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HOW TO ANALYZE POETRY

Basically we are concerned here with explaining the methods and techniques of taking a poem
apart in order to arrive at a greater understanding of both its construction and its meaning.

TERMS FOR CRITICAL ANALYSIS

 Versification: the art of metrical composition (technical framework, and pattern of

construction)

 Metre: All poetry is written in some particular metre: lines which have a certain number of
syllables, some of which are accented, and some of which are not. Analysis of the metre is
called scansion. A combination of a number of accented and unaccented syllables is known as
a poetic foot.Themostcommonpoeticfeet in English are:

1. Iamb One unaccented sylllable followed by an accented one.

2. Trochee The reverse of iambic foot.
3. Dactyl One accented syllable followed by two unaccented ones.
4. Anapest The reverse of the dactylic foot.
5. Spondee Two accented syllables.

Examples:

1. How vain / ly men / them selves / a maze.

2. Cast him / out u / pon the / waters.
3. Car ry her / care fully.
4. There is no / thing as Big / as a Man.
5. Jump, run, / hide, shout.

Metrical lines: the number of feet contained in any given line determines its name.

Number of feet in a line Name of line

1 Monometer
2 Dimiter
3 Trimiter
4 Tetrameter
5 Pentameter
6 Hexameter
7 Heptameter
8 Octameter

 End-stopped and Run-on lines: a distinction must be made between a line of poetry which
pauses most naturally at the end of a line, usually with a completed clause or with the ending
of a sentence, and a line of poetry which ‘runs on’ past the end of the line into the next one

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before pausing naturally. The former is an end-stopped line and the latter is a run-on line or
enjambement.

 Rising and Falling metre: When the unaccented syllables come first (as in iambic and
anapestic), the verse is said to be written in rising metre as we are moving up towards the
emphasis. The verse is said to be written in falling metre when we are sliding back and away
from the emphasis (as in trochaic and dactylic).

 The Caesura: The pause in a line is referred to as a caesura and is often best discovered
when reading the poem al oud:
E.g: To be or not to be, that is the question.

 Rhyme:(Greek rhuthmós, Latin rhythmus: measured motion). It is the identity of sound

between the words, considered from the last fully accented vowel to the end of the word.

Perfect rhyme and Half rhyme: Perfect or exact rhyme occurs when the stressed vowels
following differing consonant sounds are identical. Eg: Fleet - Street, Crying – Buying.
The sound, not the spelling, determines whether or not the sounds are identical.
Half or approximate rhyme occurs when the final consonant sounds of rhyming words are
identical. The stressed vowel sound and any preceding consonant sound differs.

E.g. (from Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn)

Thou still unravish’d bride of quitness

Thou foster child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme.

Middle or Internal Rhyme: it is rhyme coming in the middle as well as at the end of the same
line of verse.
Eg. (from Tennyson’s Blow, Bugle Blow)

The splendour falls on castle walls

The snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Alliteration: (also Head or Initial Rhyme) Here the sound starts several words.

Eg: (from Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner)

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free.

Masculine and Femenine Rhyme: Masculine rhyme occurs when the final syllables of the
rhyming words are stressed. After the difference in the initial consonants, the words are
identical in sound. Eg: Contort – Purport.
Femenine rhyme is the rhyming of stressed syllables followed by identical unstressed syllables.
E.g: Treasure – Pleasure.

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Assonance and Consonance: Assonance is the use of identical vowel sounds surrounded by
different kinds of consonant sounds in words in close proximity to each other. Eg: bird – thirst.
Consonance is the reverse of assonance: consonant sounds are the same but there are
different vowel sounds: wood – weed.

Rhyme Scheme: When we want to describe the pattern of rhyme in a poem or stanza, we
label the first sound a, the next b, etc. As the sound reappears, we use the same letter
originally used to label that sound.

Onomatopoeia: This is the technique of using a word whose sound suggests its meaning.
Buzz, Crackle, and hum are often cited as examples, but some onomatopoeia is less obvious,
for example, shiver, or quake.

Some effects of rhyme: it has aesthetic value as it functions in a poem. Rhyme creates
soothing, pleasurable effects in poetry. When we have already heard a sound before, it
becomes particularly pleasing to hear it again; the second appearance of the sound is like an
echo which sends us inquisitively back to its source.

OTHER TERMS

 Atmosphere: the general tone and mood of a work of art. We can have a gay or sad
atmosphere, an atmosphere of love, death, a humorous or satirical atmosphere, etc.

 Theme: the basic idea which the poet is trying to convey and which, accordingly, he allows to
direct his imagery.

 Diction: the selection of words and phrases in speech and writing. It may be simple, homely,
learned, pedantic, archaic, colloquial, etc.

STANZAIC FORMS

A stanza is a group of lines and therefore a recognizable unit in the poem. Themostcommonforms
are:

 Couplet: a stanza composed of only two lines which usually rhyme. A Heroic Couplet is a
stanza composed of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter.

 Tercet (or Triplet): a stanza composed of three lines, usually with one repeated rhyme, or a
rhyme scheme of aaa.

 Quatrain: a stanza composed of four lines, either rhyming or not.

 Ballad Metre: a four-line stanza consisting of alternate iambic tetrameters and trimiters,
rhyming abcb.

 Sestet: usually the second part of a sonnet, rhyming ababcc.

 Rhyme Royal: (7 lines) written in iambic pentameter and rhyming ababbcc.

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 Octave (Octavarima): the name given to the first part of a sonnet. Eight lines rhyming
abababcc.

