CO QAH + MELC LW HANDOUT No.

2
in
Creative Writing

MELC: Identify the various elements, techniques, and literary devices in specific forms of
poetry.
nd
Semester: 2 Week No. 3-4 Day: 1-8

LESSON: VARIOUS ELEMENTS, TECHNIQUES, AND LITERARY DEVICES IN SPECIFIC

FORMS OF POETRY

This lesson is designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you master the various
elements, techniques, and literary devices in specific forms of poetry. The scope of this module
permits it to be used in many different learning situations. In this module, you will be learning the
essential elements, techniques and literary devices in specific forms of poetry.
TOPIC 1: WHAT IS POETRY?

Poetry is a form of literature which allows the writers who called to be “poets” to express
their thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas about a particular theme or topic.
When reading a poem, it is common that we get confuse between poet and persona.
Remember that poet is the author of the poem or literary piece while persona is the SPEAKER or
narrator of the poem.
Poetry is recognizable by its greater dependence on at least one more parameter, the line,
than appears in prose composition.
It will be easy for us to identify if the literary piece is under poetry. Poetry is cast in lines.
It uses forms and elements and does not use ordinary syntax. We do not use ordinary sentence
formation since there are elements and techniques used by the poets.
Basically, poetry has significant elements that can be used by the poets to strengthen their
techniques and sustain it for recognition of poetic styles. Elements will help the poets to address
the message of the literary pieces to the audience or readers.
Here are some of the elements of poetry as categorized into six sub-elements namely,
structure, sound, imagery, figurative language, fictional elements, and poetic forms.

TOPIC 2: THEME

Theme is the lesson about life or statement about human nature that the poem expresses.
– Though related to the concept of a moral, or lesson, themes are usually more complicated
and ambiguous.
– To describe the theme of a poem is to discuss the overarching abstract idea or ideas being
examined in the poem.
– A major theme is an idea that a writer repeats in his work, making it the most significant
 idea in a literary work.
– A minor theme, on the other hand, refers to an idea that appears in a work briefly and
gives way to another minor theme.

Presentation of Themes
– the feelings of the main character about the subject written about
– through the thoughts and conversations of different characters
– the experiences of the main character in the course of a literary work
– the actions and events taking place in a narrative

Functions of Themes
– binds together various other essential elements of a poem
– is a truth that exhibits universality and stands true for people of all cultures
– gives readers better understanding of the main character’s conflicts, experiences,
discoveries, and emotions
– gives readers an insight into how the world works or human life can be viewed

Theme Vs Subject
– A poem’s subject is the topic of the poem, or what the poem is about
– The theme is an idea that the poem expresses about the subject or uses the subject to
explore

Example:
– So, for example, in the Edgar Allan Poe poem “The Raven”, the subject is the raven, who
continually repeats a single word in response to the speaker’s questions.
– The theme of the poem, however, is the irreversibility of death—the speaker asks the
raven, in a variety of ways, whether or not he will see his dead beloved again, to which the
raven always replies “nevermore.”

TOPIC 3: TONE

Tone
In fact, it suggests two attitudes: one concerning the people you’re addressing (your
audience) and the other concerning the thing you’re talking about (your subject).
That’s what the term tone means when it’s applied to poetry as well. Tone can also mean
the general emotional weather of the poem.
– the attitude expressed in a poem that a reader sees and feels
– the writer’s attitude toward the subject or audience

A. STRUCTURE

Form is the appearance of the words on the page of the reference. It may be different nowadays
since layout artist may simply adjust and create the desired form of poem.
Poetic Line or Line is a group of words that form a single line of poetry.

Example: “„Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house” is the well-known
first poetic line of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore.

Kinds of Metrical Lines/Numbers of Feet

monometer = one foot on a line
dimeter = two feet on a line
trimeter = three feet on a line
tetrameter = four feet on a line
pentameter = five feet on a line
hexameter = six feet on a line
heptameter = seven feet on a line
octometer = eight feet on a line

Almost all accentual-syllabic poetry in English, except for isolated lines in lyrics, will have
four or five feet in the line. Probably trimeter through hexameter will be all the terms you will
ever have to use.

Stanza is a section of a poem named for the number of lines it contains.

