1. Understanding poetry

2. I. Four basic types of verse
Accentual 重读诗
The accents determine the length of the line of poetry.
It can be found mainly in the works of the earlier poets, from the 8th century.
Syllabic 音节诗
The French developed a way of counting the number of syllables to establish the length of the lines of verse.
Accentual-syllabic 重读/音节诗
It came into being when the counting of accents and the counting of syllables in a line occurred ate the same time.
It often rhymes; has meter and usually moves with a predictable regularity.
Free verse 自由诗
It has no fixed metrical pattern: it is free from counting, measuring, and meter.

3. II. Stanza Types of stanzas: Couplets 2 -line stanzas
Quatrains line stanzas
Sextets line stanzas
Octets line stanzas

4. III. Foot and meter
U = unstressed
/ = stressed

5. Find the pattern U / = iambic / U = trochaic U U / = anapestic
/ U U = dactylic
/ / U = spondaic

6. Example 1 Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?
Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables makes up a unit called a foot. The line contains five feet in all, as shown next: 
1               2                 3              4               5 
Shall I.|..comPARE.|..thee TO.|..a SUM.|..mer’s DAY?

7. You need to know that each pattern is a foot
You need to know that each pattern is a foot! types of meter and the line length
..Monometer
One Foot
..Dimeter
Two Feet
..Trimeter
Three Feet
..Tetrameter
Four Feet
..Pentameter
Five Feet
..Hexameter
Six Feet
..Heptameter
Seven Feet
..Octameter
Eight Feet

8. Five types of feet Iamb (Iambic) 2 Syllables Trochee(Trochaic)
Unstressed + Stressed
2 Syllables
Trochee(Trochaic)
Stressed + Unstressed
Spondee(Spondaic)
Stressed + Stressed
Anapest(Anapestic)
Unstressed+Unstressed+Stressed
3 Syllables
Dactyl (Dactylic)
Stressed+Unstressed+Unstressed

9. Example 2 IAMBIC (U /) : That time of year thou mayst in me behold
TROCHAIC (/ u):
Tell me not in mournful numbers
SPONDAIC (/ /):
Break, break, break/ On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
Meters with three-syllable feet are
ANAPESTIC (u u /):
And the sound of a voice that is still
DACTYLIC (/ u u):
This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlock (a trochee replaces the final dactyl)

10. Example 3 iambic pentameter (5 iambs, 10 syllables)
That time | of year | thou mayst | in me | behold
trochaic tetrameter (4 trochees, 8 syllables)
Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers
anapestic trimeter (3 anapests, 9 syllables)
And the sound | of a voice | that is still
dactylic hexameter (6 dactyls, 17 syllables; a trochee replaces the last dactyl)
This is the | forest pri | meval, the | murmuring | pine and the | hemlocks

11. IV. Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of the same or similar sounds often occurring at set intervals in a poem.
Kinds of rhyme
Alliteration
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
Assonance
seat, weak
Consonance
luck, lick
Half-rhyme (approximate rhyme)
soul: oil; firth: forth; trolley: bully

12. V. Figurative Language Contrast Irony Hyperbole or overstatement
Understatement
Metonymy
Metaphor
Simile
Synecdoche
Symbolism
Onomatopoeia 拟声
Oxymoron 矛盾修饰法
Synesthesia 通感
Transferred epithet 转类形容词
Allegory 寓言
Apostrophe 顿呼
Conceit (outrageous metaphor) 奇喻

13. Conceit: a metaphor that goes beyond the original vehicle to other tenors and vehicles.采用迥异寻常的喻旨(tenor)和喻体(vehicle)。
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (John Donne)
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff with compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

14. Oxymoron:
Living death; mute cry; “no light, but darkness visible”
Synesthesia (通感):
It takes one of the five senses and creates a picture or
image of sensation as perceived by another.
“the golden cry of the trumpet”;
a fly’s “blue, uncertain stumbling buzz”
Symbolism:
Ocean—eternity

15. Similes and metaphors are used to make us take a closer look at a subject or to look at a subject in a new light.
Symbols and allegory, in contrast, force us to look beyond the literal meaning of the poem’s statement or action.