The Technique of Poetry

To enjoy poetry, one need to know the craft of the poet. Yet some knowledge of technique helps the reader understand how poetry takes on different forms and moods.
The main difference between poetry and prose is the style (language) and form.

It is possible to enjoy a poem without understanding its meaning because the delight we get from reading it is its musical quality. But to get the meaning of a poem we have to analyze it first in terms of its elements.
It is also important to know the type of poems we are reading in order to get the meaning. We also should consider the period or try to get the general knowledge of the cultural developments of a certain period and about the poet in order to understand the poem better.

Elements of poetry

Form rhythm, meter, stanza, and rhyme Language diction, imagery, figure of speech Tone the attitude of the writer toward his subjects, his readers, and himself Theme the central idea of view of life that the writer explores or experienced in life

Rhyme and Pattern

A rhyme is a word or a line that has the same last sound as another word or line. The simplest rhymes have only one syllable, as in justmust. An example of a line rhyme is William Blakes I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. Of course, many poets use rhymes of more than one syllable:
mountain-fountain terrible-bearable

Alliteration and Assonance

Are the names of two kinds of rhyme. Alliteration is the repetition of a certain first letter or sound in a group of words. I better brook the loss of brittle life . . .
Assonance is vowel rhyme. The lowing herd wind slowly oer the sea . ..

Onomatopoeia

Is neither rhyme nor pattern, but many poets employ this device to create a certain effect. Onomatopoeia is the use of words with sounds that suggest the subject. The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

A single line of poetry is called verse. A member of verses grouped together, usually following a certain rhyme scheme, form a stanza. Stanza vary in length, but in general they have three, four, six, eight, or nine lines. Poets arrange rhymes in a number of patterns. The pair of Blake rhymes above is a couplet. A quatrain is a four lines, usually rhymed in one of four ways: aaaa, abab, aabb, and abba.

Lines of poems are often organized into stanzas, which are denominated by the number of lines included. Thus a collection of two lines is a couplet (or distich), three lines a triplet (or tercet), four lines a quatrain, five lines a quintain (or cinquain), six lines a sestet, and eight lines an octet. These lines may or may not relate to each other by rhyme or rhythm.

Here is a famous from Stevensons Childs Garden of Verses. Its rhyme scheme is aabb. When I am grown to mans estate a I shall be very proud and great, a And tell the other girls and boys b Not to meddle with my toys. b In an abab rhyme scheme, then, the first and third lines rhyme, and so do the second and fourth.

Meter

Meter measures the rhythm of a line of poetry. Meter comes from the Greek word metron, which means measure. Each line is made up of a number of small section, called feet. Within each foot syllables are accented or unaccented and when they are read aloud, the voice stresses or does not stress them

To find out where the accents fall, one scans a line of poetry. A long straight line () indicates an accented, or long, syllable. A curved line ( ) indicates an unaccented, or short, syllable. In English-language poetry five kinds of feet are most often used. Their names come from the Greek. An iamb (usually called iambic) is a twosyllable foot: one short syllable followed by a long syllable: We went/ to town/ today

A trochee is made up of one long syllable followed by a short syllable: Mary,/ Mary,/ quite con/trary . . . Dactyls have one long syllable followed by two short ones. Mer ci ful/ heav ens, Im/blund er ing Anapetstsdactyls in reversehave three syllable: two short ones followed by a long one. The Assyr/ian came down/like a wolf

Two long syllables of equal stress form a spondee: Stand still,/ dont move,/ dont talk
Lines differ in length. A line having one foot is called monometer; a two-foot line is dimeter. Some other meters are: trimeter 3 feet hexameter 6 feet tetrameter 4 feet heptameter 7 feet pentameter 5 feet octameter 8 feet

A line with five iambic feet is called iambic pentameter. Five trochees in one line form trochaic pentameter, and so on,

* iamb one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable * trochee one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable * dactyl one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables * anapest two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable * spondee two stressed syllables together * pyrrhic - two unstressed syllables together (rare, usually used to end dactylic hexameter) The number of metrical feet in a line are described in Greek terminology as follows:

* * * * * * *

dimeter two feet trimeter three feet tetrameter four feet pentameter five feet hexameter six feet heptameter seven feet octameter eight feet

The Wind
Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you; But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I But when the trees bow down their heads The wind is passing by. (Christina Rossetti)