since the strong stress is at the end, are
called “rising meter”; trochees and dactyls, with the strong
stress at the beginning, are called “falling meter.”
Iambs and trochees, having two syllables, are called “duple
meter”; anapests and dactyls, having three syllables, are called
“triple meter.”
The iamb is by far the commonest English foot.
Spondaic and Pyrrhic

Two other feet are often distinguished by special names,

although they occur in English meter only as occasional
variants from standard feet: spondaic and pyrrhic
Spondaic >> stressed-stressed

Spondaic (the noun is “spondee”): two successive syllables with

approximately equal strong stresses, as in each of the first two feet of his
line: Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

Góod stróng | thíck stú | pe fý | ıng ín | cense smóke. |

(R. Browning, “The Bishop Orders His Tomb”)
Pyrrhic >> unstressed unstressed

Pyrrhic (the noun is also “pyrrhic”): a foot composed of two successive

syllables with approximately equal light stresses, as in the second and
fourth feet in this line:

Mý way | ıs to | be gín | wıth the | be gín nıng |

(Byron, Don Juan)
A metric line is named according to the number of
feet composing it:
● monometer: one foot
● dimeter: two feet
● trimeter: three feet
● tetrameter: four feet
● pentameter: five feet
● hexameter: six feet (an Alexandrine is a line of six iambic feet)
● heptameter: seven feet (a fourteener is another term for a line of
seven iambic feet—hence, of fourteen syllables; it tends to break
into a unit of four feet followed by a unit of three feet)
● octameter: eight feet
Examples of Blank Verse

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them… (Hamlet - Shakespeare)
 Most common line lengths in English verse

Tetrameter and Pentameter are the commonest, followed by the trimeter.

The ballad form usually alternates between the tetrameter and trimeter. (e.g. “Sir
Patrick Spens”)

The iambic pentameter lines is often called blank verse (e.g. as in Shakespeare)

Rhyming iambic pentameter is often called heroic couplets (e.g. as in Dryden and
Pope)
Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos… (Paradise Lost - Milton)
Five years have past; 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… (“Tintern Abbey” -
Wordsworth)
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. (“Second Coming” - W.B. Yeats)
Examples of Heroic Couplets:

Soon had their hosts in bloody battle join'd;

But westward to the sea the sun declin'd.
Intrench'd before the town both armies lie,
While Night with sable wings involves the sky.
(Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Dryden)
She was a worthy woman Al hir life
Housebondes at church Dore she hadde five
(Chaucer, “General Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales)
Scansion

To scan a passage of verse is to go through it line by line,

analyzing the component feet, and also indicating where
any major pauses in the phrasing fall within a line.
Describing the meter of line

To describe the meter of a line we name (1) the predominant

foot and (2) the number of feet it contains. For example, the line
from Gray’s “Elegy” is “iambic pentameter,” and the line from
Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib” is “anapestic
tetrameter.”
Find the meter and rhyme scheme in the following
excerpts:

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.
(Christopher Marlowe “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”)
 Iambic tetrameter with variations rhyming aabb

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the plea sures prove,
That Va lleys, groves, hills, and fields, anapest
Woods, or steepy mountain yields. catalectic trochaic tetrameter
Scan the following lines and determine the meter:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

(Sonnet 75 - Shakespeare)
Iambic Pentameter rhyming abab (sonnet)

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yell ow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare rui n'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Earth, receive an honoured guest;
William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let this Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
(W.H. Auden, “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”)
Catalectic Trochaic tetrameter rhyming aa bb

Earth, rece ive an honoured guest;

William Yeats is laid to rest:
Let this Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
(Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”)
 Iambic pentameter rhyming abab

The cur few tolls the knell of par ting day,

The low ing herd winds slow ly o’er the lea,
The plough man home ward plods his wea ry way,
And leaves the world to dark ness and to me.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
Heroic couplet with some variations

O could - I flow - like thee-, and make - thy stream

My great - exam- ple, as it - is my theme!
Though deep - yet clear- , though gen -tle yet –not dull;
Strong with -out rage -, without - o'erflow -ing full.
(“Cooper’s Hill” - John Denham)
Ambiguity

In ordinary usage “ambiguity” is applied to a fault in style; that is, the use of a
vague or equivocal term or expression when what is wanted is precision and
particularity of reference. Since William Empson published Seven Types of
Ambiguity (1930), however, the term has been widely used in criticism to identify a
deliberate poetic device: the use of a single word or expression to signify two or
more distinct references, or to express two or more diverse attitudes or feelings.

