COURSE: Reading and writing

in English II – Lesson 7
Professor: Ylmer Aranda
Contents
• How to read poetry • The modernist phenomenon
• Syllable and meter • Let’s recite!
• The phonetics of verse • Final thoughts
• Poetic music
• Philology and old verses
How to read poetry

Step 1: Know the

Step 2: Study the
context and the
text
author

Step 3: Review the Step 4: Practice

concepts of the English
syllable and meter pronunciation
Syllable and meter

Syllable The unit of a word

Meter
The quantitative
made of the
measure of verses and
combination of
stanzas that a poem
consonants and
has.
vowels.

The English
In English poetry,
pronunciation follows
meter is done with a
the patterns of
syllabic separation that
pronunciation in order
is guided by phonetics
to split word into
rather than in spelling.
syllables.

The phonetics of verse
The written verse in English is the
material manifestation of a phonetic
fact. Therefore, the pronunciation is a
guide to understand the composition
and reciting of a poem.
“Where, like a pillow on a bed
A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string;
So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.”
John Donne, The Ecstasy (excerpt).

Poetic music
Lyrics are written poems that become
music, that is, a song. Folk music indeed
comes from oral tradition, with lyrics
that reflect the native cultures of the
English speaking world. However, there
are also expressions of modern tradition
in music genres such as country or
Celtic.
“It's knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line
That keeps you on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.”
John Hartford, Gentle on My Mind (excerpt).
Philology and old “Welund him be wurman wræces cunnade,
verses anhydig eorl earfoþa dreag,
Reading a poem of elder times require a hæfde him to gesiþþe sorge and longaþ,
lot of knowledge about philology and
linguistics. This is due the fact that Old
English and Middle English have lots of
wintercealde wræce, wean oft onfond
differences in contrast with Early
Modern English and Modern English as
siþþan hine Niðhad on nede legde,
well. swoncre seonobende on syllan monn.
Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.”

Deor (Old English poem, excerpt).


The modernist
phenomenon
Most of modern English poetry breaks
the barriers of the common meter, so
their verses are considered as “free”.
“With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall.”
Ezra Pound, Canto XLV - With Usura (excerpt).

Let’s recite!
Recite the whole poem aloud (here we
only show an excerpt). If you want, do it
by heart.
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.”
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale (excerpt).

Let’s recite!
Recite the whole poem aloud (here we
only show an excerpt). If you want, do it
by heart.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
taken.”
William Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI (excerpt).

Let’s recite!
Recite the whole poem aloud (here we
only show an excerpt). If you want, do it
by heart.
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?”
William Blake, The Tyger (excerpt).
 “Kiss me, I'm Irish
I am the wild rover
Let’s recite!
Sing the whole song aloud (here we My eyes they are smiling
only show an excerpt). Search the lyrics And I'm seldom sober
on the Internet.
I like my whiskey
And I love to dance
So if you're feeling as lucky as me, take a chance
And kiss me I'm Irish.”

Gaelic Storm, Kiss Me, I’m Irish (excerpt).

Final thoughts

Reading poetry

• Structure of the poetic text.

• Reciting the verse.
• Poetry is music.
• Poems of past and present.
Thank you!