1. Poetry II

2. Rhetorical Devices
Schemes (Satzfiguren)
Tropes
(Wortfiguren)

3. Phonological Schemes alliteration
„Five miles meandering with a mazy motion“ (Coleridge, Kubla Khan)
assonance
„The Lotus blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotus blows by every winding creek:“
consonance
slip, slop; black, block
onomatopoeia (Lautmalerei)
dong, crackle, moo, pop, whizz, whoosh, zoom
alliteration: the same sound/consonant is repeated at the beginning of several words or stressed syllables in words that are in close proximity
assonance: the same or similar vowel sounds are repeated in the stressed syllables of words that are in close proximity, while the consonants differ
consonance: two or more consonants are repeated, but the adjacent vowels differ
onomatopoeia: formation and use of words that imitate sounds

4. Example: Onomatopoeia
the sound of the word imitates the sound of the thing which the word denotes
e.g. Hear the loud alarum bells –
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! [...]
How they clang, and clash and roar!
(Poe, „The Bell“)

5. Morphological Schemes:
anaphora
epiphora
repetition
„Tyger! Tyger! burning bright…“ (William Blake, „The Tyger“)
homonym
seal; rest
synonym
insane, mad, demented
tautology
I myself personally….
anaphora: repeated words at the beginning of lines
epiphora: repeated words at the end of lines
repetition: immediate repetition of words
climax:arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an order of ascending power
homonym: words with the same pronunciation and / or spelling but with different meanings
synonym:use of words with the same or similar meanings
tautology: one idea is repeatedly, redundantly expressed through additional words, phrases, or sentences

6. Example: Anaphora
a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines
e.g.
„And I know that the hand of God is the elderhand of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the eldest brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers….and the
women my sisters and lovers,
And that the kelson of the creation is love,;
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
and brown ants in the little wells beneath them, …“
(Walt Whitman, „Song for Myself“)

7. Syntactic Schemes: asyndeton polysyndeton chiasmus ellipsis hyperbaton
inversion
parallelism
zeugma
asyndeton: the omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases, clauses, or words (opposite of polysyndeton) where normally conjunctions would be used
polysyndeton: phrases joined by conjunctions
chiasmus: from the shape of the Greek letter ‘chi’ (X); two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted, mirror-like order (a-b, b-a)
ellipsis:a word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though implied by the context
hyperbaton: a figure of syntactic dislocation where a phrase or words that belong together are separated
inversion: inversion of the usual SPO/wordorder for emphasis of the word with a new conspicuous position, or to maintain the metre
parallelism: the repetition of identical or similar syntactic elements (word, phrase, clause), phrases or sentences of similar construction
zeugma: figure of speech in which the same word (verb or preposition) is applied to two others in different senses

8. Example: Asyndeton
omission of conjunctions to coordinate phrases, clauses, or words
e.g.
„Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation‘s Freight Handler;“
(Carl Sandburg, „Chicago“)

9. Example: Polysyndeton
joins phrases by conjunctions
e.g.
„To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new…“
(Matthew Arnold, „Dover Beach“)

10. Example: Chiasmus
two corresponding pairs are arranged in inverted, mirror-like order (a-b, b-a) to achieve antithesis or parallelism
e.g.
From Rome to London and from London to Rome.

11. Example: Ellipsis
word or phrase in a sentence is omitted though implied by the context
e.g.
My wife went but I didn‘t…

12. Example: Hyperbaton
figure of syntactic dislocation where phrase or words that belong together are separated
e.g.
„High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormuz of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.“
(Milton, Paradise Lost)

13. Example: Inversion
the usual word order is rearranged, often for the effect of emphasis or to maintain the metre
e.g.
„Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm‘d;“
(Shakespeare, „Sonnet 18“)

14. Example: Parallelism e.g.
repetition of identical or similar syntactic elements (word, phrase, clause), phrases or sentences of similar construction
e.g.
„The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with halfshut
eyes bent sideways,
The deckhands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the shoregoing passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein, the elder sister winds it off
in a ball and stops now and then for the knots,…“
(Walt Whitman, „Song of Myself“)

15. Example: Zeugma
the same word (verb or preposition) is applied to two others in different senses
e.g.
„she looked at the object with suspicion and a magnifying glass.“
(Charles Dickens)

16. Types of Poetry Lyrical Poetry Descriptive Poetry Dramatic Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Descriptive Poetry
Dramatic Poetry

17. Lyric Poetry
A relatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents a state of mind or an emotional state.
subcategories: elegy, ode, sonnet, most occasional poetry.

