AP Lit: Unit 3

The most common background rhythm in English is built with the:

"da DAH" foot-the iambic foot.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it

Quatrian

A four-line poem or a four-line unit of a longer poem She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh, The difference to me!

Narrative Poetry

A narrative poem is in some ways like narrative prose. It describes events and characters, real or imaginary, in story form. Forms of narrative poetry include the epic, the ballad, and the allegory.

Petrarchan Sonnet

A sonnet consisting of an octave with the rhyme pattern abbaabba, followed by a sestet with the rhyme pattern cdecde or cdcdcd

The English or Shakespearean Sonnet

A sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. Its content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it is often structured, like the Italian sonnet, into octave and sestet, the principal break in thought coming at the end of the eighth line.

Imagery in Poetry

A speaker creates imagery by using language to help us see, hear, smell, taste, or touch in our minds. A speaker can use imagery in many ways: to help us know the real world, for example, or to help us know a dreamlike world; to cause sensual joy or to cause sensual pain; to stir a trust of sight and a fear of hearing; or conversely, to stir a trust of hearing and a fear of sight. Whatever imagery a speaker employs, the speaker reveals personal characteristics through that imagery. The speaker of Millay's "Spring," for example, says: "Not only under ground are the brains of men / Eaten by maggots." The speaker of Frost's "The Most of It"-wondering what governs in the universe-describes a great buck that appeared, Pushing the crumpled waters up ahead, And landed pouring like a waterfall... Both speakers reveal the contents of their minds by imagery.

Elizabethan Sonnet

A type of sonnet much used by Shakespeare, written in iambic pentameter and consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it represents. Ex: Sylvia Plath's Tulips: snagged, eddies

What is a metrical foot? A.The basic unit of a poem's metrical structure B.The last line of a poem C.A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable D.A stanza E.The rhyming lines of a couplet

A. The basic unit of a poem's metrical structure

Poetry comes to us by way of a speaker. Which of the following is a true statement? A. The speaker is a creation of the poet. B. The speaker is always male. C. The speaker is an individual who reads the poem aloud. D. The speaker is not really a part of the poem. E. The speaker is always the poet.

A. The speaker is a creation of the poet.

Imagery communicates by: A.appealing to the senses. B.describing the real world. C.creating rhyme. D.presenting metaphors and similes. E.evoking pleasant feelings.

A.appealing to the senses.

Allusion

An allusion is a brief reference to a person, place, or event readers are expected to recognize. Through the association with the reference, the meaning of the work becomes enhanced. The Bedford Glossary of Critical Terms defines allusion this way: Allusion (noun): An indirect reference to a person, event, statement, or theme found in literature, the other arts, history, mythology, religion, or popular culture. An author's use of this device tends to presuppose that readers in general will possess the knowledge to recognize the allusion, but sometimes allusions are used that only a select few can understand. Because of the connotations they carry, allusions are used to enrich meaning or broaden the effect of a statement.

Aubade:

An aubade is a poem written about the morning (usually a love song). Robert Browning's "Parting at Morning" or Phillip Larkin's "Aubade" provide examples from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. These poems sing to the situations of lovers in the morning.

Elegy:

An elegy is a lyric poem that praises a dead person or people. It may focus on the subject's significance as an individual, or treat the subject as a symbol of larger themes such as sorrow or human mortality. The subject may or may not be personally known to the poet. For example, Shelley's "Adonais" eulogizes his friend Keats; Walt Whitman, on the other hand, writes about Abraham Lincoln (whom he didn't know personally) in "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."

Epic:

An epic is a long narrative poem on a momentous subject in which divine, semidivine, or human characters perform heroic actions. Familiar examples of Western epics are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, and the old English poem, Beowulf. Milton's Paradise Lost and Dante's Divine Comedy are examples of classical epics.

Ode:

An ode is a lyric poem that celebrates its subject. It can treat its subject as a symbol for universal ideas, or simply commemorate a notable event or person. Odes originated with Pindar, a fifth century BCE Greek poet. Famous odes include Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

What form does Herrick use for "Corrina's Going A-Maying"?

Answer: Seven-couplet stanzas.

How does the speaker of a poem communicate to the reader? A By speaking out loud done B. Through sound, rhythm, and language C. Through sound only D. Through use of metaphor E. Through rhythm only

B. Through sound, rhythm, and language

Which of the following is the most common metrical foot found in English poetry? A.Sonnet B.Iambic C.Accentual-syllabic D.Pentameter E.Blank verse

B.Iambic

A quatrain is: A.a type of meter. B.four lines of poetry with an alternate rhyme scheme, often abab. C.a couplet. D.four lines of poetry that have rhythm but no rhyme. E.a type of poem.

