LANGUAGE TWO ADVANCED LEVEL (TOPIC 2)

Features of Poetry

• Very economical in language use; poetry uses few words to convey a lot of information.
• Poetry consists of musical features such as rhyme and rhythm.
• Poetry uses relatively more figures of speech than other genres of literature.
• The basic unit composing a poem is the line.
• Poetry rarely involves characters with names; normally poems use the persona/speaker.
• Poetry is arranged in lines and stanzas.

Terms Used in Poetry

Poetry has jargons that identify it as something unique in itself. These terms/jargons common in poetry are called Poetic Diction/Devices.

Poetic Devices

These are techniques or tools used in poetry which help improve the quality of poetry. Poetic devices can be a number of things used in a poem, for instance language, imagery, assonance, alliteration, simile, metaphor, stanza, consonance, persona, allusion, refrain, rhyme, rhythm, tone, poetic license, onomatopoeia.

Persona

This refers to the person who speaks in the poem. Sometimes a poet may use the pronoun “I” in his/her poem. This does not mean that it is the poet who is speaking; rather the poet has put him/herself in someone’s shoes.

Alliteration

Is the repetition of initial consonant sounds at the beginning of consecutive words in a verse/line.

Example: But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined or when I was one. Or the babbling brook bubbled the furrow followed free.

Consonance

Is the repetition of similar consonant sounds at the end of a word in a stressed syllable in a given verse.

Example: Food is good, not word.
Set your foot to fit here.

Assonance

Is the repetition of vowel sounds in neighboring words in a verse.

Example: Jo ascended the throne and told the whole populace to throw a bone to Polonius the vole.

Ellipsis

Is the intentional omission of some words that the poet considers less important to be used in his/her work. Normally functional words such as prepositions, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, and determiners are the ones that fall victim to being omitted.

NB: The omitted words may be filled by the readers as they read.

Allusion

Is the use of well-known things as references to make readers understand the concept(s) due to the fact the reference used is well known.

Stanza

Is a group of lines that stands as a paragraph. Stanzas are separated from each other by space.

Rhyme

Is the similarity of ending sounds that exist between two words. Or it is the similarity in sound at the end of consecutive lines or at the same interval in a stanza.

Functions of Rhyme

1. The repetition of sounds at regular intervals brings the reader a season’s gratification, meaning it makes the reader enjoy that repetition.
2. The recurrence of the rhyme at regular intervals helps to establish the form of the stanza.
3. The rhymes serve to unify and distinguish the divisions of the poem and therefore give unity to one stanza while marking it off from the others as separate. From such divisions, the rhyme creates a sense of movement to the poem as a whole.

Types of Rhymes

The types of rhymes are classified according to two schemes:

1. The position of the rhymed syllables in the line.
2. The number of syllables involved in introducing the rhyme.

Position of the rhymed syllables in the line:

End Rhymes: These are the most common rhymes and they occur at the end of the line.

Internal Rhymes: Sometimes called leonine rhyme, occurs at some place after the beginning but before the end of the line.

The Beginning Rhyme: This occurs in the first syllable or syllables of the line.

Rhyme Scheme

The sequence in which the rhyme occurs, for example:

Like and learn to be hard working (a)
Like bees you should live (b)
You‘ll be like a king (a)
You‘ll know how to live (b)
Indeed, living is learning (a)

Thus the rhyming scheme in this stanza is ab, ab, a.

Refrain

Is a word or line that is repeated at the end of each stanza in a poem. It actually acts as a chorus. This technique serves two great roles: (i) emphatic role (ii) musical purposes.

The Refrain

It is a line repeated at the end of each stanza. Examples of poems with refrain:

“The Song of the Low”
“A Freedom Song”

Function of Repetition in Poetry

These two contribute to both the musicality of the poem and the meanings of the poem:

a) Sound repetition
b) Word repetition

A good example is “Western Civilization,” a poem with a lot of repetitions.

