World Literature Set Texts Paper 3: Poems

Table of Contents
1. ‘First Love’ -- John Clare

2. ‘Carpet-weavers, Morocco’ -- Carol Rumens

3. ‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’ -- Ted Hughes

4. ‘The Flower-Fed Buffaloes’ -- Vachel Lindsay

5. ‘Song to the Men of England’ -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

6. ‘The Old Familiar Faces’ -- Charles Lamb

7. ‘Report to Wordsworth’ -- Boey Kim Cheng

8. ‘The Listeners’ -- Walter De La Mare

9. ‘Lament’ -- Gillian Clarke

10. ‘Monologue’ -- Hone Tuwhare

11. ‘Storyteller’ -- Liz Lochhead

12. ‘The Voice’ -- Thomas Hardy

13. ‘Time’ -- Allen Curnow

14. ‘Dover Beach’ -- Matthew Arnold

Supplemental material
Y10 points on how to answer the poetry question
Literature Paper 3 Targets
Guide to Poetry Terminology
 1.

First Love --John Clare

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete
My face turned pale as deadly pale 5
My legs refused to walk away
And when she looked, what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay

And then my blood rushed to my face

And took my eyesight quite away 10
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday
I could not see a single thing
Words from my eyes did start
They spoke as chords do from the string 15
And blood burnt round my heart

Are flowers the winter's choice

Is love's bed always snow
She seemed to hear my silent voice
Not loves appeals to know 20
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more --

What could I ail: what could be wrong

Notes
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 2.

Carpet-weavers, Morocco -- Carol Rumens

The children are at the loom of another world.

Their braids are oiled and black, their dresses bright.

Their assorted heights would make a melodious chime.

They watch their flickering knots like television.

As the garden of Islam grows, the bench will be raised. 5

Then they will lace the dark-rose veins of the tree-tops.

The carpet will travel in the merchant’s truck.

It will be spread by the servants of the mosque.

Deep and soft, it will give when heaped with prayer.

The children are hard at work in the school of days. 10

From their fingers the colours of all-that-will-be fly

and freeze into the frame of all-that-was.

Garden of Islam: the carpet\s abstract pattern

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 3.

Full Moon and Little Frieda --Ted Hughes

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank

of a bucket --

And you listening.

A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror 5
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the

hedges with their warm wreaths of breath --
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk. 10

'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed

at a work

That points at him amazed.

Notes
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 4.

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes -- Vachel Lindsay

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring

In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prairie flowers lie low:—
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass 5
Is swept away by the wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us, long ago. 10
They gore no more, they bellow no more,
They trundle around the hills no more:—
With the Blackfeet, lying low,
With the Pawnees, lying low,
Lying low. 15

Blackfeet…Pawnees: Native American tribes

Notes
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 Song to the Men of England –Percy Bysshe Shelley 5.
I
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
II
Wherefore feed and clothe and save 5
From the cradle to the grave
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?
III
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 10
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
IV
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear 15
With your pain and with your fear?
V
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears. 20
VI
Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth—let no imposter heap:
Weave robes—let not the idle wear:
Forge arms—in your defense to bear.
VII
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells— 25
In hall ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
VII
With plough and spade and hoe and loom
Trace your grave and build your tomb 30
And weave your winding-sheet—till fair
England be your Sepulchre.

Wherefore: why
Drones: idlers, non-worker, honey-bees
Heap: pile up, hoard (money)
Notes
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 6.
The Old Familiar Faces -Charles Lamb

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,

Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies-- 5
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:

Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man: 10

Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,

Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces. 15

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,

Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces--

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed-- 20
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Notes
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 7.
Report to Wordsworth --Boey Kim Cheng

You should be here, Nature has need of you.

She has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog,
the flowers are mute, and the birds are few
in a sky slowing like a dying clock.
All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea 5
have sunk; he is entombed in the waste
we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free,
his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,
and Neptune lies helpless as beached as a whale,
while insatiate man moves in for the kill. 10
Poetry and piety have begun to fail,
As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.
O see the wound widening in the sky,
God is labouring to utter his last cry.

Carousing: making merry

Bosom cronies: close friends
Ingrate: ungrateful person
Wert: were
Notes
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 8
The Listeners --Walter De La Mare

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret, 5
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill 10
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight 15
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call. 20
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even 25
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake 30
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward, 35
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Ferny: covered with ferns
Champed: chewed
Hearkening: listening
Notes
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 9.
Lament - -Gillian Clarke

For the green turtle with her pulsing burden,

in search of the breeding ground.
For her eggs laid in their nest of sickness.

