Poetry interpretation

I. Answer the questions:

A. What do poets try to achieve through their writing?

B. What are typical characteristics of poetry?

C. What differentiates non-literary texts from literary texts?

D. What functions do poetic texts perform?

E. What is meant by the following: "the effects of poetry are never precise: they are evocative, suggestive, elusive"?

F. What're the differences between lyric and narrative poetry?

G. What differentiates descriptive poetry from dramatic poetry? What is the aim of didactic poetry?

H. What images can a poet create through the choice of words? Why do authors use images?

I. What are symbols? Why do authors use them? And why does understanding symbols demand the intelligence of the reader?

J. Why do poetic texts need figures of speech?

K. Why is rhyme important in a poem? What types of rhyme do you know?

L. What's the difference between alliteration and assonance?

M. When does rhythm appear in a poem?

N. What does a reader do when scanning a poem?

O. What are the units of versification?

P. What conventions of poems' layout have developed for today?

II. Remember the names for the given definitions of poetic terms:

1. A writer's attempt to communicate to others his emotional and intellectual response to his own experiences and the world that surrounds him.
2. A comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents a state of mind or an emotional state
3. Combinations or clusters of images that are used to create a dominant impression
4. An example of what is called the transference of meaning. Writers take a concrete item – an object, a colour, a person, a place – and attribute a deeper meaning to it
5. Any use of language which deviates from the obvious or common usage in order to achieve a special meaning or effect
6. The effect that is created when a poet repeats the same sound at the end of two or more lines
7. The largest unit in verse that is composed of a number of lines having a definite measure and rhyming system, which is repeated throughout the poem
8. The visual form a poem takes on a page.
9. This type of poetry gives a verbal representation, in verse, of a sequence of connected events, it propels characters through a plot. It is always told by a narrator.
10. The purpose of such poems is primarily to teach something
11. Writers build it by putting words with the same stress pattern side by side and creating an underlying beat in their work

III. Match the definitions (1-18) with the terms. Use:

alliteration assonance caesura end-stopped line enjambement / run-on line

hyperbole metaphor metonymy onomatopoeia. oxymoron

parallelism personification simile synecdoche

1. A figure of speech in which a comparison between two distinctly different things is indicated by the word 'like' or 'as'.
2. A form of comparison in which human characteristics, such as emotions, personality, behaviour and so on, are attributed to an animal, object or idea.
3. A part of something is used to signify the whole or vice versa.
4. An implied comparison which creates a total identification between two things being compared.
5. If a strong break occurs in the middle of a line it is referred to as …
6. The combination of words which at first sight seems to be contradictory or incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition emphasizes a contrast, expresses a truth or creates a dramatic effect.
7. The repetition in the same line or in close proximity of similar syntactical structures.
8. The repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds in a sequence of nearby words containing different consonants.
9. The repetition of the same initial consonant sound in a sequence of nearby words.
10. The term for one thing is applied to another with which it has become closely associated.
11. The terms we use when the sense of the sentence extends into the next line.
12. The use of exaggeration to draw the attention to or underline the importance of a particular statement.
13. The use of sound of words to suggest the sound they denote.
14. When a pause occurs naturally at the end of a line we refer to it as…

IV. What unites the following lists of concepts? Propose a word generalizing items in every line:

A. detail, object, character, incident, shared and personal –

B. end-stopped line, run-on line, caesura –

C. iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, monosyllable, spondee –

D. imagery, symbols, figures of speech, rhyme, rhythm, rules of grammar and syntax ignored –

E. lyric ~, narrative~, descriptive~, didactic~ –

F. masculine~, feminine~, perfect~, imperfect~, end~, internal~ –

G. monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octameter –

H. rhyme, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia –

I. simile, metaphor, personification –

J. sonnet, limerick, blank verse, heroic couplet –

K. visual ~, aural~, tactile~ –

V. Read the poem and identify the types of IMAGES the author created. What effect do they help to achieve?

Nettle:stinging grass Spears:sharp pointed poleused as a weapon Spite:malicious intent Blisters:watery swellingsunder the skin containing watery fluid Beaded:formed bubbles Soothed:comforted Raw:acute Grin:smile Hook:tool used to cut grass Honed the blade:sharpened the cutting instrument Slashed:cut with furious strokes Recruits:new soldiers Sharp wounds:painful injuries

Nettles By Vernon Scannell   My son aged three fell in the nettle bed. "Bed" seemed a curious name for those green spears, That regiment of spite behind the shed: It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears The boy came seeking comfort and I saw White blisters beaded on his tender skin. We soothed him till his pain was not so raw. At last he offered us a watery grin, And then I took my hook and honed the blade And went outside and slashed in fury with it Till not a nettle in the fierce parade Stood upright anymore. Next task: I lit A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead But in two weeks the busy sun and rain Had called up tall recruits behind the shed; My son would often feel sharp wounds again.

VI. Identify SYMBOLS in the following poem. How are they created?

Shattered windshield:front window of the car broken into many pieces Bursting shell:exploding bomb Peony:flower Honied wine:sweet wine

Advice to my Son By Peter Meinke   The trick is, to live your days as if one may be your last (for they go fast, and young men lose their lives in strange and unimaginable ways) but at the same time, plan long range (for they go slow: if you survive the shattered windshield and the bursting shell you will arrive at our approximation here below of heaven or hell).   To be specific, between the peony and the rose plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes; beauty is nectar and nectar, in a desert, saves – but the stomach craves stronger sustenance than the honied vine.   Therefore, marry a pretty girl after seeing her mother; speak truth to one man, work with another; and always serve bread with your wine.   But, son, always serve wine.

VII. What FIGURES OF SPEECH do you find in the following poems? Give examples. What effect do they help to achieve?

GLOSSARY Riddle: puzzle Ponderous: heavy, large Strolling: walking Tendrils: thin leafless branches that plants wrap around things Timbers: pieces of wood Yeasty: yeast is the substance that makes bread expand New-minted: newly made Stage: phase of development	A."Metaphors" By Sylvia Plath   I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf's big with its yeasty rising. Money new-minted in this fat purse. I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I've eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there's no getting off.
GLOSSARY Beheads:cuts it head off To measure off: to bring to a close	B. Apparently with no Surprise By Emily Dickinson   Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower, The frost beheads it at its play – In accidental power – The blonde assassin passes on – The sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an approving God

VIII. What is peculiar about the SOUND FEATURES of the following poem?

Fling: throw Still and still: more and more Dangling: hanging and swinging about Mumming: acting playfully Garb: clothes Yon: over there Anon: very soon

Last Week in October By Thomas Hardy   The trees are undressing, and fling in many places On the gray roads, the roof, the window-sill – Their radiant robes and ribbons and yellow laces; A leaf each second so is flung at will, Here, there, another and another, still and still.   A spider's web has caught one while downcoming, That stays there dangling when the rest pass on: Like a suspended criminal hangs he, mumming, In golden carb, while one yet green, high yon, Trembles as fearing such a fate for himself anon.

IX. Analyze the LAYOUT of the following poem. What effect is achieved by the author through this layout?

Love

By Roger McGough

middle	aged
couple	playing
ten	nis
when	the
game	ends
and	they
go	home
the	net
will	still
be	be
tween	them.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-25