POETRY

Is a form of literature that uses rhythmic qualities of

languages.
Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest
differential interpretation to words, or to evoke
emotive responses. Devices such as assonance,
alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are
sometimes used to achieve musical effects.
Figures of speech such metaphor, simile, metonymy
can also be used.
ELEMENTS
OF
POETRY
FORM
- Effectively EXPRESS what the poet wants to convey to other human
beings.
- Makes a poem look very different from another.
• STRICT FORMS- People who still follow these forms nowadays are following
the traditional manner and style intended for a Traditional Poetry.
• FREE VERSE- It is most often used in modern times and presents multitude of
possibilities. The poet uses free form to make the poem fit the contents and
to express the mood or feeling of his work.
LINES
- These are the vehicle of the authors thought and ideas and also pertains
to the building blocks with which to create a poem.
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• WORDS- is what composed of each line proceed as usual from left to right,
but they curiously end where the poet wants them to stop. Therefore, you may
have some lines that are of equal length and others which are not.

• PUNCTUATION- besides the length and margining of first word in each line, the
PUNCTUATION at the end of each is also a major tool for the poet. At times the
poet will want us to make a full stop, other times a gentle or slight pause, and
even others perhaps a sudden break, and so on. Ultimately, then, poetry
creates sensations, moods, and images in the reader’s mind.
STANZAS
- The lines in a poem are most often divided into sections looking as some
sort of paragraphing. These we call STANZAS. A stanza, therefore, is the grouping
of the lines, sort of like a paragraph.

RHYME
- The Sonic imitation usually of end syllables of words. There are basically two
kinds of rhyme used in poetry;

•END RHYME- the most typical and best known by young people, in which the
words at the end of a given line rhyme.
•INTERNAL RHYME- the rhyming takes place somewhere within the line and not at
the end. Ex: It won’t be LONG my SONG ends the day,
And the FLOWERS near the TOWERS reach the sky
PATTERN
- Rhyme contributes in creating a pattern when read approximately. It
creates a special effect which results in being pleasant and motivating. The human
mind itself has an inherent (internal) patterning force and capacity which allows
the individual to perceive and create the patterns inherent in poems. And it is
rhyme which is one of the contributors to the pattern created in reading or writing a
poem.

Ex: SQUEEZE … TEASE

RUN … FUN;
DEMONSTRATE … WHAT SHE ATE.

-The ultimate creator of pattern is the combination of the STRESSED SYLLABLES

IN ANY PARTICULAR LINE of a poem
RHYTHM
- The pivot point of all the elements, because it is rhythm which creates the
pleasant gliding effect when we read a poem, It helps us readers to travel along
the lines of the poem with a certain enjoyable tempo created by the
components of rhythm.

Ex 1: Never in my lonely life, Ex 2: And as she WALKED to the

could you make it- be my wife. MOON,
We could ALL hear her
or, SWOON,
To the MARvelous SIGHTS,
If only then she had seen, In which she NOW so
That crime and anger where to have been deLIGHTS,
EUPHONY
- The combination of agreeable and melodious sounds which make a
poem pleasant to listen to.

-is the perhaps one ultimate aim of poetry, to esthete – the beautiful. It is
poetry which allows mankind to express such beauty from within. Poetry itself is
beauty created.
 CLASSIFICATION AND
DEFINITION OF LITERARY
TYPES OF POETRY
I. NARRATIVE POETRY- It refers to the class of poems such as epic, ballad, and
metrical romances that tell stories as distinct from dramatic and lyric poetry.

A. EPIC- A long narrative poem that focuses on heroic figure of group, and on
events that form the cultural history of a nation or tribe. The epic hero
undergoes a series of adventures that test his valor, intellect, and character.
Among the conventions of the epic is the author’s invocation to the muse,
the opening of the action in the middle of the epic is the author’s invocation
to the muse, the opening of the action in the middle of things (in medias res)
and the long lists, or catalogues, of ships, armies or, as in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost, devils.

• PRIMARY EPIC- direct expression of the culture they depict, composed orally
for performance before an audience such as Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey
• SECONDARY EPIC- written compositions that used the primary form as model it
encompasses Virgil’s Aenid and Milton’s Lost.
• Works that operate within the epic tradition includes:

Novels Poetry
 Cervente’s Don Quixote (1605 - 15)  Lord Byron’s Don Juan (1816)
 Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851)  Walt Whiteman’s Leaves of Grass (1855)
 Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of thing past  Ezra Pound’s Cantos (1920 - 72)
(1913 - 27)
 William Carlos William’s Paterson (1946
- 58)

B. METRICAL ROMANCE- An adventure story in verse. The term is applied to such

works as Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale and Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake.
C. BALLAD- A narrative poem composed in short stanzas and design for singing or
oral recitation. A ballad usually deals with an exciting or dramatic episode.
Somewhat loosely song hits, folk music, and floktales set to music are called
ballads. The standard collection of “true” ballads is the English and Scottish
popular Ballads,

II. LYRIC POETRY- A type of poetry in which the “voice” of the poem records a
specific feeling or attitude. In this original form, The lyric was designed for musical
accompaniment, as the term evolved however, it came to embrace a wide
range of different poetic forms including the sonnet, ode, elegy, and eclogue.

