POETRY

S L I D E S I N G R E E N A R E N OT I N C L U D E D
READING A POEM
• Who is the speaker?
• What is the occasion?
• What is the central purpose of the poem?
• Paraphrase the poem.
• Point out examples of simile, irony, metaphors, and personification.
• Discuss the poem’s imagery.
THE MAN HE KILLED

• The poem is written by Thomas Hardy

• Plot:
• The poem centers around the speaker’s experience of having to kill a man
while in combat during the war. The speaker considers how under different
circumstances the man he is faced with killing could be a friend. He cannot
fully justify his actions, and the poem discusses his struggle with trying to
rationally explain his actions.
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because —

Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like — just as I —

Was out of work — had sold his traps —

No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown."
Who is the speaker?
The speaker is either a soldier or an ex-soldier, and enlisted in the army because he
didn't really have anything better to do—he was "out of work.”

What is the purpose of the poem?

The poet criticizes the irrationality of wars.

What is the purpose of repeating “because” in line 11 ?

It indicates the speaker’s doubt of the reason for killing the man. He is hesitant to confirm that
the man he killed is his foe.
IS MY TEAM PLOUGHING

• The poem is written by A. E. Houseman.

• Plot:
• It is a conversation between a dead man and his still-living friend. The dead man
asks his friend a series of questions about how life is continuing is his absence.
Toward the end of the poem, it is implied that the friend is now with the girl
left behind when the narrator died. In writing the poem, Housman borrows
from the simple style of traditional folk ballads, featuring a question-and-
answer format in a conversation.
•
Is my team ploughing,

That I was used to drive

And hear the harness jingle

When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,

The harness jingles now;

No change though you lie under

The land you used to plough.

Is football playing

Along the river shore,

With lads to chase the leather,

Now I stand up no more?”

Ay the ball is flying,

The lads play heart and soul;

The goal stands up, the keeper

Stands up to keep the goal.

Is my girl happy,

That I thought hard to leave,

And has she tired of weeping

As she lies down at eve?”

Ay, she lies down lightly,

She lies not down to weep:

Your girl is well contented.

Be still, my lad, and sleep.

“Is my friend hearty,

Now I am thin and pine,

And has he found to sleep in

A better bed than mine?”

Yes, lad, I lie easy,

I lie as lads would choose;

I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,

Never ask me whose.

What is the purpose of the poem?
The poet wants to communicate a certain truth about human life: life goes on
after our deaths exactly as it did before – our daying does not disturb the
universe.

Literary Elements in the poem

Irony: a situational irony: (something happening that is very different to what was
expected).The dead lover (even the reader) thinks that his lover is tired of weeping
after his death. In contrast, she is happy and well-contented with her new life
partner.
DENOTATION & CONNOTATION

Denotation: is the dictionary meaning or meanings of the

word.
Connotation: is what the word suggests beyond what it
expresses.The word’s connotations can be personal or
culutral.
 HOME

• Place where you live • Safety

• Warmth
• Love
• Comfort
• Sense of belonging
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 IMAGERY
• Imagery: the representation through language of sense experience. Imagery
allows the reader to clearly see, touch, taste, smell, and hear what is happening
• Imagery can be
1- visual imagery
The poet appeals to the reader’s sense of sight by describing something
the speaker or narrator of the poem sees. It may include colors,
brightness, shapes, sizes, and patterns. Example

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high over vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils
2- auditory
This imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of hearing or
sound.
Example

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

….
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
….
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
3- olfactory
The poet appeals to the reader’s sense of smell by describing something
the speaker of the poem inhales.

Example

They silently inhale

The clover-scented gale
And the vapors that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil
4- gustatory
The poet appeals to the reader’s sense of taste by describing something
the speaker or narrator of the poem tastes.
Example
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
5- tactile
The poet appeals to the reader’s sense of touch by describing something the speaker of
the poem feels on their body. It may include the feel of temperatures, textures, and other
physical sensations.