Example: A couplet is a stanza of two lines. The first stanza from “Barbara Frietchie” by John
Greenleaf Wittier is a couplet:
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

Kinds of Stanza
Couplet = a two line stanza
Triplet (Tercet) = a three line stanza
Quatrain = a four line stanza – This is the usual kind of stanza
Quintet = a five line stanza
Sestet (Sextet) = a six line stanza
Septet = a seven line stanza
Octave = an eight line stanza

Enjambment is when there is no written or natural pause at the end of a poetic

line, so that the word-flow carries over to the next line. It affects the forms of the poem on a page.
It can create certain form relevant to a poem’s content.

The general rules of Capitalization and Punctuation in poetry are not always followed; instead,
they are at the service of the poet’s artistic vision.

Verse is a line in traditional poetry that is written in meter.

Example: In “When I do count the clock that tells the time” from Shakespeare’s “Sonnet Number
Twelve,” the underlined syllables are accented, giving the line a metric pattern known as an
iambic pentameter (see Meter).

Traditional Form
 Poems with rhyme and with meter.
Free Verse:
 Unlike metered poetry, free verse poetry does NOT have any repeating patterns of stressed
and unstressed syllables. Does NOT have rhyme.
 Free verse poetry is very conversational - sounds like someone talking with you. A more
modern type of poetry.

Blank Verse:
 Written in lines of iambic pentameter but does NOT use end rhyme.
 With METER without end RHYME

Questions to Ponder: Can you recall some of your favorite poem way back in elementary
and junior high school? Can you identify its structures? Which of the structural examples do
you think common?

B. SOUND
Rhythm is the basic beat in a line of a poem.
Example: “Whose woods these are, I think I know” is the first line from “Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. Notice that the accented words (underlined) give
the line a distinctive beat.

Meter is a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter happens when the stressed and
unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern. In meter, when
poets write, they need to count out the number of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed
(weak) syllables for each line. They repeat the pattern throughout the poem.

FOOT is a unit of meter.

A foot can have two or three syllables.
Usually consists of one stressed and one or more unstressed syllables.

TYPES OF FEET
The types of feet are determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed
syllables.

TYPES OF FEET
1. trochee (adjective form, trochaic) stressed-unstressed
a. Never/ never/ never/ never/ never
b. In the/ spring a/ young man's/ fancy/ lightly/ turns to/ thoughts of/ love. (In spite of a few
feet where the stress is debatable, especially foot 3, this poem is generally trochaic, as a
look at the rest of it would show. It is very common to omit the final unstressed syllable in
 this meter; see c. under accentual-syllabic above.)

2. anapest (anapestic) unstressed-unstressed-stressed

a. It was man/y and man/y a year/ ago (The variation in the last foot is common.)
b The Assyr/ian came down/ like a wolf/ on the fold,
And his co/horts were gleam/ing in purp/le and gold.

3. dactyl (dactylic) stressed-unstressed-unstressed

a. This is the/ forest pri/meval, the/ murmuring/ pines and the/ hemlocks (The two stressed
syllables in the last foot are required by the classical Greek form of the epic, which
Longfellow is imitating.)
b. What if a/ much of a/ which of a/ wind

4. spondee (spondaic) stressed-stressed

The spondee appears in isolated feet and never as a dominant meter in an entire poem. It is a
convenient way of describing feet in which it is hard to determine which syllable is stressed (e. g.,
young man's and hemlocks above) and of describing passages like the following from sonnets,
where Donne uses the spondees to hammer home the woes people can face in life and Hopkins
uses them along with internal rhyme, assonance, and alliteration for an unusual sound effect.
a. All whom/ war, death,/ age, ag/ues, tyr/annies,
Despair,/ law, chance,/ hath slain,/ and you/ whose eyes
Shall be/hold God
a. Crushed. Why/ do men/ then now/ not reck/ his rod?

5. pyrrhic (pyrrhic) unstressed-unstressed. See 6 d. below for an example.

At the/ round earth's/ ima/gined cor/ners blow.
The beginning of this line from Donne has a Pyrrhic Foot followed by a Spondee. This
combination (called a Double or Ionic Foot) often appears at the beginning of a line.