The repetition in this poem shows the monotony of the work.

Verse

Is a unit of a poem consisting of a line in a stanza. No stanza exists in the absence of verses.

Rhythm

Is a pattern of stress and pauses that link words in a unit. Rhythm is caused when the poem is either regular or irregular. When it is regular, stress occurs at similar intervals; when it is irregular, stress does not occur at the same interval. Both stressed and unstressed syllables form a foot. One foot begins where a stressed syllable begins.

Onomatopoeia

Is the use of words which imitate sound or the use of words that suggest meaning through the sounds of things or animals.

Example: The use of tu-tu-tu-tu which suggests the sound of a gun.

Poetic License

Is the right assumed by poets to alter or invert standard syntax or depart from common diction or pronunciation to comply with the metrical or tonal requirements of their writing. Or the privilege that poets have to violate the rules of the grammar of the language he/she is using to compose his/her work.

It is an allowance or permission to the poet to play around with the rules of language in order to achieve effect.

Varieties of Poetic License

This is the poet’s right to ignore set rules and conventions generally observed by users of the language. The poet deviates from the norm (canon) in order to achieve his own end in the presentation of the poem. Through poetic license, several deviations can be observed in poems; these include the following:

a. Lexical Deviation

This is the art of inventing new words for the poem in order to fit the style of the poet. Lexical deviation is not a complete variation of lexical rules; rather it applies the rules of word formation to a greater generality. Quite a number of widely used English words originated in poetry due to the use of lexical deviations, for example:

• Blatant – Spencer
• Assassination – Shakespeare
• Pandemonium – Milton

Usage of Lexical Deviations

In order to deviate from the norm lexically, the poet waives or ignores the usual descriptions or the rules of word formation. Examples include the English rules of word formation which permit the prefix “fore” to be added to verbs to convey the meaning of beforehand, as in foresee, foretell.

Such a rule may be applied with greater freedom to create words like foretell or foreappear.

In the example above, the rule of using the prefix “fore,” which limits its usage to just a number of verbs, is overstretched to include other words which do not normally take the prefix.

Likewise, compounding, which is another process of word formation, is used with greater generality in some lines or poems. For example, in a poem by Hopkins titled “The Well of the Heathland,” he used the following rhyme: “The widow making uncoiling deeps.” The use of “un” as a prefix on words which do not take a prefix in normal speech. “Widow making” is also used on the pattern of music prize-winning “tub thumping.”

However, there is strangeness in the usage, as such a compound as “widow making” is not normally a choice by the poet. Some words may have to be snorted; in this instance, parts of words are omitted, such as:

1. The removal of the initial part of a word – e.g., ’tis instead of it is.
2. The removal of the medial part of a word – e.g., nev instead of never.
3. The removal of the final part of a word (syncope) – e.g., oft’ instead of often.
4. Removal of words with no importance – elision.

b. Dialectical Deviation

This is the borrowing of features of socially or regionally defined dialects. It is commonly used by storytellers, humanists, and poets. For the poet, dialect may serve a number of purposes; in its usage, it evokes flavors and a sense of belonging to the society which reads the poem. A good example is the poem “The Socialists” by Richard Mabala.

Example: “It had been afraid to draw close dressed as I was in working clothes, but fired by such moving words of commitment, I approached each Bandung and asked him if they would spare a few hours to help us dig our new irrigation ditch.”

c. Grammatical Deviations

This is the deviation from the normal grammatical rules in order to suit the requirements of the poem. A good example of this rearrangement of syntactic elements in an irregular order is what we call “hyperbaton.” This is done by placing an adjective after the noun it qualifies. Likewise, jumbled structures of clauses are sometimes used in verses. They are taken for granted. This can be seen in the poem “The Diverting History of John Gulpin” written by Cowper.