Example

I had no choice but to pet his cotton soft fur. I ruffled his floppy ears as he slapped his
mink-soft paw into my hand.
 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:
METAPHOR AND SIMILE
• Figurative language is writing or speech that is not meant to be
taken literarlly.
• Simile a figure of speech that uses Like or as to make a direct
comparison between unlike ideas.
Example
ً
‫إن هللا يحب الذين يقاتلون في سبيله صفا كأنهم بنيان مرصوص‬
‫"مثل الذين حملوا التوراة ثم لم يحملوها كمثل الحمار يحمل أسفا ًرا بئس مثل القوم الذين كذبوا بآيات هللا وهللا‬
".‫ال يهدي القوم الظاملين‬
 Jerry's mind wandered during class
Like a balloon floating up in the air.
While he daydreamed about eating
lunch
His stomach growled loud like a bear.
His classmates laughed like hyenas,
Which made him feel like a fool
• Metaphor a figure of speech in which something is described as
though it were something else. Like a smilie, it works by pointing
out a smilimarity between two unlike things.
Example
ً ‫وأنزلنا إليكم نو ًرا‬
• ‫مبينا‬

•
Hope” is the thing with feathers -
 TOADS

• The poem is written by Philip Larkin.

• The plot: the poet criticizes the need to work all day when he could be doing more productive
activities. The poet would rather "live on his wits" and spend his day thinking. He could also
live a more (poor) impoverished lifestyle to work less. Larkin admits that he is not brave
enough to give up his pension but still dreams of doing so. He knows that he is not brave
enough to give up work because he knows that he is actually good at work. Larkin will not
allow himself to give up his job because he does not want to be one of the people who live
without work.
 Toads
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils

With its sickening poison —
Just for paying a few bills!
That’s out of proportion.
 Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly—men, louts—
They don’t end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes

With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines—
they seem to like it.
 Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets —and yet
No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough

To shout Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff
That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad—like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney

My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.
• Metaphor: He uses the toad as an extended metaphor for
work and obligation.
• Connotation: Toad has negative connotations: ugly- bad.
• Simile: Skinny as whippets
• Visual image: nippers have got bare foot
STANZA 3-4-5

• Larkin describes people who make a living from their intelligence and does not see this as real
work. He describes people who live in poor conditions, who drink rainwater, and who live in
the countryside. Such people do not seem to work in his view. They are not bothered by the
toad and seem to live carefree lives. This creates an internal contradiction where Larkin
explains that life without the toad of work is not possible but still describes situations in which
people live these kinds of lives.
THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER
• "The Chimney Sweeper" is a poem by William Blake.
• The plot: The poem is told from the perspective of a young chimney
sweep, a boy who has been sold into labor by his father. The speaker
meets a new sweep named Tom, who arrives scared. After the speaker
tries to reassure Tom, Tom dreams of an angel who sets the chimney
sweeps free, allowing them to play in green fields and then ascend to
heaven.
•When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ‘weep! weep! weep! weep!’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

•There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved: so I said,
‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’
•And so he was quiet; and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight, –
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

•And by came an angel who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
•Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

•And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.
• The poet gives voice to the voiceless (the child).
• THEMES:
1- Hardship and Childhood: the poem makes no effort to romanticize
the working life of children, portraying it as poor and tough. The poem
argues that this is a kind of exploitation that robs the children of their
childhood, stealing their freedom and joy.
2- Religion and Redemption: it is a poem about salvation from a
life of hardship. Young boys, forced into work, look to religion as a way
of finding hope amid the misery. This hope comes from the Christian
religion. No matter the suffering in earthly life, each “good boy” who is
well-behaved and dutiful will be rewarded with “joy” and “God for his
father.” However, the poem questions whether this is actually true—
and suggests it might just be a convenient way of making those boys
into obedient little workers
• Symbols:
1- Tom’s Hair
Tom Dacre's lamb-like hair is a symbol of youthful innocence.
• Simile:
1- his head/ That curled like a lamb's back
The poet compares Tom’s hair with lamb wool.

• Metaphor:
1- And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
The ‘dark ’ is the metaphor for the miserable life of the chimney-sweeping children.
1- Visual Imagery
“the soot cannot spoil your white hair”
2- Auditory Imagery
“weep! Weep! Weep! Weep!”
ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
• The author of a play is called a playwright.
• It is written primarily to be performed not to be read.
• The three unique qualities that drama posses:
• It presents its actions (a) through actors, (b) on a stage, (c) before an
audience.
• Through the actors’ facial expressions, gesture, and intonation, they may
make a speaker’s words more expressive than can the reader’s unaided
imagination.
TYPES OF DRAMA
1. Tragedy:
Tragedy is a genre that explores the downfall of a protagonist due to tragic
flaws, external circumstances, or both. Tragedies evoke emotions such as
pity and fear and often end in catastrophe or death for the main character.
Example: Oedipus - Hamlet
2. Comedy:
Comedy is characterized by humor and wit. Comedies aim to entertain and uplift
the audience.
Example: The Comedy of Errors