Multiple meaning and plurisignation are alternative terms for this use of language;
they have the advantage of avoiding the pejorative association with the word
“ambiguity.”
 Example of Ambiguity

When Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, exciting the asp to a frenzy, says:

Come, thou mortal wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool,
Be angry, and dispatch, (Antony and Cleopatra, V. ii.),
her speech is richly multiple in significance.
“Mortal” means “fatal” or “death-dealing,” and at the same
time may signify that the asp is itself mortal, or subject to
death. “Wretch” in this context serves to express both
contempt and pity (Cleopatra goes on to refer to the asp as
“my baby at my breast, / That sucks the nurse asleep”). And
the two meanings of “dispatch”—“make haste” and
“kill”—are equally relevant.
The phrase "intrinsicate knot" suggests that life is
intricately woven or tangled, filled with complications,
conflicts, and challenges.
The knot of life > life is compared to an entangled knot
>> hence a metaphor.
Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1 "Get thee to a nunnery" scene

https://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.3.1.html
Hamlet to Ophelia
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Hamlet to Ophelia

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for

thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a
nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.
 "Get thee to a nunnery" – Double entendre

If we interpret "nunnery" as an actual convent, Hamlet’s command

means Ophelia should choose chastity and stay away from
temptation. On the other hand, “Nunnery” was an Elizabethan
slang term for a brothel. That makes Hamlet’s misogynist remark
doubly offensive. On the one hand he is telling her to preserve her
virtue and on the other suggesting that she belongs in a brothel.
Therefore, if we interpret "get thee to a nunnery" as "go to a brothel," the
phrase takes on a double entendre, a literary trope where a phrase has
two meanings, one of which is usually risqué or humorous.
So, in this case, the literary trope present would be a double entendre (a
case of ambiguity). It adds complexity and depth to Hamlet's command,
allowing for multiple interpretations depending on the context and the
reader's understanding.
Other kinds of multiple meanings:

>> Pun
>> Paradox
Pun

A play on words similar in sound but different in meaning,

sometimes by spoonerizing the first letters of words to give
a double entendre or sexual flavor.
In Romeo and Juliet (III. i. 101) Mercutio, bleeding to death,
says grimly, “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a
grave man”.
grave is a pun >> grave as serious and grave as dead
In this line, Mercutio is engaged in a bit of wordplay,
using the word "grave" to mean both "serious" and
"dead." On one level, he is telling Romeo to ask for him
tomorrow, and he will be in a serious or somber mood.
However, there is also an ironic twist to his words, as
Mercutio ends up being fatally wounded in the following
scenes, making him literally "a grave man" by the next
day.
Equivoque (A type of pun)

Equivoque is a special type of pun where a single word or

phrase with two disparate meanings are used and both make
sense:
An epigram by Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) ends in an
equivoque:
When I am done, I hope it can be said:
His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.
Paradox

A statement that appears false is in fact true, or the

reverse. Here are some examples:
Less is more!
The only constant is change.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than
others" (Orwell, Animal Farm)
 Oxymoron

If the paradoxical utterance conjoins two terms that in ordinary

usage are contraries, it is called an oxymoron.
“O Death in life, the days that are no more.” (Tennyson, “Tears, Idle
Tears”)
Examples of oxymoron in Elizabethan love poetry: “pleasing
pains,” “I burn and freeze,” “loving hate.”
 Irony

