Poetry

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What is poetry?

Expression of feelings and ideas through language/stylistic features, and is given rhythm

Sonnets

• 14 line poem
• Traditionally written in iambic pentameter
• Known for their strict rhythm and rhyme
• Often associated with love
  • Attributed to Shakespeare’s sonnets
• There are 3 types of traditional sonnets, but many poets have experimented with the form

Petrarchan - Italian Origins

• Named after the Italian poet, Francesco Petrarch
• Composed of 2 stanzas, the octave (first 8 lines) followed by the answering sestet (the final 6 lines)
• The octave typically presents an argument, observation or question
• This is followed by a turn, or volta, which occurs between the 8th and 9th lines
• The sestet operates as a counterargument, clarification, or answer
• Rhyme scheme = abba, abba, cdecde/cdcdcd

Shakespearean

• The Shakespearean, or English sonnet, is named after Shakespeare’s proficiency with the form (he wrote 154 of them)
• Typically has 3 quatrains and a couplet
• The couplet often works as the volta did before it, thse final lines form a conclusion, extension, or even rebuttal of of the previous stanzas
• Rhyme scheme = abab, cdcd, efef, gg

Spenserian - another English twist

• Invented by 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser
• Utilises the ‘physical’ structure of the Shakespearean sonnet (three quatrains and a couplet)
• The rhyme scheme connects the quatrains, reminiscent of the Petrarchan sonnet
• One reason was to reduce the often excessive final couplet of the Shakespearean sonnet, putting less pressure on it to resolve the foregoing argument, observation or question
• Rhyme scheme = abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee

Common Themes

• Shakespeare’s sonnets are primarily concerned with the passage of time, love, infidelity, jealousy, beauty, mortality, and feelings of incompetence

Cummings and Sonnets

https://theberkshireedge.com/anyone-for-tennyson-e-e-cummings-an-american-original/

“Cummings wrote some 2700 poems including more than 200 sonnets. These often did not look like sonnets or feel like sonnets, but within their 14 lines of verse one could find strong evidence of a Romanticism where feeling held sway over thinking and emotion over reason”

"Make it new" - Ezra Pound

ok so apparently everything above is a lie

• There are no “types” of sonnets, they’re just social constructs
• it’s like modernism!!!!!!!
• post modernism?????
• sonnets!!!!
• OK SO APPARENTLY
• THE FORM IS STILL IMPORTANT
• BUT ONLY SO THAT WE KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO
• SO BASICALLY
• WE KNOW THE FORM TO NOT KNOW THE FORM, YKWIM???
  • yeah probably not

"Cummings is a ratbag" - Mr Barton

Some ways to phrase a discussion on this

• Cummings abandons the traditional structure of the Petrarchan sonnet…
• Cummings forgoes the strict rhythm and rhyme of the Shakespearean sonnet in order to…
• The sonnet form is associated with the Renaissance period but shares many thematic concerns with the Romantics. Cummings, a traditionalist in many senses, manipulates the conventions of the form in order to…
• Ezra Pound’s maxim, “make it new”, is the hallmark of the literary modernist movement. Cummings’ reworking of the sonnet form allow him to…
• While experimenting with the physical layout of the poem, Cummings still adheres to the structural elements of typical sonnets with the latter part of the poem being a reflection on the earlier lines and a volta, of sorts, occurring in…

Starting points

What is the first thing you do when you see an unseen poem?

1. Write the literal - encapsulating the surface meaning of the poem
   1. What does the poem seem to be immediately about
   2. What tells you that
   3. How can you put these 2 things into a single, pithy sentence

Why might it be important to do that?

The Art of Annotating

• If you can - use different colours to mark out different kinds of annotations
• Red - anything where the abstract has been converted into the concrete.
  • Could be achieved through metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, irony, conceit, imagery, metonymy, motif, objective correlative, synecdoche
• Blue - anything related to the structure or form of the poem
  • Could include the genre, shape of the poem on the page, gaps and silences, ellipses, enjambment, capitalisation, punctuation, verses, lengths, movements, stresses, refrains, feet, elision, caesura
• Green - anything related to the sound, rhyme, rhythm or auditory effects
  • Could include rhyme, rhythm, metre, repetition, dissonance, consonance, alliteration, assonance, end rhyme, half-rhyme, onomatopoeia, sprung rhythm, cacophony, anaphora
• Yellow - anything related to the attitudes expressed by/within the poem and the ways in which the reader can identify them
  • Could be achieved or expressed through tone, mood, irony, positioning, the poetic voice or persona, style, positioning of the reader in relation to key ideas, inter-textuality, allusions and representations

Looking for links

• One step that is often overlooked is to look for links between the different elements or techniques.
• Have another look at your annotations page
• Try to draw lines between any techniques that ‘speak’ to each other or work to build up meanings or ideas when examined in conjunction

Finding patterns

• The next step is to look for overarching patterns in the piece
• These can bet thought of ‘movements’ or mini structures. Imagine that examining the poem is akin to looking inside a kaleidoscope.
• Each pattern you see is like a different image in the kaleidoscope - rich and memorable, made up of lots of smaller facets.
• A pattern may be repeating movements in the poem from a large scale view to an intimate one.
• Orit could be a movement from one voice to many - or from a historical or past perspective to a recent one
• What patterns can you trace in your sample poem

Last step - putting it all together

• By this stage, you should have completed most of your

Other Approaches - Aesthetic based readings

• These are readings in which the poem is contemplated as a work of art
• They involve a strong emphasis on the visual effects or impacts of the poem, how it is structured and the sensory experience or responses that are evoked in the reader through the use of particular poetic devices
• These elements need to be yoked together into a reading that analyses the poem as a particular kind of work of art, taking into consideration the underlying values or ideologies that inform the work and what it might be trying to say
• One way into this kind of reading is to imagine the poem as an art object or painting
• What would it look like? Why? What makes you say that? What values does its aesthetic qualities seem to be tapping into? How do you know that?
• Consideration of these things will help produce strong aesthetics based readings of poems

Some rules to follow if applying one of these kinds of readings

1. It helps if you are familiar with the basic principles of that theoretical framework
2. Try not to use more than 2 key terms relevant to that discourse in your analysis
3. Ensure you define the terms, clearly and succinctly, in your introduction or in the opening body of your paragraph
4. Remember that close reading is always ‘KING’. Never replace a close reading with theoretical or biographical or contextual discussion as the bulk of your essay. Always, always ‘step in’ then ‘step out’

Present a reading - key phrases

• The poem explores the idea/experiences/notions…
• The poem constructs a representation of…People/places/nature/relationships
• On one level the poem describes…and on another is exploring…
• The poem draws on the Romantic/Modern/ etc tradition to…
• The poem uses/appropriates the form of…in order to…
• The poem’s persona/use of imagery/metaphors constructs USE THESE ONES BELOW
• A gendered reading of this poem highlights that…
• A reading of the poem focusing on context shows…
• A psychoanalytic reading of the poem reveals that…
• Whilst the poem can be read as…a gendered reading highlights that…