For the cormorant in his funeral silk,

the veil of iridescence on the sand, 5
the shadow on the sea.

For the ocean’s lap with its mortal stain.

For Ahmed at the closed border.
For the soldier with his uniform of fire.

For the gunsmith and the armourer, 10

the boy fusilier who joined for the company,
the farmer’s sons, in it for the music.

For the hook-beaked turtles,

the dugong and the dolphin,
the whale struck dumb by the missile’s thunder. 15

For the tern, the gull and the restless wader,

the long migrations and the slow dying,
the veiled sun and the stink of anger.

For the burnt earth and the sun put out,

the scalded ocean and the blazing well. 20
For vengeance, and the ashes of language.

Cormorant…tern…gull…wader: types of seabirds

Iridescence: surface of shimmering colours
Fusilier: rifleman
Dugong: large aquatic mammal
Notes
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 10
Monologue --Hone Tuwhare

I like working near a door. I like to have my work-bench

close by, with a locker handy.

Here, the cold creeps in under the big doors, and in the
summer hot dust swirls, clogging the nose. When the
big doors open to admit a lorry-load of steel, 5
conditions do not improve. Even so, I put up with it,
and wouldn’t care to shift to another bench, away from
the big doors.

As one may imagine this is a noisy place with smoke

rising, machines thumping and thrusting, people 10
kneading, shaping, and putting things together.
Because I am nearest to the big doors I am the farthest
away from those who have to come down to shout
instructions in my ear.

I am the first to greet strangers who drift in through the 15

open doors looking for work. I give them as much
information as they require, direct them to the offices,
and acknowledge the casual recognition that one
worker signs to another.

I can always tell the look on the faces of the successful 20

ones as they hurry away. The look on the faces of the
unlucky I know also, but cannot easily forget.

I have worked here for fifteen months.

It’s too good to last.
Orders will fall off 25
and there will be a reduction in staff.
more people than we can cope with
will be brought on from other lands:
people who are also looking
for something more real, than dying… 30
I really ought to be looking for another job
before the axe falls.

These thoughts I push away, I think that I am lucky

to have a position by the big doors which open out
to a short alley leading to the main street; console 35
myself that if the worst happened I at least would
have no great distance to carry my gear and tool-box
off the premises.

I always like working near a door. I always look for a

work-bench hard by—in case an earthquake 36
occurs and fire breaks out, you know?
Notes
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 11
Storyteller -- Liz Lochhead

she sat down

at the scoured table
in the swept kitchen
beside the dresser with its cracked delft.
And every last crumb of daylight was salted away. 5

No one could say the stories were useless

for as the tongue clacked
five or forty fingers stitched
corn was grated from the husk
patchwork was pieced 10
or the darning was done.

Never the one to slander her shiftless.

Daily sloven or spotless no matter whether
dishwater or tasty was her soup.
To tell the stories was her work. 15
It was like spinning,
gathering thin air to the singlest strongest
thread. Night in
she’d have us waiting, held
breath, for the ending we knew by heart. 20

And at first light

as the women stirred themselves to build the fire
as the peasant’s feet felt for clogs
as thin grey washed over flat fields
the stories dissolved in the whorl of the ear 25
but they
hung themselves upside down
in the sleeping heads of the children
till they flew again
in the storytellers night. 30

dresser: kitchen shelves displaying dishes

delft: old earthenware
salted away: scrupulously stored
whorl: coiled form
Notes
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 12
The Voice --Thomas Hardy

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, 5

Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here, 10
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,

Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, 15
And the woman calling.

Mead: field, meadow

Wistlessness: inattentiveness
norward: northern parts
Notes
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 13

Time --Allen Curnow

I am the nor'west air nosing among the pines

I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines
I am the mileage recorded on yellow signs.

I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the beach

I am the sums sole-charge teachers teach 5
I am cows called to milking and the magpie's screech.

I am nine o'clock in the morning when the office is clean

I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machine
I am the place in the park where the lovers are seen.

I am recurrent music the children hear 10

I am level noises in the remembering ear
I am thesawmill and the passionate second gear.

I, Time, am all these, yet these exist

Among my mountainous fabrics like a mist,
So do they the measurable world resist. 15

I, Time, call down, condense, confer

On the willing memory the shapes these were:
I, more than your conscious carrier,

Am island, am sea, am father, farm, and friend,

Though I am here all things my coming attend; 20
I am, you have heard it, the Beginning and the End.