When one thing is said and another thing is intended, hence it depends upon
deceit, but the purpose is not to deceive but reach special rhetorical or artististic
effect. As a literary device, irony implies a distance between what is said and
what is meant. Based on the context, the reader is able to see the implied
meaning in spite of the contradiction.
● Verbal irony (i.e., using words in a non-literal way)
● Situational irony (i.e., a difference between the expected and actual
outcomes of a situation or action)
● Dramatic irony (i.e., an audience knowing something the characters don’t)
Verbal irony is a statement in which the meaning that a speaker
implies differs sharply from the meaning that is ostensibly
expressed. The ironic statement usually involves the explicit
expression of one attitude or evaluation, but with indications in
the overall speech-situation that the speaker intends a very
different, and often opposite, attitude or evaluation; e.g. “It is a
truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession
of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” (Austen, Pride and
Prejudice)
Here Austen actually means that a single woman is in
need of finding a wealthy man for marriage.
Verbal Irony

When William Shakespeare relates in detail how his lover

suffers in comparison with the beauty of nature in “My Mistress’
Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun,” it is understood that he is
elevating her beyond these comparisons; considering her
essence as a whole, and what she means to the speaker, she is
more beautiful than nature.
Other example of verbal irony

In "My Last Duchess," verbal irony is demonstrated when

the Duke says to his guests, "even had you skill in speech
. . . which I have not”.
Throughout the poem the Duke proves that he is quite a
polished speaker.
Situational Irony
Situational irony occurs when the outcome of a circumstance or
action does not match our expectations. Think about Aesop’s fable
of “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Just like the hare, at the outset, we’d
never expect the tortoise to win the race because hares are much
faster. The unexpected nature of the tortoise’s eventual win
emphasizes the moral of the story, that persistence and focus are
important for success, or “slow and steady wins the race.” This type
of irony allows writer to make a strong impression by subverting the
reader’s expectations. It can be used simply to shock or entertain,
but it can also encourage an audience to reflect on a key theme.
Dramatic irony is a structural device that involves the
audience knowing something the characters are unaware of.
This is often a key piece of information about a situation and
its likely outcome. A well-known literary example of dramatic
irony is seen in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo kills
himself because he believes Juliet is dead, when the audience
knows that she is about to wake up.
Structural Irony
Some literary works exhibit structural irony; that is, the author, instead of using
an occasional verbal irony, introduces a structural feature that serves to sustain
a duplex meaning and evaluation throughout the work.

One common literary device of this sort is the invention of a naïve hero, or else a
naive narrator or spokesman, whose invincible simplicity or obtuseness leads
him to persist in putting an interpretation on affairs which the knowing
reader—who penetrates to, and shares, the implied point of view of the
authorial presence behind the naive persona—just as persistently is called on to
alter and correct.
One example structural irony of the naive spokesman is
Swift’s well-meaning but insanely rational and morally obtuse
economist who writes the “Modest Proposal” (1729) to
convert the excess children of the oppressed and
povertystricken Irish into a financial and gastronomical asset.
What is the difference between irony and sarcasm?
Sarcasm is a specific form of verbal irony that involves saying something
with the intention of mocking or conveying contempt. It often involves a
mocking or bitter tone. Sarcasm is typically used to ridicule or criticize
someone or something, and it often carries a negative or hostile tone.

The difference in application of the two terms is indicated by the

difference in their etymologies; whereas “irony” derives from “eiron,” a
“dissembler,” “sarcasm” derives from the Greek verb “sarkazein,” “to tear
flesh.” An added clue to sarcasm is the exaggerated inflection of the
speaker’s voice.
Example of sarcasm in Shakespeare

“The noble Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambitious: if it were so, it was a
grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it” (Shakespeare, Julius
Caesar).

Shakespeare imagines Mark Antony delivering a thoroughly sarcastic

speech at the funeral of Julius Caesar. He frequently refers to Brutus,
Caesar’s murderer, as “noble” and “honorable,” but the content of the
speech clearly shows that Mark Antony believes the opposite about Brutus.
“Was there a lack of graves in Egypt, that you took us away to die in the
wilderness?” (Exodus 14:11)

In one of the earliest examples of sarcasm, one of the Israelites walks up to

Moses and poses this sarcastic question. If the Israelites were just going to
die in the desert, then what was the point of leaving Egypt in the first place?
We can easily imagine the speaker’s tone: irritated, biting, and scornful. And
of course he doesn’t actually think that there’s a “lack of graves in Egypt.”