Group 2 Creative Writing 07
Group 2 Creative Writing 07
Various Elements,
Techniques, and
Literary Devices in
Specific Forms of
Poetry
What is Poetry?
Presentation of Themes
– the feelings of the main character about the subject
written about
– through the thoughts and conversations of different
characters
– the experiences of the main character in the course of a
literary work
– the actions and events taking place in a narrative
Functions of Themes
– binds together various other essential elements of a
poem
– is a truth that exhibits universality and stands true
for people of all cultures
– gives readers better understanding of the main
character’s conflicts,
experiences, discoveries, and emotions
– gives readers an insight into how the world works or
human life can be viewed
Theme Vs Subject
– A poem’s subject is the topic of the poem, or what the poem
is about
– The theme is an idea that the poem expresses about the
subject or uses the subject to explore
Example:
– So, for example, in the Edgar Allan Poe poem “The Raven”,
the subject is the raven, who continually repeats a single word
in response to the speaker’s questions.
– The theme of the poem, however, is the irreversibility of
death—the speaker asks the raven, in a variety of ways,
whether or not he will see his dead beloved again, to which the
raven always replies “nevermore.”
Tone
In fact, it suggests two attitudes: one concerning the people
you’re addressing (your audience) and the other concerning
the thing you’re talking about (your subject).
That’s what the term tone means when it’s applied to poetry
as well. Tone can also mean the general emotional weather of
the poem.
– the attitude expressed in a poem that a reader sees and
feels
– the writer’s attitude toward the subject or audience
A. STRUCTURE
Blank Verse:
“ Written in lines of iambic pentameter but does NOT use
end rhyme.
‘’ With METER without end RHYME
B. SOUND
Rhythm is the basic beat in a line of a poem.
Example: Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone," which is a poem where the meter
is iambic, and Emily Dickinson's "Will There Really Be a Morning?" that
is trochaic.
TYPES OF FEET
The types of feet are determined by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
TYPES OF FEET
1. trochee (adjective form, trochaic) stressed-unstressed
a. Never/ never/ never/ never/ never
b. In the/ spring a/ young man's/ fancy/ lightly/ turns to/ thoughts of/ love.
(In spite of a few feet where the stress is debatable, especially foot 3, this
poem is generally trochaic, as a look at the rest of it would show. It is very
common to omit the final unstressed syllable in this meter; see c. under
accentual syllabic above.)
2. anapest (anapestic) unstressed-unstressed-stressed
a. It was man/y and man/y a year/ ago (The variation in the last
foot is common.)
b The Assyr/ian came down/ like a wolf/ on the fold,
And his co/horts were gleam/ing in purp/le and gold.
Rhythm is the beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem. It can be
created by meter, rhyme, alliteration, and refrain.
There are five types of rhythm, but we will just focus with Accentual-syllabic.
The number of syllables and the number of accents is both counted, and the
stressed
and unstressed syllables are usually alternated in a consistent pattern. When
we think of poetry in English, this is the form we think of, and it is the most
common form from the time of Chaucer to the advent of free verse in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
a. And justify the ways of God to men. (5 accents, 10 syllables)
b. And malt does more than Milton can (4 accents, 8 syllables)
To justify God's ways to man.
c. Wake: the silver dusk returning (4 accents, 8 syllables with final
Up the beach of darkness brims. unstressed syllables in lines 2 & 4
And the ship of sunrise burning omitted, a common variation)
Strands upon the eastern rims.
4. After you have found the stressed and unstressed syllables, you may then put
strokes between the feet to determine the meter. The meter depends on the Type
and Number of feet in a line. In the example below, the type of foot has an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed, and there are five such feet. The meter
would therefore be labeled iambic pentameter (iambic for the type of foot and
pentameter for the number).
The cur/ few tolls/ the knell/ of part/ ing day.