Lupins: type of garden flower

Notes
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Dover Beach —Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago 15

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems 30
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain 35
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. Strand: beach
Tremulous: quivering
Cadence: rhythm
Sophocles: Ancient Greek tragedian
Aegean: sea east of Greece
Turbid: muddy, unclear, confused
Darkling: shadowy, obscure, dark
Notes
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 Y10 points on how to answer the poetry question

• All poems which are in the questions are printed on the examination paper and so you do not
need to learn quotations off by heart.

• You will be asked to write on a specific aspect, element, theme or topic in the poem and you
must, therefore, guard against the ‘chuck it all in’ response where you just write everything
you know about the poem. If you do this, you are not answering the question.

• Your response MUST address the question being asked THROUGHOUT your response.

• You should not write an introductory paragraph giving biographical details about the poet
unless it is relevant to the question being asked. You will be wasting valuable time and it will
not get you any marks at all. This is one of the things which candidates often do which
examiners get very irritated with! Get straight on with answering the question!

• Each new paragraph should start with a sentence which connects with the question and which
makes a different point connected to the question.

• Each point made should be supported with textual support and analysis. It is the quality of the
analysis which differentiates good answers from outstanding ones. A quotation from the
poem can be a single word, or a phrase. Your quotations should not be too long and should
ideally be no more than a line.

• Use relevant terminology in your analysis: imagery, alliteration, simile, metaphor,

personification, hyperbole etc. You will be expected to know these and give examples which
connect to the question being asked.

• Comment on effects of language: this is vital. You need to comment on the effects of the
language which the poet has used in connection to the question being asked.

• A comment on the form and structure of the poem must connect with the question otherwise
it is pointless.

• A personal response must be evident in the response. Use the first person, always: ‘I think
that this is effective because…..’ ‘Reading this poem has changed my view on…….because…..’
‘I do not enjoy reading this poem, because………’
 Literature Paper 3 Targets

1. Solid, introductory thesis statement that answers the question precisely and shows
understanding of the text

2. Clear specific topic sentences at the start of paragraphs; show how your point [topic]
answers the question

3. Coherently organized and focused paragraphing: PEA = Q T L T L T L P

4. Always focused on the question; use the question to ‘frame’ the answer, understand the
intensifier in the question

5. Specific textual evidence; embed quotations with reference to their context (e.g. The
ominous setting is introduced with the words “dark” and “cold” repeated several times.
The sea is described as “running in and out” of the flooded village.)

6. Analyze the language; discuss the writer’s use of devises, techniques, shape or structure
to create specific effects

7. Do not re-tell the story, summarize or paraphrase; no generalized commentary

8. Interpretation must be based on the language in the text; No speculation about what is
not there

9. Plan before you write: no repetitive comments; do use logical links, do create a
balanced, solidly structured response

10. Show thorough understanding, attend to how the text as a whole, (including the end in
a poem) underscores the writer’s message and intended effect
 Guide to Poetry Terminology
Words/ Diction
1) Sound—the combination of tones and noises that make up a word
2) Connotation—what a word suggests beyond literal meaning. For example, although they
mean the same “childish” and “childlike,” “woman” and “gal” suggest different ideas. While
the word “murder” means killing someone—“murder” also connotes blame.
3) Denotation—the literal dictionary meaning of a word; exact meaning

4) Register-- formal, informal, colloquial. What does the language of the poem reveal about the
speaker?
Imagery
Phrases that engage our senses, represent a sensory experience. The technique is called
“imagery,” an example is called an “image.”
• Visual: How do these pictures contribute to a message?
• Auditory: How do these sounds make you feel?
• Tactile: How do you react to the texture?
• Olfactory: How do the smells make you react?
• Gustatory: How do you react to the tastes?
• Organic: Images of body functions—such as hearts beating, thirst, hunger.
• Kinesthetic: Descriptions of how muscles or the body moves
The Pond Amy Lowell
Cold, wet leaves
Floating on moss-colored water.
And the croaking of frogs-
Cracked bell-notes in the twilight.

