Poetry

It’s not just what is said, but how it’s said.

Content and form are equal.

Diction

• Word choice– Consider connotations and denotations – p. 3 With a wide mouth: 1) talkative, 2) odd looking

• Latinate and Germanic Diction– Poetry is often associated with fancy or elaborate

vocabulary.– Is French a more poetic language than German?– This need not be the case. Hesse uses simple, clear,

unpretentious language– Much more Germanic or Anglo-Saxon than Latinate

Latinate and Anglo-Saxon Diction• Old English is Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) in its forms, structures, and

vocabulary. But at around 1100, the Normans invaded England causing French, a romance language (meaning it is derived from Latin) to mix with Old English. During the Renaissance (1400-1700), thousands more words were imported directly from Latin.

• For this reason, English today mixes Germanic and Latinate roots. Often we can find pairs of words, near synonyms, of which one comes from an Anglo-Saxon root and one from a Latinate root. Sometimes there are three closely related words, one each from Anglo-Saxon, from Latin via French, and directly from Latin, as in kingly (Germanic), royal (from French roi), and regal (from Latin rex, regis).

• As a (very rough) general rule, words derived from the Germanic ancestors of English are shorter, more concrete, and more direct, whereas Latinate words are longer and more abstract: compare, for instance, the Anglo-Saxon thinking with the Latinate cogitation.

• Most “bad” language is of Anglo-Saxon ancestry: compare, for instance, shit (Germanic) with excrement (Latinate).

Germanic Latinate Germanic Latinate

anger, wrath rage, ire flood inundateask inquire friendly amicable

begin commence give providebelief creed go departbodily corporal god deity

brotherly fraternal help assistchild infant hen poultry

come arrive hill mountdeadly mortal motherly maternal

earth soil new novel, modernfatherly paternal shut close

first primary teach educate

Figurative Language: • Metaphor 193: the dream Piano is mother, can touch the substitute

for mother. Mothers generally reflect back in their children- mirror.• Imagery We rely on five sense to know the world

– Visual is most used 43– Aural is second– Taste and scent– Tactile 62– Visceral; pertaining to the body 32

• Symbols an object that represents an idea.– Symbols are always pertinent to themes and must be supported by the

text– Apples – mother. Tart and sweet– Stubborn will to survive where they were not meant to be– 202 Mother as tumbleweed, sod is Pa, wheat is Billie Jo– Apple tree- life betrayal death.

Language

• Sound– Assonance- repeated vowel sounds 107– Alliteration- repeated initial consonants 21– Consonance- repeated internal consonants 47 /r/– These things make language flow smoother, and can

evoke emotions.

• Rhyme– Moves readers forward– In best poems, rhyme may not be noticed

Language• Structure

– To kill poetry, analyze the meter, iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, spondee, pyrrhic

– Free verse and metered (of course this is free verse)– Organized in stanzas– Concrete poems: p 13 “On Stage” looks like a piano.– 3 genres, lyric communicates feeling 23, narrative tells a story,

epic tells a long story.– The Ballad is a combination of genre and structure

• Because I could not stop for death 8• He kindly stopped for me 6• The carriage held but just ourselves 8• And immortality 6• If it fits the tune of Gilligan’s Island, then it’s a ballad.

Language

• Tone – exists in all communication. – the emotion of the narrator’s voice is trying to

convey (or “accidentally” conveys)– Different characters can be used to express

different tones.– In good novels, the tone changes frequently