Foot

The foot is the metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured; it usually consists of one stressed or accented ( ' ) and one or two unstressed or unaccented syllables ( - ).

Source: A Handbook of Terms for Discussing Poetry

Name of Foot Name of Meter Measure

Iamb Iambic - '

Trochee Trochaic ' -

Anapest Anapestic - - '

Dactyl Dactylic ' - -

Spondee Spondaic ' '

Pyrrhus Pyrrhic - -

Line

The secondary unit of measurement, the line, is measured by naming the number of feet in it. A line that ends with a stressed syllable is said to have a masculine ending and a line that ends with an extra syllable is said to have a feminine ending.

One foot MonometerTwo feet DimeterThree feet TrimeterFour feet TetrameterFive feet PentameterSix feet HexameterSeven feet HeptameterEight feet Octameter

Stanza

The stanza consists of a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem.

Patterns of Traditional Poems

Ballad is a long singing poem that tells a story (usually of love or adventure), written in quatrains - four lines alternatively of four and three feet - the third line may have internal rhymes. (民謠　）

Blank Verse is made up of unrhymed iambic pentameter lines. （無韻詩 )

Elegy is a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead. (輓歌 )

Epigram is a brief, pointed, and witty poem of no prescribed form. (詼諧短詩 )

Free Verse has no identifiable meter, although the lines may have a rhyme-scheme.

Lyric is a poem of emotional intensity and expresses powerful feelings.

Heroic Couplet is two lines of rhyming iambic pentameters. (英雄詩體 )

Narrative form is used to tell a story; it is usually made of ballad stanzas - four lines alternatively of four and three feet.

Ode, English in origin, is a poem of indefinite length, divided in 10-line stanzas, rhymed, with different schemes for each stanza - ababcdecde, written in iambic meter. (Keats’s “Ode to Autumn”)

Parody is a humorous imitation of a serious poem.

Sonnet is a fourteen line poem. The Italian or Petrarchan has two stanzas: the first of eight lines is called octave and has the rhyme-scheme abba abba; the second of six lines is called the sestet and has the rhyme cdecde or cdcdcd. The Spenserian sonnet, developed by Edmund Spenser, has three quatrains and a heroic couplet, in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababbcbccdcdee. The English sonnet, developed by Shakespeare, has three quatrains and a heroic couplet, in iambic pentameter with rhymes ababcdcdefefgg.

Nothing Gold Can StayNothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to Grief,So Eden sank to Grief,

So dawn goes down to day.So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.Nothing gold can stay.

Q & A

Who wrote the poem? A: Robert Frost.

What’s the rhyme pattern of the poem?

A: aa bb cc dd

What’s the theme of the poem?

A: The fleeting of time.

Poets use figures of speech to make their poetry more interesting and to create imagery. 

An image is a mental picture that is created by words. The poet tries to paint a picture in our minds by his choice of words.

What are similes?

Similes are comparisons using "like" or "as".

The poet compares two things that have something in common. Notice these two things must belong to different classes. Otherwise, it is not simile.

A simile is like a double mirror.

What are metaphors?

A metaphor is similar to a simile, but it is an indirect comparison, not using like or as.

Identify which one uses simile and which one uses metaphor.

1. All world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

2. Fanny’s hands felt as cold as ice.3.Her eyes are shining like stars.

1. You are my sunshine. 2. 我韃韃的馬蹄是美麗的錯誤 3.我是天空裡的一片雲 4.你就像那冬天裡的一把火 5. Her early leaf’s a flower 6.In the tower the bell is alone, like a man in his room thinking and thinking

Identify which one uses simile and which one uses metaphor.

What is personification?

Personification is when we give a non-human thing human qualities - actions, thoughts, feelings, and habits.

We need to see what quality has been given, and why.

Try to identify how Wordsworth used similes, metaphors, or personification.

1. Simile: Wordsworth compared himself to a cloud.

By this comparison, the poet becomes part of nature and therefore may dance together with the daffodils.

2. Metaphor

Wordsworth thought of the daffodils as people who are dancing and shaking their heads in the wind to welcome the poet.

3. personification

A. The clouds wander, and the waves dance, but most of his attention is focused on the daffodils. He refers to them as a "crowd," a "host," and a "company," all words that refer to groups of people, not flowers. They dance and toss their heads.

B. But, most importantly, they express emotions, merriment or cheerfulness ("jocund"), and "glee." This is pathetic fallacy; the flowers are expressing the mood of the poet.

A. Choose a topic.   

                

Your topic should be about "love," any kind of love, such as "my love toward (someone)," "My (adjective ) love" "Our teacher's love."  Exercise your imagination to create your own topic.  

B. Next, try to create your poem by answering the following questions.

(1) What is your topic?

(2) What season does it make you think of?

(3) What color is it?

(4) What would it sound like?

(5) What would it smell like?

(6) What would it taste like?

(7) What does it make you feel like?

(8) How are you going to deal with it?   

    C. Follow the order.  

(1) _______________ (2) ___________________

(3) _____________________ (4) ________________________ (5) _________________________

(6) ______________________ (7) ___________________

(8) _______________

5. It is also written as people actually speak which is another important characteristic of Romantic poetry in general and Wordsworth in particular.

1.It shows Wordsworth's reverence for Nature.

2. It contains a transcendental moment.

3. It is a conversational poem,.

4. It expresses his appreciation of memory.

Why “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”?

Wordsworth exhibits his reverence for nature through his use of

personification. Personification is the giving of human

characteristics to inanimate things.

The clouds wander, and the waves dance, but most of his attention is focused on the daffodils. He refers to them as a "crowd," a "host," and a "company," all words that refer to groups of people, not flowers. They dance and toss their heads,.

But, most importantly, they express emotions, merriment or cheerfulness ("jocund"), and "glee." This is pathetic fallacy; the flowers are expressing the mood of the poet.

He feels joyful looking at their beauty and transfers that feeling on to the flowers themselves.

The poem is in first person, "I," and it can be assumed that the first person speaker is the poet, another characteristic of Romantic poetry.

He is wandering as a cloud. He is above this beautiful field of daffodils, looking down on them. Their beauty and his imagination have created a transcendental moment. He has left his physical body and is floating above the earth.

The poem is also a conversational poem. Wordsworth first describes in stanzas one and two the natural scene that he is reflecting on, the field of daffodils. He then describes in stanza three the feelings that this scene evokes in him: joy, happiness, peace, calm. Finally in stanza four, he meditates on the importance of this moment in his life.

In the last stanza, he tells us that when he is "in vacant and pensive mood," depressed and thoughtful, the daffodils "flash upon that inward eye." That "inward eye" is memory. Memory is the "bliss of solitude." When we are alone and feeling down, we turn to our memories of happier times to make us feel better. He didn't realize the "wealth" of this experience at the time that he had it, but his memory of the daffodils helps heal him. Day dreaming or imagining he is in this earlier, happier emotional place helps him get through the less pleasant times in his life.