Surprise Rousseau

Faber Book of Beasts;

The Art of Poetry

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

Here Elbow use sound and lyrics to mimic the fluttering, heartstopping sensations of first love. The song 'Starlings' is an aural metaphor for those feelings.

We know that the Eagle bccomes the symbol of America in 1782, shortly after the War of Independence. We also know that the American Civil War was fought from 1861-1865. Two factions of the United States (North and South) were fighting against one another.

We also know that the Civil War had a profound effect on Whitman's life and poetry. That he became a journalist and a hospital volunteer during this time. Is there some significance in this poem with regard to this information?

This may be a line of inquiry worth pursuing.

So then....

What creates a sound picture? Figurative Language and other poetic techniques but what are these? I created an acronym to help with this task

SMART VIA CARPE

The Dalliance of the Eagles

Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,)

Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,

The rushing amorous contact high in space together,

The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel,

Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling,

In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling,

Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull,

A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing,

Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight,

She hers, he his, pursuing. Whitman (1880)

There are also composers/lyricists that are so talented they can bring all of the elements together.

S imile : likening one thing to another using like or as. (the sun was like a burning eye)

A 12

B 18

C 13

D 16

E 13

F 13

G 14

H 17

I 17

J 7

M etaphor likening one thing to another without like or as (The Camel is the ship of the desert)

However... we also know that in 1882,

Boston district attorney wrote to

Whitman's publisher, claiming that 'Leaves of Grass' which now contained 'The Dalliance of the Eagles' constituted "obscene literature" and should not be published. The publisher Osgood refused to reprint returning the plates to Whitman after he refused to make deletions. Whitman found another publisher, so is this a lascivious poem about the human sexual act?

Maybe?

It seems fair at this point to leave the

last words to another famous

American Eagle and censor of unseemly behaviour

Have a Great Day!

A lliteration a phrase with consecutive consonants at the beginning of each word (Furry Feet)

Whitman’s poem is written in free verse form it does not have a rhyme scheme, this mirrors the freedom of the bird. The American Eagle; the symbol of Freedom.

The metre is iambic and this provides the structure; tightly linked to the content.

The key seems to be the irregularity of rhythm. It's an unusual pattern of 12, 18, 13, 16, 13, 13, 14, 17, 17, 7. Now, if you couple this with the content , then Whitman’s use of the metre becomes clearer. The metre mirrors the content, the birds are first seen at their highest ; the longest line of the poem. Then they stop (line 3) echoing the stopping of the poet almost as if they are aware that he is watching them.

R hyme the rhymes created by the sounds used at the end of a line

T one The mood of the poem, this often alters during a poem.

Yeah, so that's great Bekki but what if we get a poem that doesn't have any formal qualities or recognisable form? What then?

Funny you should say that :)

In line 4 the metre increases to 16 feet as the Eagles spin in a great ‘gyrating wheel’ before beginning to descend in lines 5, 6 with a lull in the descent in line 7. In the three final lines the birds part mid-air before beginning their elevation again. In the final lines, they are taking a separate (diverse) flight path and again this is mirrored in the metre where it more than halves to 7 feet in the last line.

V olta The point at which the tone changes, often denoted through the use of ‘but or although’

In the final and shortest line of the poem Whitman again creates a sense of movement through his placing of the stresses. He delineates them now as individual entities with the stress on ‘hers’ and ‘his’ and falling in the middle of ‘pursuing’ (line 10)

Look at Whitman’s use of metre here, using iambic he very carefully places the stresses on the invigorating terms. By using many active words with the ‘ing’ suffix, the stress is always on the word rather than the ending; ‘gyrating’ ‘whirling’ ‘swirling’. This use of stress is most effective in the description of the birds descent ‘downward falling’ (line 13) conjuring an image of the Eagles hurtling towards the land beneath them.

I magery The picture painted in the poem often using symbolism

A ssonance a phrase that consecutive vowel sounds (Cross Boss)

Can there be something symbolic sitting behind this description? Something deeper? Perhaps, once a formal analysis has been done then further detective work can be undertaken what we call in Literature and New Historists approach. However, this must be undertaken last as otherwise there runs a risk of bending the poem to fit your interpretation rather than finding where the content and the form link.

C aesura A break or pause in the middle of a line that forces the reader to stop (adds emphasis)

A ddressee The person who the poem is addressed to

R hythm The metre of the poem denoted by the number of feet in a line. (2 syllables per foot)

The Snare by James Stephens

I hear a sudden cry of pain!

There is a rabbit in a snare:

Now I hear the cry again,

But I cannot tell from where.

But I cannot tell from where

He is calling out for aid!

Crying on the frightened air,

Making everything afraid!

Making everything afraid!

Wrinkling up his little face!

And he cries again for aid;

- and I cannot find the place!

And I cannot find the place

Where his paw is in the snare!

Little One! Oh, Little One!

I am searching everywhere!

P ersonification Giving human attributes to inanimate objects

E njambment A run on line it often follows a caesura, this means the line needs the next line to make sense, it also prevents a pause at the end of the line which creates a conversational tone.

This is where you may see a link between structure and content.

In other words where the content of the poem is mirrored in the form.

In the month of Averil

the gowk comes over the hill

in a shower of rain

Anonymous

(Faber book of Beasts, pg 64)

Look at the formal qualities, is this?