18. Example: Sonnet originally a love poem
religious experience (e.g. Donne, Milton)
reflections on art (e.g. Keats, Shelley)
war experience (e.g. Brooke, Owen)
originated in Italy
became popular in England in the Renaissance

19. Petrarcan vs. Shakespearean
octet (eigth lines) rhyming abbaabba
sestet (six lines) rhyming cdecde
variations apply
three quatrains (four lines) rhyming abab cdcd efef
one final couplet (two lines) rhyming gg
variations apply

20. Example: Petrarchan Sonnet
Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame
Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy?
Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy
Whom all the world doth as my lady name!
How honour grows, and pure devotion's flame,
How truth is joined with graceful dignity,
There thou may'st learn, and what the path may be
To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;
There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill,
And softer silence, and those holy ways
Unutterable, untold by human heart.
But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,
This none can copy! since its lovely rays
Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art.
Translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

21. Example: Shakespearean Sonnet
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless, this miracle have might
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
(Shakespeare, “Sonnet 65”)

22. Example: Claude McKay His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven.
His father, by the cruelest way of pain,
Had bidden him to his bosom once again;
The awful sin remained still unforgiven.
All night a bright and solitary star
(Perchance the one that ever guided him,
Yet gave him up at last to Fate‘s wild whim)
Hung pitifully o‘er the swinging char.
Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came into view
The ghastly body swayingin the sun.
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue.
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.
(McKay, „The Lynching“)

23. Example: Robert Gernhardt
Sonette find ich sowas von beschissen, so eng, rigide, irgendwie nicht gut; es macht mich ehrlich richtig krank zu wissen, daß wer Sonette schreibt. Daß wer den Mut
hat, heute noch so'n dumpfen Scheiß zu bauen; allein der Fakt, daß so ein Typ das tut, kann mir in echt den ganzen Tag versauen. Ich hab da eine Sperre. Und die Wut
darüber, daß so'n abgefuckter Kacker mich mittels seiner Wichserein blockiert, schafft in mir Aggressionen auf den Macker.
Ich tick nicht, was das Arschloch motiviert. Ich tick es echt nicht. Und wills echt nicht wissen: Ich find Sonette unheimlich beschissen.
(Gernhardt, Materialen zu einer der bekanntesten Gedichtformen Italienischen Ursprungs)

24. Narrative Poetry
Poem which gives verbal representation, in verse, of a sequence of connected events; it propels characters through a plot and is told by a narrator.
subcategories: epics, mock-epic, ballad

25. Example: Epic
Epics usually operate on large scale, both in length and topic, such as the founding of a nation, hero sagas, or (mockeries of) grand narratives.
e.g. Virgil‘s Aeneid
e.g. Beowulf
e.g. Milton‘s Paradise Lost

26. Example: Ballad
A ballad is a song, originally transmitted orally, which tells a story.
usually four-line stanzas, alternating tetrameter and trimeter
folk ballad
steet ballad
literary ballad

27. Descriptive and Dramatic Poetry
Both lyric and narrative poetry can contain lengthy and detailed descriptions (descriptive poetry) or scenes in direct speech (dramatic poetry).

28. Didactic Poetry
The purpose of a didactic poem is primarily to teach something.
e.g. James Thomson‘s „The Seasons“
e.g. Alexander Pope‘s „Essay on Criticism“
Horace (65-8 BC):
prodesse (learning)
delectare (pleasure)

29. Metre
Metre is the measured arrangements of accents and syllables in poetry. The metre is defined by the kind and number of feet.
Accentual metre
Syllabic metre
Accentual-Syllabic metre
Free verse
Metre is the measured arrangement of accents and syllables in poetry.
In any kind of utterance we stress certain syllables and not others. Poetry employs the stresses that occur naturally in language utterance to construct regular patterns.
There are various possibilities for metrical patterns in poetry.
1. Accentual metre each line has the same number of stresses, but varies in the total number of syllables
2. Syllabic metre each line has the same number of syllables but the number of stresses varies
3. Accentual-Syllabic metre each line has the same number of stressed and non-stressed syllables in a fixed order. This is by far the most common metrical
system in English verse
4. Free verse irregular patterns of stress and syllables

30. Scansion, to scan We won't talk of stress, o 1 –o– 1 or x/xx/
We won't talk of feet.
o –o– 1 as in “daffodil”
We'll talk about rhythm, / x x
o –o– (o)
We'll talk about beat.
o –o– 1
(from Carper/Altridge 2004)

31. Metre and Line Length iamb (o1) trochee (1o) dactyl (1oo)
anapaest (oo1)
spondee (11)
monometre
dimetre
trimetre
tetrametre
pentametre
hexametre
heptametre
octametre

32. So What?
Metre must be suitable for the poem. Otherwise it leads to more or less ridiculous contradictions and thematic incoherence.
The interplay of metre, rhythm and topic can also achieve a comic, satirical, alienating, shocking effect.