Figurative Language
-not meant literally; saying something in an unusual way that conveys more meaning or creates
an effect. Ask: how is the author using this language to get me to think or feel about a topic?
► Metaphor and Simile: compare two unalike things. Similes use phrases: like, as, seems, etc.
Metaphor are implied comparison. She was a rose among the thorns. Other types of metaphors
substitute a part for a whole. Synecdoche: “All hands on deck” the hands describes sailors.
Metonymy: a suggestive word or phrase that is associated with something is substituted for it,
as in “The Crown”= the monarch, "silver screen"= motion pictures, “The pen is mightier than the
sword”.
► Extended Metaphor – metaphor that is sustained for several lines, may be the controlling image of a
poem.
► Personification: giving human qualities or attributes to an animal, object, or concept.
► Apostrophe: addressing someone absent or nonhuman as if it were present and could reply.
► Symbol: something--a person, object, situation, or action--which has meaning on two levels:
literal and symbolic. For instance, a wedding ring is a real object, but it is also stands for the love
and commitment of two people. Simply it is something that means more than what it is.
► Allegory: narrative or description with symbolic meanings beneath the surface.
► Paradox: An apparent contradiction that is somehow true. May have shock value that
startles the reader into a new realization. "She makes the black night bright by smiling into it."
► Hyperbole: Deliberate exaggeration. “You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
►Irony:
Verbal Irony: saying one thing and meaning another. Sarcasm: intending to ridicule
Dramatic: the author implies a different meaning from the one intended or known by the
speaker
Situational: situation with a contrast between what is anticipated and what happens

Musical/ Sound Devices

► Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds: "the soft surge of the sea." “Let us go forth to
lead the land we love.” The effect can emphasize ideas, make connections between ideas, or be pleasing
to the ears. The “city crickets chirped” is not alliteration but “five funny photos” is
► Consonance: repetition of final consonant sounds: "The sight of the apple and maple trees
pleased the people."
► Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds: The owl swept out of the woods and circled the
house." “Free and easy,” “rising tide”
► Onomatopoeia: words that sound like what they mean: a skirt "swishes," a bat "cracks," a
hasty eater "gulps" his food. (hiss, clang, rustle, snap, slush)
► Cacophony / Dissonance: harsh, unharmonious sounds; for example, the harsh consonant
sounds of “attacked,” cut,” and “hacking.”
► Euphony – pleasing smoothness of sound, perceived by the ease with which the words can
be
spoken in combination. Adjective: euphonious.
► Rhyme: repetition of the accented vowel and following sounds "His aim was to blame the
dame."
Internal: Rhyme within a line
End: Rhymes at the end of lines
Approximate/Slant Rhyme: words with sound familiarity, inexact rhyme
Consonants and their linguistic types:
Liquids: /l/ and /r/ flowing and fluid
Fricatives: /v/ /z/ /zh/ /th/ /f/ /s/ /sh/ /th/ /h/ speed, friction, energy
Plosives: /b/ /d/ /g/ /g/ /p/ /t/ /k/ abrupt, hard, forceful and explosive
Nasals: /m/ /n/ /ng/ inward sounds, smooth
Glides: /w/ /y/ suggesting duration and weight
Sibilants: /s/ /z/ /j/ /sh/ length and vibration / hissing, secretive, or softened, gentle
mood.
Dentals: /t/ /d/ /th/ abrupt stops, crisp and detached
Gutturals: /g/ /k/ croaking like a frog or crow
**When you notice sound effects in texts you must not just simply point them out. Instead you must
analyze how sounds are used by the writer to support the effect or theme that he or she is trying to create.

Consonant Sound Effects:

Here is a poem written by Alexander Pope that makes good use of consonant sound effects:
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives, some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labours, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla lightly scours the plain,
Flies o’er th’ unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Words with ‘s’ and ‘sh’ sounds in the first line make the reader’s lips work at the hissing noise of
the sea; then words with ‘r’ sounds in the second line, make rasping sounds. These are forceful
and vigorous sounds for a physically violent scene.
When he wants to create a calmer effect, he uses words which contain ‘m’ and ‘n’ nasal sounds,
produced by letting air out through the nose, not working the tongue, lips, mouth or teeth. These
sounds are soothing and mellow, fir for a description of gentle lightness.
Tennyson wanted to create the drowsy heat of a summer day in the following lines:
The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And the murmuring of innumerable bees
He could have chosen other birds, trees and insects, as well as different adjectives and a verb.
Would it have had the same effect if he had written the following?
The croak of crows in timeless oaks
And the buzzing of hundreds of wasps
The sibilance and harsh ‘c’ consonants in the second version make the scene seem much more
threatening than the gentle nasal sounds in the first.

Rhythm and Meter

►Meter: rhythm created by a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables (strong and weak
beats); something that we can tap our feet to. Meter comes from the term “to measure”
►Foot: one accented/stressed syllable with one, two, three or zero unaccented syllables
* Iamb: unstressed/stressed (Today)
* Trochee: stressed/unstressed (Daily)
* Anapest: Unstressed/unstressed/stressed (intervene)
* Dactyl: Stressed/unstressed/unstressed (Yesterday)
* Spondee: Stressed/stressed (True-blue). Two or more stresses next to each other
reflects the weight or importance of the stressed words.
►Pentameter – a line of five feet. Iambic pentameter, normally 10 syllables
►Pause/Caesura: a stop created by punctuation between clauses or sentences in a line of
poetry
Acceleration of tempo: unaccented syllables are grouped together so that they are read fast.
► Cadence – the rising and falling rhythm of speech, especially that of the balanced phrases in
free verse or in prose.