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides: above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumbered and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages and will lie

Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

A Ballad

B Haiku

C Sonnet

C Sonnet

A Haiku

B Ballad

Now let's look at the make up of a well known poem.

The Kraken

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Poetic Metre seems

to be an area that

students new to poetry find impossible

Poetry is often

referred

to as sound

pictures,

made with words,

placed on a page~

BUT

what does

that mean?

Let's try another

What is

Poetry?

How can

we recognise

it?

What kinds

of form can

a poem

take?

Is there one

standard

form?

So why is it important to know where the stress lies

in a poem?

A metre is a number of feet

put together in a line of poetry to create a rhythm

1 foot = 2 syllables

in Iambic this is unstressed followed by stressed.

A Sound Picture

Poetry comes in many forms, it can

encompass any theme but it will contain figurative

language; language that creates and image

This coupled

with the sound the language makes creates...

“If I should die, think only this of me”

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

If music be the food of love, play on;

But soft! What light breaks through yonder window?

10 syllables, 5 feet, Unstress/stress Iambic

Iambic Pentametre

The reordering of syntax here shows

why Shakespeare ends on 'breaks' ;

it creates a far more satisfying stress

sound and emulates the breaking of the

window open to reveal? Juliet.

Here is pentametre 5 is Pent= 5 metre= 10 feet/ syllables

Iambic is unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable

Love me, love me, love me,

say you do

Let me fly away with you

For my love is like the wind, and wild is the wind

Wild is the wind

Byron Bowie

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin; his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain

Love me, love me, love me, say you do

Let me fly away with you

For my love is like the wind, and wild is the wind

Wild is the wind

Bowie's verse contains

Anaphora, AA rhyme, Simile,

Personification, Alliteration, Repetition, Onomatopoeia

Byron

There was a time when

Poetry WAS the

Rock and Roll

Classic lyrics became the modern poetry

Below the thunders of the upper deep; A

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, B

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep A

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee B

About his shadowy sides: above him swell C

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; D

And far away into the sickly light, D

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell C

10

10

10

10

10

10

10

11

10

10

10

11

10

10

12

Unnumbered and enormous polypi E

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. F

There hath he lain for ages and will lie E

Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, A

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; A

Then once by man and angels to be seen, F

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. E

Haiku

Consists of three lines of Poetry

The rhythm or beat is 5, 7, 5 giving the overall poem 17 syllables

The content conventionally contains two images

The Sonnet

Usually 14 lines, it can be broken up a number of ways

3 verses of 4 lines each and a rhyming couplet,

Or a two way split of 8 lines followed by 6 lines.

(Octet and sestet)

Its rhyme scheme is ,ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, if it is Shakespearean and the earlier Petrachan form often adheres to ABBA ABBA CDDCDC.

It has a metre (rhythm) Shakespearean is always ten beats (syllables) per line of iambic unstress/stress. The metre (10 beats) is known as pentametre. Each two syllables create a foot of poetry.

There Are Many Kinds

of Poems.

All with different rules, creating different forms.

‘The Kraken’ is sonnet, the rhyme scheme of ABAB CDDC EFEA AFE, that breaks rules.

It begins as Shakespearean moves to Petrarchan before introducing a new scheme for the remainder of the poem.

Here Tennyson uses schemes from the past as well as present then creates a future one and this resonates with the emblem of time that runs through the poem.

‘The Kraken’ breaks into three quatrains and a final verse with 3 non-rhyming lines.

The first quatrain describes the habitat of the Kraken,

The second defines its appearance.

The third quatrain delineates the action/inaction of the Kraken .

The last three lines outline its demise in a biblical allusion suggesting the end of time or day of judgement when all things will die.

Tennyson mostly uses iambic pentameter. However, in lines 8 and line 12 there is extra syllable (this is in keeping with the Italian kind of meter used in Pertrarchan sonnets). Line 15 however has an extra foot making this line Hexameter used in Latin or Greek Epic poems. This extra line (sonnets have 14 lines)with twelve syllables (6 feet) adds to the finality of the poem (everything stops, nothing follows, the expectation is denied, echoing the content: The End of Time or Day of Judgement.

Finally, Tennyson utilises sibilance throughout his descriptions, in keeping with the location and behaviour of the Kraken. The soft ‘c’ or ‘s’ sound, creates a sound-scape akin the depths of the unknowable ocean while reverberating the sleeping ‘slumbering’ ‘secret cells’ of the Kraken with ‘shadowy sides’ and ‘sponges’ that stretch into the ‘sickly light’

A Ballad

By learning some

rules we can

identify particular

forms and kinds of

poems.

Often in quatrains (four-line stanzas but can often be six)

Usually long poems that often tell a story.

They are mostly in iambic

(unstress/ stressed) .

The metre (rhythm) is often tetrameter (eight syllables)

followed by trimeter (six syllables), this is referred to as ballad meter.

Usually, only the second and fourth line of a verse are rhymed (in the scheme A, B,C, B), but this is where there can be many variations.

When they break the rules, it is significant.

When we spot it we can decode it, this is what creates an

analysis.

There are many different rhythms and meters used by poets.

Sometimes a poem may have a different meter or rhyme scheme from line to line, but you will often find there is a pattern.

To analyse a poem you need to identify the formal qualities including the metre and the overall pattern, comment on it, explain how it works and what effect it creates.