6. iamb (iambic) unstressed-stressed

The iamb is far and away the most common foot in English, comprising as much as 90-95 percent
of English verse. It is also the most conversational of the feet and therefore the most flexible and
most susceptible to variations. One such variation, as illustrated in the previous two quotes, is the
substitution of spondees for iambs. Others are listed below:
a. Five years/ have passed,/ five sum/mers with/ the length
Of five/long wint/ers! . . .
In addition to the spondees in the first line, the word with receives what is called a courtesy
accent; that is, it must be given more than normal conversational stress to fill out the line. Critics
have argued that the basic rhythm of spoken English usually dictates about four stresses per line
(the form of Old English verse) and that lines of poetry with five feet will therefore contain one
courtesy accent. This example also shows how a poet can manipulate meter for effect.
Wordsworth stresses the sense of the time lapse by repeating five and long (and its noun form
length) and stressing these words in normally unstressed positions.
 b. Scoffing/ his state/ and grin/ning at/ his pomp.
In addition to the courtesy accent in the fourth foot, Shakespeare includes a trochee in the first
foot. A trochee in an iambic line is called a reversed foot. In iambic pentameter verse, a reversed
foot occurs frequently in the first foot, sometimes in the third and fourth, and almost never in the
second and fifth.
c. To be/ or not/ to be;/ That is/ the question.
The extra unstressed syllable at the end of the line, though not common, is still a possible
variation in an iambic line. Note the fourth foot is reversed (unless you startle people by saying
"That IS the question," as Peter O'Toole is said to have done in one production of Hamlet).
d. At the/ round earth's/ ima/gined cor/ners blow.
The beginning of this line from Donne has a Pyrrhic Foot followed by a Spondee. This
combination (called a Double or Ionic Foot) often appears at the beginning of a line.
e. Of all/ that in/solent Greece/ or haught/y Rome,
An anapest in an iambic line is more common in some ages and poets (here, Jonson) than in
others.
f. And my/ tears make/ a heaven/ly Lethe/an flood.
This line by Donne shows such a wide range of variations that we might not call it iambic if it
were not in a sonnet with other iambic lines. As a clergyman, Donne almost certainly pronounced
heaven as one syllable (the way it is in hymns), and he appears to have stressed the second
syllable of Lethean. The line thus contains three regular feet, a spondee, and an anapest. Donne
generally makes his "Holy Sonnets" very irregular to combine powerful emotion and a oratorical
effect as in a sermon. But the point is that knowing what the regular meter was supposed to be
helps us identify and describe the effect Donne creates.

There are some other exotic feet such as the amphibrach (unstressed-stressed-unstressed), but for
all practical purposes, these six are the ones you need to know).

TOPIC 4: RHYTHM
Rhythm is the beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem. It can be created by meter,
rhyme, alliteration, and refrain.

There are five types of rhythm, but we will just focus with Accentual-syllabic. The number
of syllables and the number of accents is both counted, and the stressed and unstressed syllables
are usually alternated in a consistent pattern. When we think of poetry in English, this is the form
we think of, and it is the most common form from the time of Chaucer to the advent of free verse
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
a. And justify the ways of God to men. (5 accents, 10 syllables)
b. And malt does more than Milton can (4 accents, 8 syllables)
To justify God's ways to man.
c. Wake: the silver dusk returning (4 accents, 8 syllables with final
Up the beach of darkness brims. unstressed syllables in lines 2 & 4
 And the ship of sunrise burning omitted, a common variation)
Strands upon the eastern rims.

HOW TO FIND A METER IN ACCENTUAL-SYLLABIC VERSE

1. Find syllables that would ordinarily be accented in a dictionary and in conversation. In the
line "And justify the ways of God to men," for example, the first syllable in justify and the
syllables comprising ways, God, and man would receive stress in normal conversation. There is a
problem: although in the dictionary and in analyzing meter, we usually talk as if there were only
two levels of stress (stressed and unstressed), linguists suggest that there may be as many as four
in actual spoken English. Thus, in the word justify, the just is stressed more than i or fy, but fy is
stressed more than i. Nevertheless, if you look at enough lines, you should be able to get an
overall sense of the meter. The important thing to remember is that skillful poets will have a
meter, which fits a pattern, but which is also true to the actual rhythms of spoken English; their
work should sound natural.

2. Because poets want their work to sound natural, the meter of a given line, or even passage,
may vary slightly from the basic pattern; therefore, you need to go over several lines assigning
the stresses where they would fall in normal conversation. If you look at enough lines, a general
pattern should emerge.

3. A stressed syllable will be accompanied by some unstressed syllables, and in English they
usually (though not always) come before the stressed syllable. A stressed syllable and the
unstressed syllable(s), which go with it, are called a Foot. If you look at several lines, it should
become clear whether the unstressed syllables precede or follow the stressed.