B.four lines of poetry with an alternate rhyme scheme, often abab.

Syntactical Eccentricity

By arranging words in unusual ways speakers may present themselves as iconoclastic, for example, disruptive, clever, or intelligent. In the poems of E. E. Cummings, for instance, speakers often use extraordinary arrangements of words to demand fresh views of the ordinary: of small town life, for instance, of the arrival of spring, or of illicit sexuality.

Poetry that uses metrical feet to create rhythm is called: A.accentual verse. B.free verse. C.accentual-syllabic verse. D.syllabic verse. E.All of the above

C. Accentual-syllabic verse.

What literary term is used to describe poems such as this one (which encourages people to enjoy life and seize the day)?

Carpe Diem

Sibilants

Consonant sounds articulated with a hissing sound e.g. s,z

Plosives

Consonant sounds that form a small explosion when spoken eg 'b', 'p', 't', 'd'

"Plosive" sounds are sounds made by: A.letters such as l, m, n, and r. B.the vowels o, a, and u. C.letters such as s and z. D.letters such as p and b. E.letters such as t and d.

D. letters such as p and b.

Sounds that Reject

Dentals, Plosives, Sibilants

Devotional poems:

Devotional poems express religious sentiments and explore the spiritual lives of their authors. George Herbert, for example, is known for his devotional poems, many of which express crises of religious faith.

Didactic poems:

Didactic poems try to persuade the reader of a particular argument or teach a moral truth, rather than examining complexities in that argument or idea. For this reason, many literary critics consider didactic poems simplistic. Poetry, of course, teaches in subtle ways, but when the preaching purpose supersedes everything else, it's didactic. A classic example of didactic verse is Franklin's "early to bed early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Dramatic Monologue:

Dramatic monologues are poems delivered by speakers who describe themselves or relate events they saw or participated in. Speakers of dramatic monologues are viable, psychologically substantive characters, not just narrators of events they've witnessed. This characteristic of the speaker distinguishes a dramatic monologue from a narrative poem. Robert Browning is known for his poetic dramatic monologues.

How is rhythm created in a poem? A. By building patterns with metrical feet B. By using a set number of stresses in each line C. By creating rhymes D. By repeating words or metrical units E. All of the above

E. All of the above

A speaker may create rhythm in one of several ways:

First, a speaker may use patterns built with metrical feet. Second, a speaker may use a set number of stresses-four stresses for example-in each line. Third, in a unit of four lines or more, a speaker may create rhythm by rhymes, by repetitions of words; by repetitions of metrical clusters; or by repetitions in arrangements of words. So long as the speaker establishes and then repeats a pattern, rhythm occurs.

Words may also suggest by hinting at second meanings.

For example, a speaker, thinking of her situation in a romantic relationship, may use the word "possessed." The primary meaning of "possessed" may be "owned," but a secondary meaning may be, "driven insane." Or a speaker may use the sounds of a word to suggest a different word that has the same sounds. In Frost's "Design," for example: the words "morning right" suggest also the words, "mourning rite."

Free verse:

Free verse isn't constrained by a rhythm or rhyme scheme. Instead, poets rely on imagery, figurative language, assonance, repetition, and alliteration to infuse music into the poem. Robert Frost likened free verse to playing tennis without a net. Walt Whitman, e.e. cummings, and William Carlos Williams all used this technique. Free verse is the predominate form for poetry now being written.

Humorous poems:

Humorous poems use wordplay or satire to amuse the reader. Limericks fall into this category, as does the poetry of Odgen Nash.

Thematic Poetry

In addition to defining poetry by its metrical and rhyme scheme, lyrical poetry can be devotional, humorous, or didactic. Defining poetry according to its theme allows classification of a Shakespearean sonnet as carpe diem.

Allegory:

In an allegory, the characters often symbolize something beyond themselves. Edmund Spenser's "Fairy Queen," for example, is a long poem about more than just the characters in the nine-line iambic stanzas. The Red Cross Knight represents both mankind and England as he fights dragons and evil for Una, the daughter of Adam and Eve, who stands for truth and of course, the Christian church.

Poetry Overview

In poetry, then, speakers have various, subtle, and powerful ways of expressing themselves. They create meanings with sounds and with rhythms. They reveal themselves by figures that associate and by figures that make patterns with words. They lead us to participate in experiences by using words that awaken our five senses. They send signals by arranging words in peculiar ways. They complicate and layer their meanings by word play and allusion. All in all, they display verbal intensity. That verbal intensity matches and reveals the intensity of the human psyche. Whether it speaks with rage or joy, love or hate, faith or despair, poetry speaks with the force of concentrated human passion made words, passion distilled. Poetry is language pushed to the limits, to express what is both hard to express and painful to deny.

