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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).
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.
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....
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.
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.
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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