1. Analysing Poetry
The Basics

2. Aspects for Analysis
SCASI- still a basic tool for both poetry and prose
Time- for poetry, this is an important aspect of setting
Narrator- as part of character, narrator plays an important role in poetry
Action- consider the changing flow of ideas in the poem

3. Aspects of Style
Structure- type of poem, structure of both poem and ideas
Elements that support structure- caesura, enjambment, end stop, volce face
Imagery- look for and discuss patterns of imagery (how do they support thematic ideas? Consider senses)
Language- punctuation, syntax, level of formality, diction
Figurative Language

4. Style: Rhythm
Rhythm refers to the “movement” of the poem, and is created through meter and stress patterns.

5. Stress
Syllable Stress: natural rhythms of language we use automatically. Poets use these natural stresses in their overall rhythmic effect
Emphatic Stress: deliberate emphasis on a word or part of a word for effect. The stress emphasizes meaning, or can change it.
Phrasing and Punctuation also influence rhythm (word order, length of phrases, punctuation and line breaks, and repetition, as examples)

6. Metre
Poetic metre is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Variations in pattern can mark changes in mood or tone, or signify change of direction in the movement of the poem.

7. Main patterns of feet
Syllables can be divided into groups of two or three.
Each group is called a foot.
The number of feet in a line can vary.
One foot
Monometer
Two feet
Dimeter
Three feet
Trimeter
Four feet
Tetrameter
Five feet
Pentameter
Six feet
Hexameter
Seven feet
heptameter
Eight feet
octameter

8. 5 Basic Patterns of Stress
Iambic: one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. (Shakespeare)
Trochaic: one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.
e.g. Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright
In the forests of the night
-Blake

9. Stress Patterns continued
Dactylic: one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
Half a league, Half a league,
Half a league, onward
-Tennyson
Anapaestic: two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable.
Will’s at the dance in the Club-room below,
Where the tall liquor cups foam;
-Hardy

10. Stress Patterns Continued
Spondaic: two stressed syllables.
e.g. One, two
Buckle my shoe.

11. When I have fears by John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen hath glean’d my teeming brain
Before high-piled books, in charact’ry
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain:
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! – then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

12. Style: Rhyme
Rhyme can contribute to the musical quality of a poem. It affects sound and overall effectiveness.
The rhyme scheme can
unify and draw a poem together
Give in an incantatory quality
Add emphasis to particular elements of vocabulary

13. Rhyme Internal rhymes: rhymes that occur within a line of poetry.
e.g. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea
-Coleridge

14. Rhyme
Sight Rhymes: (or eye rhymes) are lines that look similar but are incomplete or inaccurate.
e.g. “love” and “move” or “plough” and “rough”

15. Rhyme
Poets may choose to use these to deliberately weaken the force of the rhyme by making either the consonant or vowel different
e.g.
Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles
Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles
-Wilfred Owen
These are called half rhyme, slant rhyme or para-rhyme

16. Analysing Rhyme
The important thing is not spotting the rhymes or rhyme scheme, but rather identifying the effect of the rhyme scheme on the poem.
You need to explain WHY the poet has chosen to use language this way.

17. Possible Effects of Rhyme
Make a poem sound musical and pleasing to the ear
Create a jarring, discordant effect
Add emphasis to certain words and give particular words added prominence
Act as a unifying influence on the poem, drawing it together through rhyme patterns

18. Possible Effects of Rhyme cont’d
Give the poem a rhythmic, incantatory or ritualistic feel.
It can influence the rhythm of the verse
It can provide a sense of finality (e.g. a rhyming couplet for a sense of “ending”)
It can exert a subconscious effect, drawing together certain words or images, affecting sound, or adding emphasis in some way

19. Mean Time by Carol Ann Duffy
The clocks slid back an hour
And stole light from my life
As I walked through the wrong part of town,
Mourning our love.
And, of course, unmendable rain
Fell to the bleak streets
Where I felt my heart gnaw
At all our mistakes
If the darkening sky could lift
more than one hour from this day
there are words I would never have said
nor have heard you say.
But we will be dead, as we know,
beyond all light.
these are the shortened days
and the endless nights.