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Language Use:
Denotation, connotation--both mean to signify, but with a difference.
A word denotes its primary meaning--its barest adequate definition; it connotes the
attributes commonly associated with it. For instance,
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| "father" denotes one who has begotten; it connotes male sex, prior existence,
greater experience, affections, guidance, etc.:
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| "ugly" denotes what is unpleasing to our sight; it connotes repellent effect,
immunity from the dangers peculiar to beauty, disadvantage in the market place (marriage
market).
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Poets will spend much of their time finding words for their poems that use denotation
and connotation to their fullest.
Concrete versus abstract language: since poets search for the exact
words to echo the sense of their poems, they tend to stay away from abstract language;
throwing words like faith, hope, trust, or love into a poem
without either imagery or concrete nouns to explain what these terms mean is the work of a
lazy poet. If we truly believe that the poet's job is to help shape the chaos of our
lives, then specificity is a must.
"If I stepped out of my body/ I would break into blossom," writes the poet
James Wright in his poem "The Blessing."
A lazy poet would have written,"I felt great love/ at the sight of the two
horses."
Figurative language
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| metaphor--an expression of similarity of dissimilarity in which a direct,
nonliteral substitution or identity is made between on thing and another: My car is a
lemon, or hope is a bird.
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| personification--lends human qualities to abstractions and animate or inanimate
objects, designed to evoke emotion: "not even the rain has such small hands"
e.e. cummings.
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| symbol--a work, phrase or image that represents something literal and concrete
and yet maintains a complex set of abstract ideas and values: A cross too heavy to bear.
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| allegory--allegorical characters tend to be literal, one-dimensional, sharply
outlined, and rigid in the order of ideas they represent: Mr. Scrooge in "The
Christmas Carol.
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| paradox--tells its truth through a self-contradicting assertion in the whole of
its meaning, or an assertion that contradicts popular opinion: Many Christians maintain
that through dying they are reborn.
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| irony-names or states one thing but intends another which is conveyed through
the tone of the persona or contradiction between words and the matter at hand: In Oedipus,
he wants to punish the murderer of his father unaware that he is the murderer.
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Sound
Poet's not only use figurative language, they also draw upon the way words sound to
echo the sense of their words.
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| alliteration--repetition of consonants, vowels and/or syllables in close proximity in a
line: "Love laments loneliness."
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| assonance-the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds within words in a line:
"Cool blue lewd dude."
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| consonance-the close repetition of similar or identical consonants of words whose main
vowels differ: "The sea was seized with sadness."
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| onomatopoeia-the formation of words whose sound and/or rhythm imitate the referential
sound itself: tinkle, boom.
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| rhyme-the harmony or identity of sound values. Usually associated with end-rhyme.
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| rhythm-the sense of movement attributable to the pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables in a line or poetry: which leads us to....
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Form
Poetry differs from prose in that poetry has a form based on syllabic count of some
type arranged in the poetic line.
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| line-a structural unit of measurement in verse that, by its length and rhythm, adjusts
the reading speed and overall cadence of the poem.
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| metrical line-characterized by the number of feet it contains--monometer, dimeter,
trimeter--and the type of meter employed--iambic, trochaic, dactylic.
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| free verse-the line may be formed phrasal by conversational unit or thought units,
depending upon the nature of the experience being expressed.
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| stanza-a fixed or variable grouping of lines that is organized into thematic, metrical,
musical, or narrative sections-couplet-1, tercet-3, quatrain-4.
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These sections may be end-rhymed in some manner.
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| fixed forms-any set of regularly rhyming and metrically pattered verse forms: sonnets,
haiku, villanelle.
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Meaning (sense)
To derive the meaning of a poem, all of the above are taken into consideration; combine
those with the persona of the poem, as well as your own experience and hopefully you will
find the poem's theme.
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| persona--the speaker of a poem who is easily recognized as being different from the
poem.
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| tone-the speaker's identifiable attitude toward the subject matter.
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| theme-the paraphrasable main idea(s) of a poem.
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| title-the title allows insight into the poem.
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