Example:

John Gulpin was a citizen of credit and renown.
A train-band captain eke he was a
Famous of London town.
John Gulpin’s spouse said to her dear,
“Though wedded we have been,”
These twice ten tedious years yet we
“No holiday have seen.”

The sections underlined contain the main clause elements which are S for subject, C for complement, and V for verb, which in ordinary speech would certainly take the order S V C.

However, Cowper gives three separate variations of that order: CVS, CSV, SCV.

d. Archaism

This is the deviation to the language of a historical period. A poet is not restricted to the language of his or her own period; widely applauded poets make use of archaism. James Joyce thought a writer must be familiar with the language’s history.

T.S. Eliot expressed a similar idea when he argued that the significance and appreciation of the poet is the appreciation of his relationship to the dead poets and artists. This means that many poets have felt that they share the same language, same communicative media as poets of earlier generations, whatever changes the language may have undergone in the meantime.

Archaism is therefore the survival of the language of the past into the language of the present. The archaic was defined by Aristotle and has long persisted through much of the history of English poetry.

Poets like Spencer and Milton played a leading role in the establishment of these rational patterns of usage. The traditional has been kept alive in poetry by such words as:

1. Behold – meaning see or look
2. Betimes – meaning sometimes
3. Damsel – meaning small
4. Stetson – meaning often
5. Are’ – meaning error
6. Fain – meaning act like
7. Oft – often
8. Smith – hit, kill
9. Unto – to me you
10. Sounder – there

e. Graphological/Orthographic Deviation

This is the line-by-line arrangement of words of the printed poem with irregularity. The printed line, just like the printed stanza, is different in its arrangement when compared to a stanza or a paragraph in prose.

The line in a stanza is an independent unit which is capable of communicating an idea; it is also capable of interacting without the use of standard units of punctuation.

Good examples of poets who use graphological deviations are William Carlos Williams and E.E. Cummings.

Orthographic deviation is the discarding of capital letters and punctuation where conventional prose calls for their use.

A good example of a poet using orthographic deviation is E.E. Cummings. According to him, the use of capital letters, spacing, and punctuation is an expressive device and not just symbols used in writing.

Seeker of Truth by E.E. Cummings

Seeker of truth
Follow no path
All paths lead where
Truth is here

When graphological deviation is employed and ambiguity arises from a clash between the units of sentences indicated by line action and by syntax.

By elimination, the poem above ends with the statement “Truth is here,” but according to syntax, “truth is” must belong to the clause that began in the previous line, and so “here” is left on its own as an explanatory conclusion.

The significance of the poem lies in the ambiguity which could not have arisen if the poet had used conventional capitalization and functions.

Tone

Is the writer’s attitude toward the subject he/she is writing about. It can be happy, angry, lovely, scared, excited, suspicious, etc.

Mood

Is the feeling or atmosphere perceived by the reader. Or, it is the feeling the reader gets when reading something. It can be scary mood, anger, pity, choppiness, fun.

Imagery

Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses.

Personification

Is a figure of speech which endows inanimate objects with human traits or abilities.

Example: When whole water dapped our cringing brow.
Injustice strides forth with a sure step.

Point of View

The poet’s/author’s point of view concentrates on the vantage point of the speaker or teller of the story or poem.

• 1st person: The speaker is a character in the story or poem and tells it from his/her perspective (uses “I”).
• 2nd person limited: The speaker is not part of the story but tells about the other character but limits information about what one character sees and feels.
• 3rd person omniscient: The speaker is not part of the story but is able to know and describe what all characters are thinking.

Task:

Add more ten (10) poetic devices you know.

Types of Poetry

Generally, poems/poetry can be grouped into two broad types. These are:

1. Traditional poetry/closed form poem
2. Modern poetry/open form poem

Traditional Poetry/Closed Form Poems

These are poems which strictly follow ancient rules and regulations of composing a poem. Rules and regulations include balance in the number of words per stanza, rhyming pattern, rhythm, and balance in the number of words in each line of every stanza.