A. ODE- A lyric poem of any length that addresses a person or treats a theme in
a dignified, serious manner.

• PINDARIC ODE- Is named after the Greek poet Pindar, whose poems, written
to commemorate athletic victories were sung by a chorus. Ex: Ben Johnson’s
“Ode to Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morrison”
• HORATIAN ODE- After the roman poet Horace, Horatian Odes are more
personal and reflective both Pindaric and Horatian Odes employs regular
stanzaic and and metrical patterns. Ex: John Keat’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
• IRREGULAR ODE- Is associated with the 17th century English poet Abraham
Cowley, broke with the tradition of regular stanzas, permitting variations. Ex:
William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of immortality.”
B. SONNET- A 14 line lyric poem usually written, for sonnets in English, In
iambic pentameter. Has been one of the most popular poetic form in12th
century in Italy

TWO DISTINCT RHYME SCHEME FOR THE SONNET

• PETRARCHAN SONNET- named for the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch. It
is divided into two parts: the octave (the first eight lines), with a space a-b-
a-a-b-a rhyme scheme, and the sestet (the final six lines), rhyming either c-
d-e-c-d-e- or c-d-c-c-d-c.
• SHAKESPEAREAN- form consists of three quatraints (a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f)
and the final couplet (g-g)
ITALIAN SONNET- also called Petrarchan, consisting 14 lines divide into an octave
and sestet, usually rhyming abbaabba, cdecde.One of the best known of all
Italian sonnets is Keats’s “ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER”. In a variant
form used by the English poet John Milton, however, the ‘turn’ is delayed to a later
position around the tenth line. Some later poets- notably William Wordsworth- have
employed this feature of the ‘Miltonic Sonnet’ while relaxing the rhyme scheme of
the octave abbaacca. The Italian pattern has remained the most widely used in
English and other languages.

SHAKESPEARE SONNET- a poem with fourteen lines arrange in three quatrains and a
couplet. Earlier port (Wyatt and Surrey) developed this stanza during the first half of
the sixteen century; it is refered to also an English sonnet, but the Shakespeare
sonnet is named for its greatest practitioner, who wrote 154 such poems.
C.VERS DE SOCIETE- Humoruos, light, and even sportive verse dealing with the follies and
fashions of the era on which it is composed. The term, French in origin and meaning “society
verse”, is applied to works that deal amusedly and amusingly with polite society and it often-
frivolous concerns. It is sometimes satiric and elaborately amorous, but it is always witty in
intention if not in actuality.

III.DRAMATIC POETRY- a term applied that employs dramatic form, such as the dramatic
monologue. By extension, the term refers to plays written partly in verse and written partly in
prose.
A. POETIC PLAYS
1. COMEDY-a play (or other literary composition) written chiefly to amuse its audience by
appealing to a sense of superiority over the character depicted. A comedy will normally
be closer to the representation of everyday life than a tragedy, and will explore common
human failings rather then tragedy’s disastrous crimes, its ending will usually be happy for
the leading characters. In another sense, Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY- carries this meaning, as
a dramatic form, it combines several kinds of mischief, including the satirical mockery of
living politicians and writers.
A historical (or history ) play is synonymous with chronicle play, although the latter
is more likely to deal with incidents involving only one major character and to
make greater use of pageantry ( coronation , battles scenes, state funerals ) than
the former. A play representing events drawn wholly or partly from recorded
history.

5. MELODRAMA- A type of drama that highlight suspense and romantic

sentiment, with characters who are usually either clearly good or bad. As its
name implies, the form frequently uses a musical background to underscore or
heighten the emotional tone of a scene.

B. MASQUE- In the renaissance, an elaborate entertainment combine drama,

poetry, and music. Although employed in Italy and France, the masque
achieved its most elaborate development in England during Jacobean and
Caroline periods. The greatest of the masques were those produced by the
collaboration was Hue and Cry After Cupid (1609) and The Masque of Queens
(1609).
2. TRAGEDY- a form of literature that depicts the downfall of the leading
character whose life, its disastrous end not withstanding, represent. In this sense,
tragedy may be seen as rooted in the human need to extract a value from
human mortality. Viewed from this perspective, tragedy has a positive side in its
search for meaning in individual life. As a result, tragedy may be less pessimistic
than comedy, with the latter’s more limited view of individual human possibility,
a fact that has become evident in recent years when the most nihilistic forms of
drama are written in the comic mode.

3. FARCE- a type of dramatic comedy characterized by broad, visual effects,

fast moving action, and stock characters whose escapades lead them to, but
never beyond, the brick of disaster. Always a popular form , farce appears to
be the old drama itself, Medieval, Renaissance and modern theater.
C. DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE- a type of lyric poem in which a person speaks to a
silent audience, in course of doing so, reveals a critical aspect of his own
character. Such poems reveal not the poet’s own thoughts but the mind of the
impersonated character, whose personality is revealed unwittingly; this
distinguishes a dramatic monologue from a lyric, while the implied presence of an
auditor distinguishes it from a soliloquy.