Practicing using literary terminology ...

Identify the meter and verse form of the following passage:

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, (135)

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: (140)

So excellent a king; that was, to this ...

[from Hamlet, meter = iambic pentameter/ verse form = blank verse]

Do the same for the following passage:

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

[Walt Whitman/ verse form = free verse

Lit terms:

Identify the following: Fane would I follow Friedrich faintly and fantastic.

[alliteration repetition at close intervals of initial consonant words]

Long lost lovers loathe lone hours.

[assonance repetition at close intervals of vowel sounds]

I will miss the mill where Will did thrill

[consonance repetition at close intervals of final consonant sounds]

I will die 'ere she shall grieve

[from Emily Dickinson/ consonance – ll sound. Note too how the consonance emphasizes the words that indicate willing and desiring: will and shall.]

No examples for the following, but focus on them:

connotation what a word suggests beyond its surface definition

denotation basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word

diction choice of words for effect

syntax word order or grammatical appropriateness

And make sure you know these:

tone writer's attitude toward the audience or subject, implied or related directly

mood the atmosphere suggested by the structure and style of the poem

Review the following:

cacophony harsh, non-melodic, unpleasant sounding arrangement of words

euphony pleasant, easy to articulate words

onomatopoeia use of words which mimic their meaning in sound

sibilance hissing sounds represented by s, z, sh

allegory characters are symbols, has a moral

didactic poetry poetry with the primary purpose of teaching or preaching

dramatic monologue character "speaks" through the poem; a character study

elegy poem which expresses sorrow over a death of someone for whom the poet cared, or on another solemn theme

sonnet 14 line poem, fixed rhyme scheme, fixed meter (usually 10 syllables per line)

blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter

caesura a natural pause in the middle of a line, sometimes coinciding with punctuation

couplet two successive lines which rhyme, usually at the end of a work

enjambment describes a line of poetry in which the sense and grammatical construction continues on to the next line

  

free verse no fixed meter or rhyme

iambic pentameter: syllables per line, following an order of unaccented-accented syllables

internal rhyme repetition of sounds within a line (but not at the end of the line)

meter regularized rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables; accents occur at approx. equal intervals of time

refrain repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines in a pattern

rhyme repetition of end sounds

rhythm wave-like recurrence of sound

stanza group of lines

structure internal organization of a poem's content

allusion a reference to something in literature of history

anaphora repetition of the same word or words at the start of two or more lines

archetype a character or personality type found in every society

conceit an extended witty, paradoxical, or startling metaphor

hyperbole exaggeration, overstatement

imagery representation through language of a sensory experience

irony incongruity or discrepancy between the implied and expected; verbal, dramatic, situational

metaphor implied or direct comparison

metonymy symbolism; one thing is used as a substitute for another with which it is closely identified (the White House)

oxymoron compact paradox in which two successive words contradict each other

pace tempo or rate implied by the structure and style of the poem

paradox statement or situation containing seemingly contradictory elements

parallelism presents coordinating ideas in a coordinating manner

persona assumed speaker of the poem; typically used synonymously with 'speaker'

personification giving a non-human the characteristics of a human

simile comparison using 'like' or 'as'

style an author's combined use of these ideas into a recurring pattern of usage

symbolism something (object, person, situation, etc.) means more than what it is

synecdoche symbolism; the part signifies the whole, or the whole the part (all hands on board)

theme central idea