Modern Poetry/Open Form

These are poems which are not as strict as the traditional ones in obeying all the rules and regulations of composing a poem.

NB: Some modern poems have rhymes. If you find a modern poem which has rhymes, then it is not a free verse poem because a free verse poem is a poem which has no rhyme.

Also, it should be noted that traditional and modern have nothing to do with time. A poem may be composed today and yet be regarded as a traditional poem. The vice versa is true.

However, poetry can further be categorized based on form and content. If you categorize/classify poems in this approach, the following are the types you can have:

Narrative Poem

This poetry tells a story. It includes other types like epic, ballad, allegory, and simple narratives. Example: In “Always a Suspect,” the poet tells us a story of one Black man in South Africa.

In “The Shebeen Queen,” the poet tells the story of the queen collecting her money, etc.

Didactic Poem

This is a poem whose aim is to instruct the reader rather than appeal to his imaginative understanding. This poem aims at giving a lesson to the reader so as to move them (change). Usually, it talks about political or social matters. For example, “Your Pain” by Armando Gaebuza.

Lyrical Poetry

These are poems which express the thoughts and particularly the feelings of the poet. So it deals with the internal world of the poet. These can be poems of love, death, torture, etc. For instance, the poem “I Love You Gentle One” or “Song of Common Lover” by Ralph Botanizer and Flaring Renovo respectively.

Sonnet Poetry

Is a lyric poem that contains 14 (fourteen) lines. These lines are divided into two groups. The first eight lines are called the octet and the remaining six lines are called the sestet.

A good example of this is “If We Must Die” by C. Mackey.

Descriptive Poetry

Is a poem which tells about the outlook of people or certain situations or events. For instance, “Dying Child” by Lwamba.

Ballad Poetry

Is a narrative song with a recurrent refrain. It is usually a song that tells a story. It’s like a drama as it is in the form of conversation. When you sing it, you will find as if there are two people talking to each other in turns.

Example: “Ballad of the Landlords” by Langston Hughes.

Ballads are tales which touch upon legends, love, passion, battles, human conflicts, and even supernatural events. They were most popular in the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Many popular ballads describing conflicts were composed in the 15th and 16th centuries and they were about the conflict between the Scots and the English.

Characteristics of a Ballad

1. They are usually written in four-line stanzas.
2. They are written in dramatic question and answer dialogue to raise the emotion of listeners.
3. They often have a refrain.
4. Probably the ballads developed from oral tradition (rational songs). This helps to give the narration a smooth flow and serves to intensify or increase the dramatic effect; mostly the narrator remains pensive until the talk reaches its tragic climax. The narrator often refrains from making any moral comment; he doesn’t judge, he just stays there.
5. The audience draws their own conclusion.
6. Due to passage from one generation to another by word of mouth, the words sometimes change, giving each ballad its variation.

Epic Poetry

This is a long narrative poem presenting characters of high position and adventures. Normally, an epic poem has a central heroic figure whose relation with other characters develops episodes which are important to the history of a nation or place.

One theory of epics claims that the first epic took shape from the scattered words of various unknown poets and through their usage in time the episodes were melded into an ordered sequence. This theory has led to the belief that an epic is a product of a single genius who gives it structure and expression.

Epics without certain authorship are called folk epics. Both folk and art epics share a group of characteristics:

1. The hero is an important figure of national or international importance and of great historical or legendary significance.
2. The setting is vast, covering great nations, the world, or the universe.
3. The action consists of deeds of great or seen supernatural courage.
4. Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action and intervene from time to time.
5. A style of sustained elevation and simplicity is used.
6. The epic poet recounts the deeds of the hero with a measure of objectivity.

Ode

Is a poem that either addresses a person or a thing or celebrates a certain event. For instance, if one composes a poem for one’s wedding.

Elegy

Is a lyric poem that expresses sadness about someone who has died. So all poems composed for this purpose are called elegies.

Generally, these are some of the categories of poems as there are many ways/approaches of categorizing poems. It should be noted that one poem may fall into several kinds of poetry depending on how one may approach it.

How to Compose a Poem

For a person to compose a good poem, one must know all the features of poetry.

• Select a suitable title for your poem in a condensed way but that gives a summary of your poem.
• Know the type of poem you are composing.
• Pack your messages in verses. Note that a verse/line in a poem is not necessarily a sentence.
• Use words economically; words that are metaphorical or symbolic are inevitable. As the poet, you need to use words that you think best present the message you intend.
• Use imagery to appeal to at least one of the five senses or organs such as touch, hearing, smell, sight, and taste. These words are important as they act as spices in your work.
• Reread the poem to see how it produces the rhythm.

Task:

Compose a lyric poem.

Form and Content in Literary Work

These are the key concepts to consider when analyzing literary work. Any literary work must have form and content. There is no way one can separate the two concepts. Understanding form and content will help you to produce your own literary works and easily decipher the works produced by other artists.

1. Form:

This part contains all techniques used by the artist for artistic effect. In this part, the artist chooses the best techniques that will enable him/her to decipher the message to the readers/audience. It is impossible for the work of art to exist without form.

Form contains the following elements: style, plot, flashback, foreshadowing, characters, suspense, language, setting, point of view, etc. Through these elements, an artist communicates to his/her readers, listeners, or viewers.

Style

This is the way the author decides to present his/her work. Every author has his/her unique way of writing. For instance, Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his novel “Grain of Wheat” uses biblical quotations. So if you observe many works of Ngugi, you will conclude that Ngugi prefers biblical quotations in his work. That being the case, we say this is Ngugi’s style.

Not only that, but also Chinua Achebe has the tendency of using Igbo proverbs, vocabularies, and mixing of languages, so again this is Achebe’s style.

Generally, style can be achieved by choice of vocabularies, use of certain figures of speech, incorporating features of oral literature like songs, proverbs, and other oral literature genres.

NB: One can be in a good position to say, this is the style of a certain author only if one has gone through a number of readings of that particular author.

Foreshadowing

This is the technique by which a hint of the action which will follow later in the story is given. For example, you may be reading a play and find somewhere a knife is shown. As we continue reading, we find that one of the characters has used it to kill him/herself. Then we conclude that it is foreshadowing.

Setting

This can be described in terms of place and time based on the occurrence of events presented in the work. So setting depends on time and place. For example, the novel “The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born” is set in Ghana after independence. There are clues that can help a student/reader to identify the setting of a particular work, as follows:

• Actual names of places and people.
• Physical features.
• The actual history of the place.
• Social context in which events take place, e.g., church, school, wedding ceremony.
• The author’s name and history, e.g., Atufigwegwe, Mwaifuge, Twikasige, etc.
• The culture of people at that particular place described, e.g., type of food eaten, type of clothes worn, economic activities carried out, ways of worshiping, type of dances, the way people marry and bury dead bodies, etc.

So there are some of the clues that can assist learners to identify the setting of a given literary work.

Plot

This is the arrangement of events in a literary work. Plot ought to have unity, meaning incidents are supposed to be arranged in a good manner to show how those incidents are related.

Plot may be chronological or mixed up. Chronological means that incidents are arranged in series based on the way they occurred, i.e., from the beginning to the end (1, 2, 3, 4…).

Mixed plot means that incidents are not arranged chronologically or in series. In this, you may find the incident that is supposed to be presented at the beginning is found at the end or middle. For example, you may be introduced to the death of a certain main character, then about his/her birth, and at the end about his/her diseases.

Plot has five stages/parts: these are exposition, rising action/confrontations, climax/point of no return, falling action, and resolution.

Thus, dramatic plot has the following structure: point of no return/climax.

NB: If the work of art follows this sequence, then it is chronological plot; the vice versa is also true.