Poetry Intro

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Sonnet analysis

Sonnet

•  Fourteen lines
  
•  Three quatrains (abab, cdcd, efef)
•  One couplet (gg)
•  The quatrains introduce the problem/themes and explore it.
•  The volta (break of thought)
• Iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line, stressed - unstressed)

Tools for analysing 

• Form:
  Metre
  Rhyme scheme
  Stanza division
• Content:
  Situation
  Theme
  Symbolism
  Metaphors
  Imagery

Rhyme Scheme

Using the letters of the alphabet to show the rhyme scheme. 

For example: AABB 

The sky is very sunny. (A)

The children are funny. (A)

Under the tree we sit, (B)

But just for a bit. (B)

Stanza Division

• A stanza is a group of lines followed by a space.
  
• Are the stanzas related to one another? 

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

Situation

• A poem always describes a situation: what is going on?
  
• Ask the ‘wh-questions’!
  
• Once a reader knows the situation, he tries to discover the deeper meaning.
  
• You need to read between the lines. 

Theme

• Like short stories, poems have themes.
  
• It is important to find evidence for the theme.
  
• This evidence must come from the poem itself.
  

Turn/Volta (twist)

Sometimes the poet gives his poem a twist, where the first stanza is about the shining sun and the second stanza is about the darkness. We call this a turn or a volta. Not all poem have this twist. 

Dusk - Rae Armentrout

Spider on the cold expanse

of glass, three stories high

rests intently

and so purely alone.

I’m not like that!

Symbolism

• Poems can have a symbolic meaning: a deeper, bigger, universal meaning. 

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,

  and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

Metaphors

• A metaphor is a different name for something, often in nice poetic language.
  Example: the golden eye => the sun
  Example: eternal sleep => death
• Poets may use the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ in a metaphor, to compare.
  Example: He was so pale, he looked like a dead man.

Imagery

imagery makes use of particular words that create visual representation of ideas in our minds. The word “imagery” is associated with mental pictures. 

Personification

• A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.

• For example, when we say, “The sky weeps” we are giving the sky the ability to cry, which is a human quality. Thus, we can say that the sky has been personified in the given sentence.