Poetry Lecture 2:

Looking at four poems

 Announcements

• (1) Tutorials registration – any problems?

• (2) Handout: a checklist for poetry analysis

 Re-visiting last week

• (1) The use of rhyme in Donne’s “Holy Sonnet

14”

• What are some significant rhymes in “Sonnet

14”?

• Rhymes associate words and suggest ideas

through this association of words.
• Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14”

• Run-on lines
• Provocative imagery!
• Irregular meter
 Use of rhyme

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

Rhyme: abba
 Rhyme in the sestet

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lovéd fain,

But am betroth’d unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Sestet: cdcddd
• One can argue that the rhyme in the sestet
give a sense that the poem ends on an
____________ note.

• Note that the meaning you use has to be

in the context of the line in the poem.
 Rhyme in the sestet

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lovéd fain,

But am betroth’d unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
• There’s the use of eye-rhyme in “enemy”
and “I” (lines 9 and 11)

• Another eye rhyme: come/home

• Function of eye-rhyme?
• There can be variations to the rhyme
scheme in the octave and sestet

• As long as the rhyme scheme reflect an 8

and 6 division, it’s a Petrarchan sonnet

• Most sonnets are Petrarchan sonnets!

(Only Shakespeare writes Shakespearean
sonnets.)
• (2) The use of run-on lines

• Run-on line: also known as enjambment (or the

use of an enjambed line)

• The line break in a run-on line can emphasize

certain words (see first 2 lines of “Holy Sonnet
14”)
Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to
mend;
 My approach for today

• We will read and enjoy 4 poems.

• We will look at the content and form of

these poems as we read them, and pick
up on their literary techniques along the
way.

• A summary at the end

Poem A: “The Owl” by Edward Thomas

• The speaker is a soldier who has deserted the

army and war and, being in a physically weary
state, he finds shelter at an inn. What happens
then?

• The use of run-on lines to create an effect of

surprise

• The use of end-stopped lines

• Do you like this poem? 

• Very briefly, what is it about?

Run-on lines

Down hill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.
 
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
 
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
 
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry
 
Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.
• The use of imagery – salt

• Comment on the image of salt

And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

The use of alliteration – salted and sobered /

soldiers
• Alliteration can contribute to the sound of
the poem

• It can also associate words and suggest

meanings
• The use of alliteration – repetition of
consonant sounds

• Alliteration and consonance can be taken

as similar
 Poem B:
“Dulce Et Decorum Est”
• Wilfred Owen’s life
– Owen fought in the war as an
infantry officer
– Tragically, he was killed just one week
before the war ended
– His war poems were never published in his
lifetime

• The title is from the Latin sentence “Dulce et

decorum est pro patria mori.” (It is a sweet and
beautiful/fitting thing to die for one’s country.)
 Content
• First, focus on the content of the poem

• What is the poem trying to say? What message,

points or ideas is it conveying?

• Answer: _________________________

• Padlet: https://
padlet.com/gyeoh2002/bhof4u9frzatvbhm
• What’s the poem’s broader context? Who
is the poem addressing?

• The poem wishes to counter:

__________________________

• Owen uses the authority of his own

witness (eye witness account!)
 Looking at the formal aspects of the
poem

• How does the poem convey the reality and

horror of war to the reader?

– For example, the use of direct speech (“Gas!

GAS! Quick, boys!”)
– The increasing urgency (shift to capital letters)
– The contrast between the 1st and 2nd stanzas
• You can comment on any detail in the poem you
find significant.

• The point you make does not always have to be

a standard technical point 

• Just use your normal intelligence . See what

significant points jumps out at you.
 Structure (or Form)

• Let’s look at the structure of “Dulce.”

• It has stanzas of different length.

• In particular, the 3rd stanza is very short—just

two lines--significance?

• Try commenting on this short stanza

• Stanza lengths:
– 8 lines
– 6 lines
– 2 lines
– 12 lines
3rd stanza:

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
• First line: very regular iambic pentameter

• Next line: departs from the regularity of the

iambic pentameter for a reason
 Now, let’s look at the poem’s opening

• What can you comment on?

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

The use of imagery, i.e. the use of simile

• Two basic types of images:

(a) The simile—an explicitly stated comparison

using terms like “like” or “as”

(b) The metaphor—a comparison that is not

explicitly stated
Holy Sonnet 14

I, like an usurpt town, to another due,

Labor to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.

viceroy = governor
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
• The use of sound

the use of hard or harsh sounds

the consonance or alliteration of “k”-

sounds
 Let’s look at the last stanza

• What can you comment on?

