INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE – IGCSE 2023 – conducted by T Bartlett

August 2021 – Leson 1

Skills for poetry

Your first reading of a poem will give you an overview.

As you read a poem for the first time, ask yourself the following questions.

What is the poem about?

 Look up any unfamiliar words and note them both
 Does it describe a place or a person?
 Is it a remembered event?
 Is it a subject the poet feels strongly about?
 Can you write down the central idea or theme behind the poem in one sentence?

What (if anything) happens in the poem?
 Does it tell a story?
 Does it describe an important moment in time? If so, what happens?

What is the setting of the poem?

 Is it about a thing or a place?
 Does it describe a setting in detail?
 Where does it seem to be?
 Why is it important?

What are the main feelings/moods in the poem?

 What is the poet’s attitude to the subject?
 What emotions are suggested? Anger? Fear? Sorrow? Love?

Who (f anyone) is the poem to or from?

 Work out the correct ‘voice’ with which to read the poem. Who is ‘telling’ the poem?
 Does it seem to be about a particular person (eg. Parent/child/lover?)
 Does it seem to be a personal poem?
 It is written to show a larger, more general group of readers a particular view of
something?
 What is the speaker’s tone of voice? Does it change? What tells you this?

What sort of language is used in the poem?

 Does the poet rely on non-literal uses of language in the poem such as METAPHORS?
SIMILES AND PERSONIFICATION?
 Which words have indirect, associated unusual or special meanings?
 Are any words repeated and why is this done?

What images does the poet create?

 Is each image related to the last in any kind of pattern?
 What is the effect of this?
What effect do sound effects within the poem have?

 Notice rhyme and rhythm, soft vowel sounds, harsh consonant sounds, onomatopoeia
etc.
 Notice line endings and where lines break
 What effect does this add to the poem’s meaning?

LITERARY and POETIC DEVICES

Rhyme – The use of words with matching sounds, usually at the end of each line.
Rhyme scheme – The distinctive pattern of rhyme in a poem
Rhythm – The movement of language in verse, prose or speech, often with a regular beat.
Stanza – Another word for verse
Symbol – when a word, phrase or image ‘stands for’ or evokes a complex set of ideas. The
meaning is determined by the surrounding text, i.e. the sun can symbolize life and energy, a red
rose can symbolize romantic love.
Theme – the central idea or message that the writer is trying to get across.

Onomatopia- use of words which echo their meaning in sound eg: ‘snap” , ‘crackle” and “pop”
Simile – compare things which are alike in some respect, although they may be different in
their general nature . i.e. ‘As light as a feather” or “sleeping like a baby”

Metaphor – a comparison that says one thing is another thing : eg. The moon was a ghostly
gallion tossed up upon cloudy seas’
Alliteration – repetition of closely connected words beginning with the same letter, usuall a
consonant.
It is used to highlight a feeling of sound and movement, to intensify meaning, or to bind words
together. Eg: The burning bushes’ or ‘Sing a song of sixpence”
Assonance : repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds in words which follow each other,
especially when the vowel is stressed. i.e. “Now as I was young and easy under the apple
boughs/
Imagery: use of pictures, figures of speech and description to evoke ideas, feelings, objects,
actions, sates of mind etc. usually by using comparisons.

Jack and Jill

Went up the Hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
The Man with Night Sweats
- Thom Gunn

I wake up cold, I who

Prospered through dreams of heat
Wake to their residue,
Sweat, and a clinging sheet.

My flesh was its own shield:

Where it was gashed, it healed.

I grew as I explored
The body I could trust
Even while I adored
The risk that made robust,

A world of wonders in
Each challenge to the skin.

I cannot but be sorry

The given shelf was cracked
My mind reduced to hurry,
My flesh reduced and wrecked.

I have to change the bed,

But catch myself instead

Stopped upright where I am

Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,

As if hands were enough

To hold an avalanche off.