Form & Structure

► Line: group of words arranged in a row that ends before the right hand margin, not a sentence
or grammatical unit
► Stanza: A group of lines forming a unit within a poem (functions like a paragraph in prose)
Example: couplet, tercet (3 lines), quatrain (4), sestet (6), etc.
►Quatrain: a four line unit of rhymed or unrhymed verse
► Sestet – a six line unit
► Free Verse: poetry in lines of irregular length, usually unrhymed. May contain special
rhythms and melodies that convey feelings and meaning.
► Blank Verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter; that is, with every second syllable stressed.
͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷
But soft!/ what light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?

͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷ ͝ ̷
It is/ the east,/ and Jul/iet is/ the sun!
► Syntax: word order in phrases or sentences. May include inverted or unusual word order or
punctuation. Look at this example from “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” by Emily Dickenson.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me.
Ask: “What effect is created by giving the information in this order?” The unexpected quality
may give special importance to a phrase or thought. The sophistication or simplicity of the
sentence may have an effect.
► Juxtaposition: Deliberately placing dissimilar things side by side for comparison or effect
► Enjambment - line of poetry in which the grammatical and logical sense runs, without pause,
into the next line or lines. This often shows “connection” between ideas.
► Caesura – pause in a line of verse, often coinciding with a break between clauses or
sentences.
► Refrain- a verse or phrase that is repeated at intervals, usually after the chorus or stanza
►Rhyme scheme: pattern of end rhyme in a poem, indicated with letters—such as “abab cdcd
efef gg.” The rhyme pattern may be parallel to the theme of the poem. For instance, in a poem
about parachuting, the rhyme might increase in occurrence as the speaker falls nearer to the
ground; in another example the rhyme scheme might break to show a shift in ideas.

► Ballad: A form of narrative poetry that presents a single dramatic episode, which is often tragic or
violent. A poem written in song form to tell a story.

► Couplet: A pair of lines in poetry that rhyme in an “aa” rhyme scheme. Express a complete,
often concluding thought.
►Lyric – A personal poem expressing the poet’s emotions and thoughts rather than telling a
story.
►Dramatic monologue –poem in which a single fictional or historical character to a silent
audience. It reveals not the poet’s own thoughts, but the mind of the impersonated character.
► Sonnet – A fourteen-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables. It has a
specific rhyme scheme and a “volta” or turn which leads to a resolution
➢ English/ Shakespearean – rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg 3 quatrains and a couplet
➢ Italian/ Petrarchan : abba, abba, cde, cde 1 octave or 2 quatrains and a sestet
Often the opening quatrains present a question, problem or conflict which is then resolved,
opposed or extended in the closing sestet, quatrain or couplet.
► Volta – Italian term for the turn in the argument or mood; in a sonnet it occurs in the 9th line
between the octave and the sestet

Other Terms
► Allusion: a reference to something in history or previous literature: "He was a true Hercules."
► Antithesis – words which emphasize a contrast or opposition of ideas
► Tone: A writer or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, her audience, or him/herself. It
comes
from the emotional suggested meaning of the words and phrases used.
► Mood/ Atmosphere: The overall feeling.
Ask yourself, “How does the feeling in the work affect the reader?”
► Speaker: The voice of the poem. Not the writer. Writers may choose another “character” to
be
the speaker. Biographical sounding poetry is not always from the author’s point of
view.
► Persona – the assumed identity or fictional “I” assumed by a writer in a literary work.
► Ambiguity: allows for two or more possible meanings or interpretations
► Repetition: of a word, phrase, sound or effect may create emphasis, bring comfort, build
emotional tension, suggest order, or other effects
► Contrast: difference or oppositions b/w things, create surprise, emphasis, reflect themes
► Oxymoron: use of two words whose meanings are contradictory yet convey one idea.
Examples: rational hysteria; military intelligence; jumbo shrimp
► Motif – repeated image, idea, symbol or phrase which supports the theme
► Pun: a play on words. There are many different forms of puns. They sometimes connect two
unlike objects in a humorous way.
Examples: "Let's make like a bakery truck and move our buns out of here!"
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Make glorious summer by this sun of York”
Shakespeare, Richard III
The “sun of York” is King Edward IV, son of the Duke of York who also had the sun as his
emblem.