Poetry as a Genre

Poetry as a Genre

1. Definition of Poetry

Poetry, form of literature, spoken or written, that emphasizes rhythm, other intricate patterns of sound and imagery, and the many possible ways that words can suggest meaning. The word itself derives from a Greek word, poesis, meaning “making” or “creating.” Whereas ordinary speech and writing, called prose, are organized in sentences and paragraphs, poetry in its simplest definition is organized in units called lines as well as in sentences, and often in stanzas, which are the paragraphs of poetry. It is important to keep in mind the distinction between verse and a poem . The word verse has two meanings: one, to refer to a line as a unit of poetry; the other, to refer to any work that uses rhythm and rhyme. Working from the second meaning, one can distinguish between verse and a poem. Those works that fall into a category containing limericks, jingles, and the like , we call verse; works of high and lasting quality we can call poems.

Poetry uses language and it uses language in a different manner. The practical use of language is to communicate information and to keep the communication channels open, while poetry uses language to communicate experience that is much wider than mere information and knowledge. The very difference between poetry and other literature is that poetry is the most condensed and compacted form of literature , saying most in the fewest number of words. Besides, the language of poetry is multi-dimensional. Practical language which aims to communicate information is only directed at the listener’s understanding, but poetry, which is used to communicate experience, has at least four dimensions. It involves the reader’s whole faculties: his intelligence, his senses, his emotions and his imagination, not merely his understanding. Therefore, poetry is a literary genre that communicates experience in the most condensed form.

2. The Components of Poetry

Usually, a poem has a title, yet it doesn’t mean that each poem must have a title. The title often suggests the central meaning ( theme ) of the poem. Poetry is written in sentences just as prose is, and the punctuation indicate all grammatical pauses. The lines in a poem end in two ways: END – STOPPED and RUN – ON. An end-stopped line is one in which the grammatical unit, a clause or sentence, is finished in the line.

A run-on line ( sometimes called an enjambed line ), on the other hand, is a line in which the grammar, and thus the sense, is left unfinished at the end of the line. The clause or sentence may run on one or two more lines. Run-on lines generally create pleasurable feelings of expectation as the reader has to look further for the full sense of what is being said; and in the end-stopped lines, he acquires satisfaction in finding the line and the sense end together.

A STANZA is a group of lines of verse forming one of the units or divisions of a poem. It is usually recurrent, characterized by a regular pattern, with respect to the number of lines, and the arrangement of meter of rhyme ( rhyme scheme ). Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem, which are usually labeled with letters alphabetically, like A, B, C or D.

Common stanza forms include the couplet, the triplet, and the quatrain.

A. Couplet: two successive rhyming lines. The couplet is one of the main verse units in Western

literature. The couplet composed of two iambic pentameter lines is commonly known as the heroic couplet.

B. Triplet: a stanza of three lines or an individual poem of three lines. There are specific triplet

forms, with specific names: tercet, terza rima. Terza rima is a series of interlocking triplets in which the second line of each one rhymes with the first and the third lines of the one succeeding, thus: ABA, BCB, CDC,… Terza rima was adopted first by Dante, then used by Petrarch and Boccaccio.

C. Quatrain: a stanza or an individual poem of four lines rhymed or unrhymed. It occurs as the

commonest of all stanzaic forms in Eastern and Western poetries, and lends itself to wide variation in meter and rhyme.

3. Basic Elements of Poetry A. Rhyme

Rhyme scheme is the most obvious characteristic of a poem. Rhyme is the repetition of the stressed vowel sound and all succeeding sounds: gay, day, play, may; or wall, fall. 1) Numeral Types of Rhyme

a. Single rhyme, or Masculine Rhyme is the repetition of one vowel, either a single vowel or a diphthong.

b. Double Rhyme, or Feminine Rhyme is the repetition of two vowels.

c. Triple Rhyme, or Multiple Rhyme is the repetition of three or more than three vowels in words, or in phrases.

2) Positional Types of Rhyme

On the basis of the position, the rhyme falls into several types.

a. End Rhyme

If the rhyming words occur at the ends of lines, it is called end rhyme. End rhyme is the commonest and most consciously sought-after sound repetition in English poetry. b. Internal Rhyme

Internal rhyme occurs within the verse line, very often in the middle, splitting the line into two halves.

c. Beginning Rhyme

Beginning Rhyme occurs in the first syllable or syllables of successive lines.

3) Near Rhyme

All the examples above are exact rhymes, because they share the same stressed vowel sounds as well as any sounds that follow the vowel. In near rhyme ( also called approximate rhyme ), the sounds are almost but not exactly alike. There are several kinds of near rhyme.

Alliteration is the repetition of consonants, especially at the beginning of words or stressed syllables. For example, “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping.” Consonance is the repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowels. For example, “tit” and “tat”, “home” and “same”. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in a line of poetry as in “free and easy”. Eye rhyme is formed by words that look like a rhymed unit but do not have the same sounds. For example, “home” and “some”, “hear” and “bear”. Onomatopoeia is a word or phrase that imitates the sound of the thing which describes, like the words “buzz”, “clash”, “sizzle” and “hizz”.

B. Rhythm

A more complex aspect than the rhyme is rhythm communicated by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter refers to the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. The word is derived from the Greek word “metron”, meaning “measure”. Usually, a stressed syllable is marked with /, and an unstressed syllable is marked with ∪. A unit of poetic meter of stressed and unstressed syllables is called foot. A foot usually consists of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables. A vertical line is used to separate the feet: “The clock ∣ struck one” consists of two feet. A foot of poetry can be arranged in a variety of patterns; here are some of the chief ones.

Foot Pattern Example iamb ( iambic ) ∪ / ∪ /

away

trochee ( trochaic ) / ∪ / ∪

lovely

anapest ( anapestic ) ∪ ∪ / ∪ ∪ /

understand

dactyl ( dactylic ) / ∪ ∪ / ∪ ∪

desperate

spondee ( spondaic ) / / / /

dead set

The most common lines in English poetry contain meters based on iambic feet. Other important patterns include trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic feet. The spondee is not a sustained meter but occurs for variety or emphasis.

There are also names for the number of feet in a line. Here are the names used: Monometer: one foot Pentameter: five feet Diameter: two feet Hexameter: six feet Trimeter: three feet Heptameter: seven feet Tetrameter: four feet Octameter: eight feet

By combining the name for the number of feet in a line with the name of a foot, we can describe the metrical qualities of a line concisely.

Blank Verse and Free Verse

Blank Verse is referred to as unrhymed iambic pentameter, which is a very specific meter in English. The word “blank” implies that the end of the line is “blank” i.e., bare of rhyme, hence the name. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey introduced blank verse into the English language when he translated Vergil’s Aeneid. Ever since the mid-16th century, blank verse had been the dominant verse form of English dramatic and narrative poetry, because it was one closest to the rhythm of everyday English speech and provided more freedom for the poet. Blank verse continued to prevail in the 19th and 20th centuries. English poets such as William Wordsworth, John Keats, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and American poets such as Edwin Arlington Robinson and Robert Frost achieved poetical excellence in blank verse.

Free verse is the translation of the French term “vers libre”. In the 19th century, a group of French poets intended to free French poetry of restrictions of formal metrical pattern and therefore composed vers libre. Free verse is the rhymed or unrhymed poetry free from conventional rules of meter. The aesthetic and musical effect of free verse is achieved through rhythms and cadence of

natural speech. Poets famous for their works composed in free verse include Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Amy Lowell, and Carl Sandburg.

C. Tone

Tone is the writer’s attitude toward the subject, the mood created by all the elements in the poem. Writing, like speech, may be characterized as serious or light, sad or happy, private or public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic, or any other attitudes and feelings that human beings experience. Tone is decided by synthetic analysis of all the elements involved in the poem, especially its diction and sentence patterns.

Most poems deal with human emotions, and tone is the emotional coloring of a poem. To recognize the tone is to adjust the reader’s relation with the poem and / or with the poet..

D. Imagery

Poetry is aimed at conveying and enriching human experience. Experience is formed through sense impressions. The poet’s business is to evoke sense impressions in the reader’s mind. To achieve this end, the poet uses imagery, language that evokes a physical sensation produced by on of the five senses----sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell. Imagery covers verbal, and, or, non-verbal description or representation of objects, actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind, and any sensory and extra-sensory experience. Each is a word picture. Obviously, imagery is the soul of poetry as language is the body of poetry.

Imagery often serves in three ways: to create the atmosphere, to provide an internal pattern, and to focus the theme of the poem. By choosing an image carefully, poets can not only help to create pictures in a reader’s mind, but also suggest a great number of imaginative associations. These associations help poets to establish the atmosphere or mood of the poem. The falling snow in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, for example, creates a quiet, almost mystical atmosphere.

Imagery, to some extent, is capable of organizing a poem or serving as a starting point for interpreting the structure of a poem. In Emily Dickinson’s poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death, the image of death appears at the very beginning, driving a carriage. This image foretells that the poem is going to be a “journey poem”, and since death is the driver, the “journey” is going to be a “time travel”. The images governed by the image of “Death” constitute the internal pattern of the poem and largely determine the interpretation of the whole poem.

Imagery can function more strongly and directly in terms of conveying the poetic theme. It can be used as a central symbol that carries the theme. The image of the two roads in Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken performs just such a task.

One advantage of images is their extreme economy. Just a few words enable poets to evoke specific emotions in readers and to approximate the experience the poet wishes to create. Another advantage of images is that they enable poets to move beyond certain limitations of language. In fact, images present abstract ideas that would be difficult or almost impossible to convey in any other way. By choosing an image or series of images that embodies ideas such as beauty or mystery, however, poets can effectively and persuasively make their feelings known.

An image combined with a concept makes a symbol, a literary symbol. A symbol is something that represents something else. An object, person, place, event, or action can suggest more than its literal meaning. The meanings suggested by a symbol are determined by the context