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
 The use of imagery

• (1) Simile
• (2) Metaphor

• (3) Actual images, e.g. salt; the motif of

tongues and telling, “bent double”
 The use of sound
• (1) Rhyme

• (2) Rhythm – iambic pentameter only

• (3) Alliteration/Consonance

• (4) The sound of words—hard, harsh sounds or

gentle sounds?
• What is the difference between blank
verse and free verse?

• Both are unrhyming but . . .

 Opening of Shakespeare’s
Merchant of Venice

Antonio:
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
Poem C: Bishop “One Art” – a villanelle

• This poem is about loss. The speaker gives the

impression she can cope with loss.

• Like the sonnet, the villanelle has a regular form.

Look at the form of the villanelle

• The villanelle has a very repetitive form. How is

it used here?
• Villanelle: a poem of 19-lines
 The form of a villanelle

• Five 3-line stanzas (aba) followed by a

concluding 4-line stanza (abaa).
5 tercets and 1 quatrain

• The 1st and 3rd line of the first stanza rhyme.

• Furthermore, the entire 1st line is repeated as
the last line of the 2nd and 4th stanza, while the
entire 3rd line is repeated as the last line of the
3rd and 5th stanzas.
• These 2 lines form the last 2 lines of the last
stanza.
• A very repetitive form

• It’s hard to write and there are only 2-4

(truly) successful villanelles in English
poetry!

• One more villanelle: Dylan Thomas “Do

Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.”
Questions

• What is the speaker saying? (content)

• How is the villanelle’s repetitive form being

used in “One Art”? 

• What progression do you see in “One Art”?

• Let’s look at the last stanza:

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
• Here we see what we call the close
reading of poetry

• We comment even on a detail like a “dash”

or a parenthesis!

• Literature students are trained in the close

reading of literary texts
• We can comment on other aspects of the
last stanza:
– The use of run-on line
– The use of rhyme

• Think about the significance of the title:

“One Art”
Run-on line
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Rhyme
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

gesture/master
• The use of a half-rhyme

• Half-rhyme versus full rhyme

 There is always a sense of __________

 Significance?
The title: “One Art” – significance?
• What does the title refer to?
• “One Art” also refers to ______________
• The regular form of the villanelle is to
impose a sense of order and control  but
a false control!
 Poem D: Donne “Holy Sonnet 7”

• This sonnet is about the Day of Judgment

where, in Christian belief, Jesus will come
and judge everyone who has ever lived!

• The octave enumerates how everyone

who has ever lived will be awakened and
judged!
• Donne’s poems are very theological, and
they reflect Christian ideas in imaginative
ways!
 Questions
• How is the octave/sestet division used in
this sonnet?

• Comment on the use of rhyme in the

sestet.
• What is the sestet saying?

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;

For, if above all these, my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.
• In a small humble way now, I can repent
and receive Christ’s forgiveness through
his blood.

• “Teach me how to repent . . .”

• Never mind this dramatic large-scale Day
of Judgement

• What’s more important is that now I repent

and receive God’s pardon (Jesus’ blood)
in a humble way, I can already “pass”
the Day of Judgment
Octave/ sestet division

• Impersonal versus personal

• Dramatic versus modest/small-scale 

the poem plays with spatial dimensions
• Rhyme in the sestet?

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space;

For, if above all these, my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground,
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou hadst sealed my pardon with thy blood.
• space/grace

• There is space for God’s grace?

• good/blood  is an eye-rhyme

• Why?
 Conclusion: checklists!
• (1) If you wish, you can use the checklist
given by Barnet and Cain.

• (2) Alternately, you can use the checklist I

give in the next few slides. This is Dr
Yeoh’s checklist 

• Obviously, no checklist is “comprehensive”

 Structure (or form)
• (1) Petrarchan or Italian sonnet form
– Octave and sestet division

• (2) Shakespearean or English sonnet form

– 3 quatrains and 1 final couplet

• (3) Villanelle form

• (4) Run-on lines and end-stopped lines

 The use of imagery

• (1) Simile

• (2) Metaphor

• (3) Actual images, e.g. salt; tongues and

telling
 The use of sound
• (1) Rhyme

• (2) Rhythm or meter – iambic pentameter only

• (3) Alliteration/Consonance

• (4) The sound of words—hard, harsh sounds,

gentle sounds?
 Miscellaneous
• (1) You can comment on any words that
strike you as important
• (2) The use of rhythm and meter

• You only need to know the iambic pentameter (5

iambic feet) for this module

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee