Poetry
Compare and Contrast
Poetry
• A type of literature
• Appeals to heart
• Appeals to
emotions/feelings
• Uses verses/stanzas
• Ideas are expressed in
shorter, more powerful
form
Prose
• A type of literature
• Appeals to head
• Logical
• Uses sentences/ paragraphs
• Ideas expressed with a lot
more words
Terms
• Poetry- a written expression of ideas in
concentrated, imaginative, and rhythmical
terms. A form of literature. Usually contains
rhyme and a specific meter, but it doesn’t
always.
• Verse- One line of poetry. There are three
kinds based on rhyme and meter.
– Rhymed Verse- Verse with end rhyme and a
regular meter
– Blank Verse- No end rhyme but there is a definite
meter
– Free Verse- No rhyme and no regular meter
• Rhyme- The likeness of sound existing
between two words. There are two kinds of
rhyme.
– End Rhyme- Same sound at end of verse
– Internal Rhyme- Same sound within a verse
• Rhyme Scheme- The pattern/sequence in
which rhyme occurs. Uses the letters of the
alphabet to show pattern.
• Meter- A pattern of stressed and unstressed
syllables.
• Stanza- A division of a poem based on the
form. Stanzas are named by the number of
verses they contain
– Couplet- 2 line stanza
– Triplet- 3 line stanza
– Quatrain- 4 line stanza
– Quintet- 5 line stanza
– Sestet- 6 line stanza
– Septet- 7 line stanza
– Octave- 8 line stanza
Rhyme Scheme
A
A
B
A
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
B
B
C
B
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
C
C
D
C
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
D
D
D
D
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Stanzas
If cars go zoom,
exhaust smoke will plume!
Salmon are fast
They zoom right past
In a big blast
Snowy, white, gray, cold
Chilly, frigid, freezing, bright
These words describe winter
When there's snow in winter, it's very nice
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The word should listen then – as I am listening now
Devices Used in Poetry
• Simile- comparison using “like” or “as”
– She is like a rose
• Alliteration- deliberate repetition of consonant
sounds
• Assonance- deliberate repetition of vowel sounds
– And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.
• Diction- poet’s distinctive choices in vocabulary
• Metaphor- a comparison not using “like” or
“as”
– He is a snake
• Echo- repetition of key word or idea
• Oxymoron- a seeming contradiction in two
words put together
– Jumbo shrimp
• Personification- attribution of human motives
or behaviors to impersonal agencies
– The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.
• Rhyming couplet- a pair of lines which endrhyme expressing one clear thought
• Rhyme- repetition of same sounds
• Rhythm- internal “feel” of beat and meter
perceived when poetry is read aloud
• Tone, Mood- feelings or meanings conveyed in
the poem
• Apostrophe- an address to a person absent or
dead to an abstract entity
– “O Captain! My Captain!”, title of the famous
poem by Walt Whitman
• Hyperbole- exaggeration for dramatic effect
– Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Concord Hymn“
• Onomatopoeia- “sound echoing sense”; use of
words resembling the sound they mean
– Boom, bang, slash, slurp, gurgle, meow, woof, zip,
buzz
• Paradox- seeming contradiction that surprises
by its pithiness
– I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago
• Ghost House by Robert Frost