33. Example: Unsuitable Metre
The poplars are fell’d, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade,
The winds play no longer, and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.
Twelve years have elaps’d since I last took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.
(Cowper, „The Poplar Field“)

34. Example: Metre as Comic Effect
Corinna, Pride of Drury-Lane,
For whom no Shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent Garden boast
So bright a batter’d, strolling Toast;
No drunken Rake to pick her up,
No Cellar where on Tick to sup;
Returning at the Midnight Hour;
Four stories climbing to her Bow’r;
Then, seated on a three-legg’d Chair,
Takes off her artificial Hair:
Now picking out a Crystal Eye,
She wipes it clean, and lays it by.
Her Eye-Brows from a Mouse’s hyde,
Stuck on with Art on either Side,
Pulls off with Care, and first displays ’em,
Then in a Play-Book smoothly lays ’em.
Now dextrously her Plumpers draws,
That serve to fill her hollow Jaws.
Untwists a Wire; and from her Gums
A Set of Teeth completely comes. […]
(From: Swift, „A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed“)

35. Free Verse
Free verse does not use any particular pattern of stress or number of syllables per line.
Although without regular metre, it is not without rhythmic effect and organisation. It can be organised around syntactic units, words or sound repetitions.

36. Example: Free Verse Some quick to arm, some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
some learning later ...
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
(Pound, „Hugh Selwyn Mauberley“)

37. Rhythm: Poetry exploits rhythms to create additional meaning.
Rhythm is „a series of alterations of build-up and release, movement and counter-movement, tending toward regularity but complicated by constant variations and local inflections.“ (Attridge 1995: 3)

38. Rhythm is influenced by:
pauses
elisions (omission or slurring of a syllable)
e.g. „Hung pitifully o‘er the swinging char.“ (Claude McKay)
vowel length
consonant clusters
modulation (adjustment of tone, pitch/Tonhöhe, or volume of sound)

39. Pauses end-stopped lines (Zeilenstil)
e.g. „Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,” (Shakespeare)
run-on-lines (Enjambement)
e.g.
„And that all the men ever born are also my brothers….and the
women my sisters and lovers,“ (Whitman)
caesura (Zäsur) comma, colon, full stop at end of line
e.g. „The sea is calm to-night.“ (Arnold)

40. Example: Pauses
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair upon the straits; on the French coast the light gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air! Only, from the long line of spray where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, listen! you hear the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, at their return, up the high strand, begin, and cease, and then again begin, with tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in.

41. Example: end-stopped line
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
(From: Matthew Arnold, „Dover Beach“)

42. Sound Patterns (Rhyme)
When two words have the same sound (phoneme) from the last stressed vowel onwards, they are considered to rhyme.

43. Forms of Rhymes masculine (man – fan) feminine (gender – bender)
triple (treacherous – lecherous)
identical rhyme (know – no)
eye-rhyme (move –dove)
half-rhyme (loads – lids; foam – moan)
internal (East, west, home‘s best)
external (aabb, abab, abba, abcabc)

44. External Rhyme rhyming couplet (aabb) alternate / cross rhyme (abab)
embracing / enclosing rhyme (abba)
tail rhyme (abcabc)

45. So What? Sylistic devices can draw one‘s attention to certain elements
create connections between certain elements
make a text more comprehensive
characterize the speaker
elicit certain emotional responses in readers or listeners

46. Analysis of Poetry: situation / subject matter
concepts / oppositions (love – hate, life - death)
lyrical persona or implicit voice
fictional addressee
mood, tone
poetic form (metre, rhythm, sound, type of poem)
rhetorical form (figurative language) tropes, schemes

47. Reference / Sources:
Thomas Carper, Derek Attridge. Meter and Meaning: an Introduction to Rhythm in Poetry. London & New York: Routledge, 2004.
Jeffrey Wainright. Poetry: The Basics. London & New York: Routledge, 2004.
Chris Baldick. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2004
J. A. Cuddon. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. London: Penguin Books, 1998.
Michael Meyer. English and American Literatures. Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke, 2004.