Poetry Unit Notes- Test Friday!

Alliteration:

Definition: repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words.

Example: Holden hopes his hair holds on to its red hue.

Stanza:

Definition: a grouped set of lines within a poem, usually set off from other stanzas by a blank line or different indentation (pretty much like a paragraph in a poem)

Example: The poem below has six stanzas.

“Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Sonnet:

Definition: A poem made up of 14 lines that rhyme in a fixed pattern

Example: Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(Rhyme scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGG)

Simile:

Definition: a comparison using “like” or “as”

Example: busy as a bee

Metaphor:

Definition: a comparison which does not use “like” or “as”, but rather says something IS something

Example: Snake in the grass- a conniving, sneaky, and untrustworthy person who may strike at any time

Imagery:

Definition: vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste).

Example: He fumed and charged like an angry bull.

Meter:

Definition: the rhythmic pattern of a poem’s syllables

Example:  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  Shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer’s DAY?

Each pair of unstressed and stressed syllables makes up a unit called a foot. Ther likne containes five feet in all as shown:

Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day?

    1             2             3           4              5

Personification:

Definition: Giving human characteristics to something that is not human.

Example: The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.

Speaker:

Definition:  The narrator of the poem. This is NOT necessarily the author!

Example: “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;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The speaker in this poem is a man who has made a choice in life, which has somehow impacted his life greatly.

Mood:

Definition: A feeling or atmosphere perceived by the reader

Example: Poe’s works often created a mysterious or spooky mood.