Poetry analysis

contents

• Chapter 4
• Renaissance poetry
• Poetic terms
Chapter 4
Chapter 4

• Put the content of the poem in your own words, line by line. Explain any possible symbolism in
the text.

• Show examples of the following poetic terms in the text: assonance, consonance, alliteration,
meter, repetitions, enjambment, rhyme scheme,

• Discuss what period traits you can identify in the text. Use quotes.
• Argue a connection between an event or philosophy from chapter 1 and your text. Use quotes
from the poem.

• Discuss what period traits the text has in common with a specific work of art you discussed in
chapter 2. Use quotes.

• Give your opinion on the text - Refer to specific parts of the poem; discuss multiple aspects of the
poem (e.g. story, symbolism, writing style etc)
Renaissance poetry
Styles - renaissance

• Pastoral: Poetry that tells stories about country life. Represents country life as
pure, innocent and natural, as opposed to life at court.

• Lyric: Short, non-narrative, expression of thought / feeling. Sonnets most

popular form (14 lines)

• Romantic epic: Long (short version is called Epyllion) narrative about love and
or heroic figure. Retellings of classical myths and adventures
Metaphysics - renaissance

• Metaphysical poetry discusses a topic beyond physical reality.

• Does God exist?
• What is love?
• Does free choice exist?
• What is the nature of death?
• Intellectual / argumentative
• Uses conceits (strange, extended comparisons)
Cavaliers - renaissance

• Cavalier poetry discusses trying to get the most out of life.

• Carpe diem
• Love / sex
• Drink / food / enjoyment
• war
• Beauty / self-improvement
• Uses (reasonably) straightforward language
Characteristics - renaissance

• Greek & Roman references mixed with Christian references

• Focus on ‘real’ humans/humanity
• Idealised women
• Idealised nature
• Word play / puns
• Figurative language
• Use of both ‘high’ and ‘low’ language
• (strict) use of forms
Poetic terms
Poetic terms

• Units
• Sound devices
• Meter
• Symbolism
Units
Lines & sentences

• Lines: the words in a poem written from left to right until the poet returns to
the left side of the page. Used to determine rhyme scheme and meter.

• Sentence: grammatical structure. The words until a full stop (.) is reached.
• ex: Ich am of Irlonde,
Ant of the holy londe,
Of Irlonde.

• 1 sentence consisting of 3 lines.

 Units
Lines & sentences

• Enjambment: when a line is incomplete and the meaning runs over into the
following line. When reading, this delay of meaning creates a tension which is
not resolved until the word or phrase that completes the meaning is
encountered.
ex

• ex: And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
.

Units
stanzas

• Stanza: similar to paragraphs. Often contain connected thoughts and are set off by a space.
Within a poem, stanzas can vary in length.

• couplet: 2 lines
• tercet: 3 lines
• quatrain: 4 lines
• quintet: 5 lines
• sestet: 6 lines
• septet:7 lines
• octave: 8 lines
Sound devices
Rhyme schemes

• Rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhyme that comes at the end of each line in
poetry. Usually indicated by assigning letters to rhymes.

• Monorhyme: AAAA
• Couplets: AABB etc
• Alternate Rhyme: ABAB
• Enclosed Rhyme: ABBA
• ex: Ich am of Irlonde, A
Ant of the holy londe, A
Of Irlonde. A

A tercet of monorhyme.
Sound devices
Assonance / Consonance / Alliteration

• Assonance: repetition in vowel-sounds in lines op poetry

• ex: That floats on high o’er vales and hills
• Consonance: repetition of consonant-sounds in lines of poetry
• ex: And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, …
• Alliteration: repetition of sounds at the start of words
• ex: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Meter

• Meter: patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables to create a certain

rhythm when reading a poem out loud.

• Whether a word or syllable is stressed or unstressed is determined by

surrounding words, and relative. (a slightly more stressed pronunciation
counts as stressed)

• Usually indicated using x=unstressed & /=stressed

• In a pattern, a single combination of syllables is called a foot.
Meter
common patterns

• Iambic meter: unstressed - stressed ( x / )

• Trochaic meter: stressed - unstressed ( / x )
• Spondaic meter: stressed - stressed ( / / )
• Anapestic meter: unstressed - unstressed - stressed ( x x / )
• Dactylic meter: stressed - unstressed - unstressed ( / x x )
Meter
feet

• monometer: one foot

• dimeter: two feet
• trimeter: three feet
• tetrameter: four feet
• pentameter: five feet
• sextameter: six feet
• heptameter: seven feet
• octameter: 8 feet
Meter
examples

x / x / x / x / x
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep
-Iambic pentamete

/ x x / x x
Half a league, half a league
- Dactylic dimeter
r

Meter

• If at the end of a line of poetry there seems to be a syllable missing to

complete the pattern, this is (also) called a caesura, this is indicated with II.

• ex:
/ x / x / x / x / x / x / x / I
As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and drop

a trochaic octameter ending in a caesura.

Symbolism

• Often an item, phrase, or action that is given a different, deeper meaning.

• Can shift meanings depending on context.

• ex: a chain can stand for union, but also imprisonment.

 Symbolism
Metaphor

• The use of words to mean something other than the literal meaning (as in the
dictionary). Rather the ideas associated with the word are meant.

ex. No man is an island

entire of itself,
every man is a piece of the continent,

Symbolism
Simile

• A comparison with one thing and a thing of a (very) different kind to make a
description more vivid.

• ex: He is as tough as nails - She can swim like a fish