 Sonnet: a fourteen-line poem, written in iambic pentameter. There are three main types: The
Petrarchan ( -also called Italian sonnet- divided into an octave and a sestet. They are
separated by a break in the thought: a general statement made in the octave is illustrated or
exemplified in the sestet. Only two rhymes are permitted in the octave and no more than two in
the sestet).The English or Shakespearian Sonnet ( three quatrains and a final couplet. It may
present three arguments concerned with its theme in the three quatrains and draw a
conclusion in the couplet. Rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg). The Miltonic sonnet (the same
rhyme scheme as the Petrarchan sonnet but there is no break in thought between the octave
and the sestet).

 Spenserian stanza: (9 lines). The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter while the
last is written in iambic hexameter or Alexandrine. Rhymescheme: ababbcbcc.

 Lyric: a short song-like poem, often of a musical character.

VERSE FORMS

 Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter. Since there is no rhyme used, the units of thought
form the stanzaic divisions. It became the standard verse form of the poetic drama and the
epic.

 Free verse: poetry composed in lines which are free of traditional patterns of rhyme and metre
and whose rhythm is based, instead, on the stress resulting from the meaning of the line and
its natural and punctuated pauses.

POETICAL DEVICES: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

 Allegory: a more or less symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a secondary meaning (or
meanings) not explicitly set forth in the literal narrative. Various literary forms may be regarded
as a special type of allegory: a fable is a short story that exemplifies a moral thesis or a
principal human behaviour. A parable is a short narrative presented so as to stress the implicit
but detailed analogy between its component parts and a thesis or lesson that a narrator is
trying to bring home to us.

 Allusion: in a work of literature, it is a brief reference, explicit or indirect, to a person, place or

event, or to another literary work on a passage. The word Bob in a line of poetry, for example,
is a Biblical allusion.

 Antithesis: it results when a pair or more of strongly contrasting terms are presented together.
Eg.: God-beast, mind-body, truth-error, etc.

 Conceit: a difficult, challenging or highly provocative metaphor or simile. A conceit is a poet’s

attempt to establish a similarity between very different and unlikely things. It is imaginative in
an intellectual way. Two types of conceit are often distinguished:

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- The Petrarchan conceit, in which the figure consists of detailed and exaggerated
comparisons applied to the disdainful mistress, and to the distresses and dispair of the
worshipful lover.
-
Eg: I find no peace, and all my war is done:
I fear and hope, I burn and freeze in ice. (Whyatt)

- The Metaphysical conceit, a characteristic figure in John Donne and other metaphysical
poets.

 Euphemism: a figure of speech which veils the obvious word with another less direct one.
Usually euphemisms are employed to make some idea, concept or action more appealing, or
less unappealing than it would be if stated directly. For example, if someone crosses into
heaven we shudder less than if someone drops dead.

 Hyperbole: it employs exaggeration. Hyperbole differs from exaggeration in that it is extreme

or excessive.
E.g.In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note, (Shakespeare)

 Imagery: an integral part of a poem. Images, pictures, sensory content which we find in a
poem. Images are fanciful or imaginative descriptions of people or objects stated in terms of
our senses.

E.g. O my love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;
O my love is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune. (Robert Burns)
Many poets have individual images. Donne’s poems, for example, have images drawn from
exploration, science, theology. Shelly has images of clouds, stars, the wind, the sea.

 Irony: (Greek eironeía, simulated ignorance) developed from the element of concealment and
pretence. In irony there is a contrast between what is said and what is more or less suggested.
Thereadermustperceivetheconcealedmeaning.

 Metaphor: (Greek metaphorá, transference) an explicit identification of essentially dissimilar

things. We can see in the metaphor the idea of similarity in dissimilarity. Usually a metaphor is
created through the use of some form of the verb to be
.
E.g. Life’s but a walking shadow. The moon was a ghostly galleon.

 Metonymy: the substitution of a word closely associated with another word in place of that
other word, as in White House (= Government House).

 Oxymoron: a rhetorical figure by which two incongruous or contradictory terms are united in
an expression so as to give it point, as in Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.

 Paradox: a statement which seems on its surface to be self-contradictory or absurd, yet turns
out to have a valid meaning.

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E.g. (the conclusion of Death be not Proud, by John Donne)

One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death thou shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

 Parody: A literary work in which the syle of an author is closely imitated for comic effect or in
ridicule.

 Pathos: (Greek páthos, incident, experience, emotion, passion) An element in artistic

representation evoking pity or compassion.

 Peripeteia: (Greeekperipéteia, reversal, sudden change) A sudden or unexpected reversal of

circumstances or situation in a literary work. Peripeteia is the turning point in a drama after
which the plot moves steadily to its denouement.

 Periphrasis: a roundabout method of saying something.

E.g. whale’s path (sea), ring-giver (lord) = Anglo-Saxon Literature.

 Personification: the process of assigning human characteristics to non-human objects,

abstractions or ideas.

 Sarcasm: a heavy-handed irony, usually harsh or biting, while irony can be light or playful.

 Satire: the technique of holding human vices, follies, stupidities, etc, up for contempt, usually
with an aim to reform. It is usually directed to institutions or governments rather than to
individuals. (E.g. Gulliver’stravels – Jonathan Swift)

 Simile: (latinsimilis, like) a comparison for purposes of explanation, reference or ornament,

introduced by words such as like, as, such or seems.

E.g. I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vallies and hills. (W. Wordsworth)

 Synecdoche: a particular form of metaphor. This technique uses a part in order to signify the
whole. Only the most essential part can be used to represent the whole.

E.g. galloping hooves represents galloping horses.