fandomhigh | Creative Writing: Poetry, Lesson Two

Tuesday, January 17, 8th period

Welcome to your second poetry class, everyone. I'd like to thank our TA, Kiki, for the coffee and pastries she's set up for us.

[LECTURE] The word poetry is derived from the Greek word 'poeio', meaning "I create". It is a written art form in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to -- or sometimes instead of -- its semantic content. The emphasis on the aesthetics of language and the deliberate use of elements such as repetition, meter and rhyme, distinguish poetry from prose. Poetry is generally considered its own literary genre, but it can also occur within other genres. Plays, for example may be prosaic, poetic or a combination of the two.

In order to write poetry, you'll need to have an understanding of the various elements used in verse. We'll begin today with three of the most basic: rhyme, meter, and form.

Rhyme is the repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words.

Meter refers to the linguistic sound patterns of verse. Foot refers to the most basic component of meter. The meter is made up of the stresses that recur at fixed intervals in a poem. There are four commonly used meters:

Iambic (foot: "iamb" - /) is the most familiar meter used in the English language -- in fact, ordinary speech often falls into this meter. Example: "The falling out of the faithful friends", where the stress falls on "fall-", "out", "faith-", and "friends".

Anapestic (foot: "anapest"- - /) Example: "I am monarch of all I survey", where the stress falls on "mon-", "all", and "-vey".

Trochaic (foot: "trochee" / -) Example: "Double, double, toil and trouble", where the stress falls on "Dou-", "dou-", "toil", and "trou-".

Dactylic (foot: "dactyl" / - -) Example: "Take her up tenderly", where the stress falls on "Take" and "tend-".

Iambic and trochaic are known as "rising meters", while anapestic and dactylic are "falling meters". Another somewhat lesser-used form of meter is accentual meter. This is not written in feet but rather counts accents (stresses), placing the same number of stresses in each line, regardless of where they lay or how long the line is. Old English poetry is written using a strict accentual meter. An excellent example of accentual meter can be found in Coleridge's poem "Christabel":

"There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the top-most twig that looks up at the sky."

Meter can be found in any length, although most commonly between one foot (monometer) and eight (octameter). The most common poetic meter in the English language is the iambic pentameter, a line made of five iambs, or iambic feet. It occurs in nearly all blank verse, heroic couplets, and sonnets.

Form is the design of a poem as a whole. Closed form has a set pattern, and tneds to look regular and symmetrical on paper. Open form has no pattern, and often makes use of white space for emphasis.

[ASSIGNED READINGS] The works you've been reading by Petrarch and Shakespeare are sonnets. From the Italian sonnetto, meaning "little song", the sonnet owes a great deal of its prestige to Petrarch. This style of poetry utilizes a fourteen line pattern and a set rhyme scheme, which is different for English and Italian sonnets. Both rhyme schemes are set into two distinct parts: the "octave", or first eight lines, and the "sestet", or second six lines.

The English sonnet follows this rhyme scheme, which ends in a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg
The Italian sonnet uses a slightly different scheme: abba abba for the octave, and any of cdcdcd/cdecde/cdccdc for the sestet.

[Discussion] From your assigned reading, choose one sonnet from the first ten in Canzoniere and one by Shakespeare from the list of those assigned (numbers 13, 18, 20, 35, 71, 75, 83, 89, 96, 130, and 137), and give a brief analysis of their similarities and differences. You can compare style, form, subject matter, even word use if you like.

[WRITING ASSIGNMENT] Due Next Week: Write your own sonnet, using either the Italian or English form. Sonnets can be written on any topic, so choose something you find meaningful yourself. Advanced Students: Your assignment is to write one sonnet in each form.

***Assignment for Next Week: Read the following Child ballads:***
10. The Twa Sisters
18. Sir Lionel
37. Thomas Rymer
39. Tam Lin
54. The Cherry-Tree Carol
74. Fair Margaret and Sweet William
78. The Unquiet Grave
84. Bonny Barbara Allen
164. King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France
200. The Gypsy Laddie
275. Get Up and Bar the Door

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