4. After you have found the stressed and unstressed syllables, you may then put strokes between
the feet to determine the meter. The meter depends on the Type and Number of feet in a line. In
the example below, the type of foot has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed, and there
are five such feet. The meter would therefore be labeled iambic pentameter (iambic for the type of
foot and pentameter for the number).
The cur/ few tolls/ the knell/ of part/ ing day.

End Rhyme has same or similar sounds at the end of words that finish different
lines.
Example: The following are the first two rhyming lines from “The King of Cats Sends a Postcard
to His Wife” by Nancy Willard:
Keep your whiskers crisp and clean,
Do not let the mice grow lean,

Hector the Collector

Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
Internal Rhyme has same or similar sounds at the end of words within a line.
Example: A line showing internal rhyme from

When they said the time to hide was mine,

- “The Rabbit” by Elizabeth Maddox Roberts
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
- “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
Rhyme Scheme is a pattern of rhyme in a poem. A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually
end rhyme, but not always).

Example: A quatrain – a stanza of four lines in which the second and fourth lines rhyme – has the
following rhyme scheme: abcb (see Quatrain).
The Germ by Ogden Nash
A mighty creature is the germ, a
Though smaller than the pachyderm. a
His customary dwelling place b
Is deep within the human race. b
His childish pride he often pleases c
By giving people strange diseases. c
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? a
You probably contain a germ. a

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within words in a line. Example: A line showing
assonance (underlined) from “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore:
The children were nestled all snug in their beds

Sounds of a for words like Lake Fate Base Fade

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds within words in a line.

Example: A line showing consonance (underlined) from “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” by
Clement Clarke Moore: Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “

Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

Example: Notice the alliteration (underlined) in “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the
Garbage Out” by Shel Silverstein.
Tongue Twisters are perfect examples of Alliteration
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter
Piper pick?

Onomatopoeia are words that sound like their meaning.

Example: buzz, swish, hiss, gulp
Repetition is sounds, words, or phrases that are repeated to add emphasis or
create rhythm. Parallelism is a form of repetition.
Examples: Two lines from “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll showing parallelism:
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Read the poem “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe and listen to the way the repetition of the word
“bells” adds rhythm and creates an increasingly ominous and morbid mood.

Refrain is a line or stanza repeated over and over in a poem or song.

Example: In “Jingle Bells,” the following refrain is repeated after every stanza:
Jingle Bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!

Word Play is to play with the sounds and meanings of real or invented words.
Example: Two lines from the poem “Synonyms” by Susan Moger:
Claptrap, bombast, rodomontade,
Hogwash, jargon, and rant
Note: Imageries and Figures of Speech were already presented in the previous module. Take a
glimpse for you to recall it.

Questions to Ponder: Why do you think tone is important in writing a poem? Does it
affect your interest as a reader? Can you identify the tone elements of your favorite poem?

TOPIC : 5 ELEMENTS OF FICTION

C. ELEMENTS OF FICTION
(Poems may contain some or all elements of fiction. For example, a narrative poem
(a poem that tells a story) may contain all elements.)

Setting is the time and place where a story or poem takes place.

Point of View / Narrative Voice is the person narrating a story or poem (the
story/poem could be narrated in first person (I, we), second person (you), or third
person limited or omniscient (he/she, they).

Characterization is the development of the characters in a story or poem (what

they look like, what they say and do, what their personalities are like, what they
think and feel, and how they are referred to or treated by others).

Dialog or Dialogue is the conversation between the characters in a story or

poem.

Dialect or Colloquial Language is the style of speaking of the

narrator and the characters in a story or poem (according to their region, period,
and social expectations).

Conflict is the problem or situation a character or characters face in a story or

poem.

Plot is the series of events in a story or poem.

Tone and Voice are the distinctive, idiosyncratic way a narrator has of telling a
story or poem (tone and voice depend on the intended audience, the purpose for
writing, and the way the writer or poem feels about his/her subject).

Style is the way a writer uses words to craft a story or poem.

Mood is the feelings and emotions the writer wants the reader to experience.

Theme and Message are the main topic of a story or poem, and the message the
author or poet wants to convey about that topic.

Questions to Ponder: Can you think of a poem with a character? How

was it delivered? Is it possible to tell a story even if it is a poem? If you were
a poet, how would you use the presented elements?

D. FORMS OF POETRY
1. Found poems are created through the careful selection and organization of
words and phrases from existing text. These take existing texts and refashion
them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a
collage found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti,
speeches, letters, or even other poems.