Poetry and Figurative Language

In the most important figures of poetry, speakers express themselves by making associations. These figures include metaphor, metonymy, personification, and simile. A speaker makes an association to form any of these figures; and by the association, the speaker reveals personal idiosyncrasies. Consider, for example, what a speaker reveals in personifying the sun as a "saucy pedantic wretch" or in calling smiles "hooks."

In a poem, rhythm has two main effects:

It gives pleasure, and it reveals the speaker.

Suggestive Language

Language may suggest through sounds, as we have already seen, and in other ways. Here we consider suggestion by allusion and suggestion by hints of second meanings. First, by allusion. In Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," for example, the speaker alludes to, and associates her chosen man with, Adolph Hitler, calling the man "A man in black with a Meinkampf look." The speaker also alludes to folk beliefs about vampires and Count Dracula. "There's a stake in your fat black heart," she says of her father. In Plath's "Lady Lazarus," the speaker refers to both the phoenix myth and to atrocities in concentration camps during World War Two. The poem ends: Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

Sounds that Accept

Liquid Consonants, O/A/U

Poetry vs Prose

PROSE is spoken for the most part by common people. Most of the other characters speak in POETRY, which is largely written in blank verse. Poetry is different from prose mainly because it makes two special, and characteristic, appeals: by sound and by rhythm.

Schemes

Piaget's term for organized patterns of thought and behavior used in particular situations

The Speaker

Poems are written to be read aloud. Whose voice speaks? Most poems are personal expressions of a person's thoughts or feelings. The speaker's voice may be the poet's. Anne Bradstreet's poem "An Author to Her Book" describes an author's complex feelings toward publication of her work, and the speaker is clearly Bradstreet. However, the speaker of a poem isn't always the poet. Instead, the speaker might be a character created by the poet. That character, the speaker of the poem, might express thoughts and feelings quite different from the poet's. The speaker of a poem will often have a unique personality, and might express things we don't have to believe are true. Instead, we must keep in mind that a speaker of a poem is an individual who interprets the world in his or her own way.

Poetry is about ___________________

Poetry is about sound and meaning—how language sounds, how those sounds affect us, and what the sounds mean.

Free Form Poetry

Poetry without an established meter and rhyme pattern is classified as free form poetry. Unlike the fixed forms of lyric poetry mentioned above, this form has no prescribed format.

Poetry requires_____________

Reading Aloud

Rhyming

Rhymes come in various schemes. The simplest rhyme scheme is the couplet-two lines rhyming. Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. As soon as a speaker creates two couplets, the rhymes create a rhythm. Somewhat more complex than the couplet is the quatrain: four lines, usually rhyming abab. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and oh, The difference to me!

Rhythm depends on the establishment of a pattern and its return

Rhythm depends on the establishment of a pattern and its return

Tropes vs Schemes

Schemes and tropes are figures of speech, having to do with using language in an unusual or "figured" way: Trope: An artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification of a word. A trope uses a word in an unusual or unexpected way. Scheme: An artful deviation from the ordinary arrangement of words.

Sonnet:

Sonnets are defined by their length and rhyme scheme. There are many varieties of sonnet forms, but the two most well known are Elizabethan and Petrarchan. Elizabethan sonnets have fourteen lines and a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet is also fourteen lines and rhymes abba abba cde cde. Poets who have used the sonnet to express a momentary state of mind or sensory impression include John Donne, Robert Frost, and Countee Cullen.

Means of Communicating Poetry

Sound, rhythm, figurative speech, and syntactical formations

TP-CASTT for Corrina's Going A-Maying

T for Title: An invitation for Corrina to participate in the May Day festival. P for Paraphrase: The speaker urges Corrina to get going and enjoy the beauties of spring before it's too late. C for Connotation: Alliteration: "trimmed trees," "wept wooed," repetition of "ay" sound A for Attitude or Tone: Speaker's attitude is inviting. The poet's attitude is playful and provocative. S for Shifts: The second to the last stanza warns about loss. In the final stanza, Herrick reminds us that time passes quickly. T for Title: An invitation for Corrina to get out of bed and get AMaying. T for Theme: Herrick playfully admonishes that life needs to be experienced and enjoyed—engage in nature.

Syntactical Structure

The arrangement of elements in a sentence Syntactical Structure - Definition

Ballad

The ballad was originally a narrative song, and many early English ballads we think of as poems are actually song lyrics. The speaker of a ballad relates a story in stanza form, usually in quatrains—stanzas of four lines each. Ballads often have a consistent meter (same rhythm pattern in each stanza) and repeat key phrases. Any story set to music as a single song can arguably be called a ballad.

