Appreciating poetry

What is Poetry?• Is an art form in which human language is used

for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

• A piece of writing that expresses emotions, experiences, and ideas, especially in short lines using words that rhyme, forms, patterns of sounds, imagery and figurative language to convey a message.

Definitions • Rhyme scheme: Is the pattern of rhyme that

comes at the end of each verse or line in poetry.

• Alliteration. Is the repetition of beginning sounds. for example: Sally sells seashells. Walter wondered where Winnie was.

• Onomatopoeia: Is a word that sounds like what it is describing. Examples are: click, crash, boom

• Metaphor: Comparing two unlike things or ideas. Examples are: The world is a stage, Time is money

• Personification :Is giving human qualities to non-living things or ideas. Examples are: Snowflakes danced, The flowers nodded

• Simile: A comparison using like or as :As blind as a bat , she was shining like the sun.

• Paradox: Means contrary to expectations. a paradox is a statement that contradicts itself Example : I must be cruel to be kind.”

Definition• Sonnet : A poem written in 14 lines

which can be broken down into 3 sections called quatrains contain four lines each , and one section called couplet, contains two lines only. The rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet is ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG .

• Synecdoche: in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part.

Denotation: It is the literal meaning of a word.

The exact meaning of a word, without the feeling or suggestions that the word may imply .It is the opposite of "connotation" in that it is the "dictionary" meaning of a word, without attached feelings or associations.

Denotation allows the reader to know the exact meaning of a word so that he or she will better understand the work of literature.

Connotation : Associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word , which derive from how the word has been commonly used and the associations people make with it.

Connotations relate not to a word's actual meaning , or denotation , but rather to the ideas or qualities that are implied by that word. Connotation is the range of secondary or associated significances and feelings which it commonly suggests or implies.

Their function

To create fresher ideas and images so that adds deeper levels of meanings to common and ordinary words.

poems

The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

• Paraphrasing.• Figures of speach.• The tone.• The form.• Rhyme scheme. AAA BBB• Theme. Natural world :The eagle lives in a place that cannot be easily reached by human beings, and the speaker is definitely aware of this. The poem imagines what the eagle's world is like, and by extension imagines a world without people. Still, the speaker can only describe the landscape using human or human-like attributes. "The Eagle" is a classic case of a nature poem that ends up being just as much about the person describing the scenery as anything else.

Winter by William Shakespeare.• Figures of speach.• The tone.• Rhyme scheme : ABABCCDEF, ABABCCDEF

• Theme:

Man and the Natural World : "Winter" is in many ways a nature poem; there are owls and birds and descriptions of winter scenes (icicles, snow). But it's not just about some frozen forest, but about what people do in this winter wonderland. It's about how humans make their way through the bleakest time of the year. Although , life's basic necessities (milk, water, blood) are frozen or chilled, but people manage to overcome nature's lack of hospitality and soldier on.

Shall I Compare Thee by : William Shakespeare.

• Paraphrasing.• The form.• Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG • Theme: Love and Immortality:His lover is more beautiful and desirable than "a summer's day" because even such a wonderful season like summer has its flip side-it's too short and sometimes too hot. He concludes by saying that he wishes to immortalize the beauty of his lover in his poetry. since all human beings will die, the only way to immortalize a human being is by praising him in excellent verse which the future generations will always read. Shakespeare  compares his lover to "eternal summer" and he has immortalized his lover in his sonnet 18

Meeting at Night by: Robert Browning.

• Paraphrasing.• The tone.• The form.• Rhyme scheme: ABCCBA , ABCCBA.• Theme :•Love and Perseverance : The speaker argues for the power of love by insisting upon his ability to conquer all that separates him from his lover. Time, distance, and even the lovers’ “joys and fears” cannot stand in his way and are not important once the two are together. "Meeting at Night" isn't only about secret love affairs. It's about the lengths we go to satisfy our passions, the obstacles we're willing to overcome.

By considering that Browning had only recently wed Elizabeth Barrett Browning after a courtship that they had to keep secret from her oppressive father. Many scholars see in it a representation of this courtship.

I wandered lonelyby: William Wordsworth

• The tone. It changes from the beginning to the end. The poem begins with sadness and agony but in the end it has been changed to happiness and joy.

• Figures of speach.

1

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge presented and illustrated a liberating aesthetic: poetry should express, in genuine language, experience as filtered through personal emotion and imagination; the truest experience was to be found in nature

Wordsworth lived in a part of England known as the Lake District, which is filled with lots of hills, valleys and, of course, lakes. We can assume he’s walking in a fairly remote and wild part of the countryside 2

The Road Not Taken. By: Robert Frost

• Paraphrasing.• Figures of speach.• The form. Rhyme scheme “The Road Not Taken” consists

of four stanzas of five lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAAB; .

• Theme Choices :We cannot determine what particular choice the poet had in mind , if any , and it is not important that we do so .It is enough if we see in the poem an expression of regret that the possibilities of life experience are so sharply limited andhow each choice narrows the range of possible future choices , so that we make our lives as we go , both freely choosing and being determined by past choices

Loveliest of Trees By: Alfred Edward Houseman

• Paraphrasing.• Figures of speech.• The form. Rhyme scheme: The poem is

comprised of three quatrains, each of which in turn is comprised of two rhyming couplets. The regular rhyme scheme of AABB CCDD EEFF—

Stopping by Woods in a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROSTThe form : The poem is made up of four stanzas, "Rubaiyat" is a beautiful Persian word for "quatrain," which means a stanza composed of four lines. Rhyme schemeFigures of speech: - My little horse must think it queer (personification)\ the poet gives the horse an ability of thinking like human. - He gives his harness bells a shake (personification) the poet personifies the horse by giving it the ability of acting consciously (shaking its bells to warn the man) he also uses the pronounce he . - sound's the sweep (alliteration) \ here we find a repetition of the sound \s\  - The woods are lovely, dark, and deep (metaphor) he uses the woods as a metaphor for dark and pessimistic thoughts.- And miles to go before I sleep (metaphor ) by this way he matches sleeping with death . 

The theme : Death It seems that the narrator is contemplating death on this "darkest night of the year." Not that he is thinking about ending his own life, but he feels the lure of death that will be there later for him. Death looks to him "lovely, dark, and deep." Not scary, not grim, but rather welcoming, almost a relief.But it is not yet his time, for he has connections with other people, "promises to keep" and a long way to go before the end finally comes..."miles to go before I sleep." Yet, it feels like he is comforted by the thought of the end in the distance. One day, sure, but not right now.

Since There's No Help By Michael Drayton

• Figures of speach• The tone • The form• Rhyme scheme:

Michael Drayton Drayton as a youth became page to Sir Henry Goodere of Polesworth. He fell in love with Sir Henry's daughter, Anne, and worshipped her as 'Idea' in his poetry. Even after her marriage to Sir Henry Rainford he continued to celebrate her charms in verse, and he never married.