POETRY UNIT

WHAT IS POETRY???? One of the three

major types of literature (with prose and drama)

Most poems make use of concise, musical, and emotionally charged language

Alive with imagery, figurative language, and sound devises.

POETRY TERMSVerse – a line of poetry; often numbered

Stanza – a group of verses (or lines of poetry)

Stanzas are similar to paragraphs in prose.Shape – the way a poem looks on a page

VERSE

Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter (a series of stressed and unstressed syllables)

Used by Shakespeare

No rules! Mimics spoken word Many opportunities

for interpretation! Uses imagery Most modern poetry

is written in free verse

Blank Verse Free Verse

TYPES OF POEMSLYRIC – musical; expresses observations and feelings of a single person

NARRATIVE – tells a storyDRAMATIC – a poem that uses the techniques of drams (such as dialogue)

TYPES OF POEMS, CON’T.FIXED – poems that follow a

specific form

Ballad – songlike poem that tells a story; written in stanza form with regular rhythms and rhyme schemes and featuring a refrain

Haiku – Japanese poem that conveys a vivid emotion or captures a moment in time; 5-7-5 syllables

Sonnet – 14 line lyric poem

MUSICAL DEVICES…… Alliteration – repetition

of beginning consonant sounds

Assonance – repetition of same vowel sound within words

Consonance – repetition of final consonant sounds

Onomatopoeia – words that imitate sound

Wet, windy, weather on Wednesday

I feel alive in the sunlight.

Do not sit on the hat, please.

The bells went “ding dong ding”

ALLITERATION

The repetition of the initial consonant sounds or

words

ASSONANCE

Consonance

Vowel rhyme; the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby wordsEx: date, fade

Repetition of consonants within nearby words in which the preceding vowels differEx: milk, walk

The use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning.

POETRY TERMS – MUSICAL DEVICES

Meter – the rhythmical pattern of a poem, determined by the number and types of stresses, or beats, in each line.

Rhyme – words that sound alike: hat/cat Rhyme Scheme – the pattern of rhyme Jack and Jill a Went up the Hill a To fetch a pail of water b

TERMS….CON’T Repetition –

repeating a word, several words, or whole lines:

“And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.”

Rhythm – brings out the musical quality of the language; can create mood and empathize ideas

REPETITION

Use of any language element

more than once

RepetitionRepetition

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Words NOT meant to be taken literally!

Simile – comparison using “like” or “as” “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

Metaphor – a direct comparison of two unlike things

“He was a raging bull, screaming loudly”

SIMILE

A comparison between two things using

like or as

To compare two things (without

using like or as), suggesting a commonality

between the two

METAPHOR

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, CONT. Personification – when an animal is given

human qualities or an inanimate object is given living characteristics

Mickey Mouse The sun smiled gently down on us.

MORE……

Hyperbole – exaggeration for a special effect (for emphasis or humor)

They cried buckets over the loss of their pet.

They fell out of their seats laughing.

PERSONIFICATION

Language that attributes human qualities to non-human things.

The tree stretched its

limbs to reach the sky

EXAGGERATION FOR THE SAKE OF EMPHASIS

ImageryWords that appeal to the senses that “paint”

a picture….uses Sensory Language, words that appeal to the five senses….

“Imagine a luxurious, less complicated lifestyle. Imagine open fields and cool running water. Imagine hearing the soft chirping of birds outside your window. Now, this is living!”

Descriptive language used to

create word pictures or images (paint a

picture in your mind)

THEME The message of the poem The lesson the poet is teaching the reader