Lyric Poetry

The term lyric is used to classify poems that aren't clearly narrative. In a lyrical poem, a single speaker conveys a thought, emotion, or sensory impression. Originally meant to be sung, a lyric poem can be any length. Lyric poetry has been used widely by early poets (like John Donne) and modern ones (like Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich.) Many forms of lyric poetry exist including the aubade, sonnet, ode, elegy, and dramatic monologue.

Corrina's Going A-Maying

The title of this poem is particularly interesting in that it asserts unequivocably that Corinna will take part in the activities of May morning, although there is no certainty in the text that she will do so. The poem is a dramatic monologue, with the lover-speaker seeking to persuade his sweetheart to get out of bed and join the other youths "to fetch in May." Her reactions to his entreaties are unrecorded. She remains no more than a name, as the interest of the poem resides in the speaker's rhetorical strategies to work his will upon her. It's May Day, and the speaker of the poem is trying to get his girlfriend out of bed and into the outside festivities. It's a party outside, honey! He tries to shame her into hurrying up, describing how the morning is already in full bloom and all the villagers are eating cakes and courting like nobody's business. There's no time for primping or prayers when spring's a-coming in! Besides, it's not like this kind of pleasure will just be around forever. They're in their prime right now—young, gorgeous, in love—and they should take advantage of the good weather to make love and play games. Seize the day, Corinna. 'Cause you'll be dead before you know it.

Visual and Concrete Poetry:

This is poetry written in a shape resembling an object, which enriches its meaning. For example, William Burford's poem "A Christmas Tree" is shaped in the form of a tree.

TP-CASTT Strategy

Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Attitude, Shifts, Title, Theme

True or False: Many poems don't fit neatly into a particular poetic form.

True! Look to the form of a poem to explore a poet's ingenuity rather than to label a poem. How has the poet taken a poetic form and made it different? How has the poet altered the form to suit the expression of ideas? Does the poem fit into more than one category? Great poems can follow traditional forms and break or reinvent them at the same time.

Couplet

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme" Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.

Examples of Allusions

When MacBeth is told of his wife's suicide in Act V, scene 5, Shakespeare wrote: She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hours upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Many authors have made allusions to MacBeth's famous eulogy to his wife. For example: • Robert Frost's poem "Out, out " mirrors the tragic meaninglessness of unexpected death.

Common Allusions in English Literature

Writers, and especially poets, of English literature draw allusions and metaphors from two main sourcesóthe Bible and the ancient classical Greek and Roman writings. Knowledge of the characters, stories, plots, and themes found in the Bible and the body of myths and legends will help you better enjoy good literature of all kinds. For an allusion to enhance literature, the reader must be able to recognize the reference. Here's a brief list of Biblical and mythological allusions that frequently appear in Western literature: * Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 21-22) * Apostles * Birth of Jesus (Luke 1-2) * Cain and Abel (Genesis Chapter 4) * Confucius * Creation (Genesis 1-3) * David and Goliath (Samuel 17) * David and Jonathon (Samuel 18-20) * Esau * Exodus * Fiery Furnance (Daniel 1-3) * Four horses of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6: 1-8)

accentual-syllabic verse.

a type of verse in which the counting of accents and syllables occurs within the same line. It is the type of poetry most people instantly recognize as "poetic," for it has a definite beat and often rhymes.

Speakers who use metrical feet to create rhythm are creating:

accentual-syllabic verse.

Iambic Foot

an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

Tropes

figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words

Liquid Consonants

l, r

The Venus and Adonis stanza

six lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ababcc, named from Shakespeare's poem

Dentals

sounds made with the tongue placed against or near the teeth

Rythmn

the pattern or beat made by words, pattern of beats in a line of poetry or prose

Metrical Feet -- IAMBIC

unstressed, stressed

To understand "Corrina's Going A-Maying, you'll need to understand the allusions to Greek mythology Herrick makes. Remember people during Herrick's time read poetry in Greek and Latin for entertainment. List the five allusions to Greek mythology and indicate why they're significant.

• Corinna: the name of a Greek poet who lived about 500 BC in northwest Greece in an area called Beotia. Only fragments of her work remain, but she dealt with mythological themes. • Apollo: Greek god of healing, music, and archery; he eventually became god of light. • Aurora: Roman name for Eos, who in Greek mythology is the goddess of dawn. • Flora: in Roman mythology, she was goddess of flowers. • Titans: prodigious giants of Greek mythology. God-like children of Uranus and Gia. Cronos lead them to overthrow their parents.