THE ELEMENTS OF POETRY

The main difference between Poetry and

prose is the style (language) and Form
5 MAIN ELEMENTS OF POETRY
§ Form (rhythm, meter, stanza, and line)
§ Musical/Sound Devices (alliteration, assonance,
and rhyme)
§ Language (diction, imagery, figure of speech)
§ Theme (the central idea or view of life that the
writer explores or experienced in life)
§ Tone (the attitude of the writer toward his
subject, his readers, and himself)
FORM

The Shape of the Poem

RHYTHM

The term rhythm refers to any wavelike

recurrence of motion or sound. In speech
it is the natural rise and fall of language.
All language is to some extend
rhythmical, for all language involves
some kind of alteration between
accented (-) and unaccented syllables
(v).
METRE
§ Meter comes from the word meaning
“measure” or measuring a line by using the foot
and naming the number of feet in the line.
Meter signifies the recurrent regular rhythmic
unit in a poetic line.
§ Meter occurs when the stressed and
unstressed syllables of the words in a poem
are arranged in a repeating pattern.
§ When poets write in meter, they count
out the number of stressed (strong)
syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables
for each line. They repeat the pattern
throughout the poem.
§ FOOT - unit of meter.
§ Feet/Foot : after syllable, the next largest
metrical unit is the foot. It is the
combination of loud (stressed) and soft
(unstressed) syllables which contributes
to the recurrent rhythmic unit of line
The Six Most Common
Kinds of Feet in English
§ Iambic : /v -/ (unstressed, stressed).
Ex. to-’day
§ Trochaic : /- v/, (stressed, un stressed)
Ex. ‘dai-ly
§ Anapestic :/v v -/, (unstressed,
unstressed, stressed). Ex. In-ter-’vene
§ Dactylic : /- v v/, (stressed, unstressed,
unstressed. Ex. ‘yes-ter-day
§ Spondaic :/- -/ (stressed, stressed)
Ex. ‘day-’break
§ Pyrrhic : /v v/ (unstressed, unstressed)
Ex. (and-the)
§ Monosyllabic foot/imperfect :/-/ or /v/
(stressed) or (unstressed)
Ex. ‘day or in
LINE

§ A line is succession of feet which usually

begins with a capital letter. Lines are
called verses. The line is measured by
naming the feet in it
§ Names of line :
* Monometer : one foot
* Dimeter : two feet
* Trimeter : three feet
...
* tetrameter : four feet
* pentameter : five feet
* hexameter : six feet
* heptameter : seven feet
* octameter : eight feet
Example :

§ Read the following line from Christina

Rossetti’s “THE WIND”
- v - v -
who /has seen/ the wind

* the first line consists of two iambic feet. It

is called iambic dimeter
Scansion

§ Is the act of marking a poem to show the

metrical unit to which it is composed
§ The first step to learn to scan is to learn
to recognize syllables and to determine
whether they are stressed or not. Look
up in your dictionary for the stresses
§ To scan a poem is to mark it in such a
way that its meter is made evident.
Here are the steps in
Scansion
1. Mark the syllables in the line to be scanned;
pronounced the words loudly, because it is the ears
that determine the number of syllables.
2. Examine the marks over the syllables to discover which
kind of meter predominates. After you have determined
the meter, you are ready to put in the vertical marks
3. Discover by reading Aloud, whether there is a pause or
caesura
then indicate its position by marking in double vertical
line or a single one if the pause coincides with the end
of the foot.
...
4. Count the n umber feet to determine the
appropriate label or name of the line. Usually,
the feet vary
5. Before putting in the marks decide whether the
poem is in rising meter (iambic and anapestic) or
falling meter (trochaic and dactylic).
6. Since alike, there may be usually slight
difference between your scansion and another
person’s. The thing to avoid is a scansion that
could spoil the language.

Caesura or Pause (II) is used by a poet to

show the unit of thought
 THE WIND
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by

Christina Rossetti
 METRICAL FEET

Trochee trips from long to short.

From long to in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! Yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactylic trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long:-
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng

Samuel Taylor C (1772-1834)

The Oak
Live thy life, All his leaves
Young and Old, Fall’n at length,
Like yon oak, Look, he stands,
Bright in spring. Trunk and bough,
Living gold; Naked strength.

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed,
Soberer-hued
Gold again.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
 Note:
The function of rhythm and meter is, first, to make the
poem pleasant /enjoyable to hear and to read.
Second, to make the poem more meaningful.
Spondees /- -/ makes the line slow, and anapests
/vv-/ make the line fast
Discussions of meter usually contain answer to
questions, such as:
1. Is the meter appropriate to the poem?
2. Is the meter monotonous and unvaried?
3. What does the meter contribute to the total effect
of the poem?
4. Why does the poet vary his basic meter?
In all great poetry, meter works intimately with the
other elements of the poem to produce the
appropriate total effect.
STANZA
§ division of poem: a number of lines of
verse forming a separate unit within a poem.
§ In many poems, each stanza has the same
number of lines and the same rhythm and
rhyme
§ Stanzaic poems usually lyrics are written in
stanzas. A stanza consists of four lines
called a quatrain
Names of Stanza

§ Couplet : two lines

§ Triplet : three lines
§ Quatrain : four lines
§ Quintet : five lines
§ Sestet : six lines
§ Octave : eight lines
Addition . . .
Based on the structure and technique in
poetry, there are two forms of poetry.
1. Closed-form : the traditional form of
poetry that has metrical restriction
including blank verse, sonnet, song/lyric,
ode, ballad, etc
2. Open-form : modern form of poetry
that is free from metrical restriction
including free verse or prosaic poems.
SOUND
EFFECTS/DEVICES
RHYME

§ Words sound alike LAMP

because they share STAMP
the same ending
vowel and consonant
sounds. ! Share the short “a”
vowel sound
! Share the combined
“mp” consonant
§ (A word always sound
rhymes with itself.)
END RHYME

§ A word at the end of one line rhymes with

a word at the end of another line

Hector the Collector

Collected bits of string.
Collected dolls with broken heads
And rusty bells that would not ring.
INTERNAL RHYME

§ A word inside a line rhymes with another

word on the same line.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I

pondered weak and weary.

From “The Raven”

by Edgar Allan Poe
NEAR RHYME

§ a.k.a imperfect ROSE

rhyme, close rhyme LOSE

§ The words share ! Different vowel

EITHER the same sounds (long “o” and
vowel or consonant “oo” sound)
sound BUT NOT ! Share the same
BOTH consonant sound
RHYME SCHEME

§ A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually

end rhyme, but not always).

§ Use the letters of the alphabet to represent

sounds to be able to visually “see” the pattern.
(See next slide for an example.)
SAMPLE RHYME SCHEME
The Germ by Ogden Nash

A mighty creature is the germ, a

Though smaller than the pachyderm. a
His customary dwelling place b
Is deep within the human race. b
His childish pride he often pleases c
By giving people strange diseases. c
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? a
You probably contain a germ. a
ONOMATOPOEIA

§ Words that imitate the sound they are

naming
BUZZ
§ OR sounds that imitate another sound

“The silken, sad, uncertain, rustling

of
each purple curtain . . .”
ALLITERATION

§ Consonant sounds repeated at the

beginnings of words

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

peppers, how many pickled peppers did
Peter Piper pick?
CONSONANCE

§ Similar to alliteration EXCEPT . . .

§ The repeated consonant sounds can be

anywhere in the words

“silken, sad, uncertain, rustling . . “

ASSONANCE

§ Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or

lines of poetry.

(Often creates near rhyme.)

Lake Fate Base Fade

(All share the long “a” sound.)
ASSONANCE cont.
Examples of ASSONANCE:
“Slow the low gradual moan came in the
snowing.”
- John Masefield

“Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet

sleep.”
- William Shakespeare
REFRAIN

§ A sound, word, “Quoth the raven,

phrase or line ‘Nevermore.’”
repeated regularly in
a poem.