Lesson-5-ELEMENTS-OF-POETRY-According-to-Meaning.pdf
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LESSON NO. 5 ELEMENTS OF POETRY: ACCORDING TO MEANING MEANING AND POETRY Poetry is not always about hidden or indirect meanings (sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, it often is a major part of poetry, so here are some of the important things to remember: ...
LESSON NO. 5 ELEMENTS OF POETRY: ACCORDING TO MEANING MEANING AND POETRY Poetry is not always about hidden or indirect meanings (sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, it often is a major part of poetry, so here are some of the important things to remember: MEANING 1. Concreteness and Particularity 2. Denotation and Connotation 3. Figurative/Connotative Devices 4. Poetry as a Language Of Indirection MEANING AND POETRY 1. CONCRETENESS and PARTICULARITY In general, poetry deals with particular things in concrete language, since our emotions most readily respond to these things. From the poem's particular situation, the reader may then generalize; the generalities arise by implication from the particular. In other words, a poem is most often concrete and particular; the "message," if there is any, is general and abstract; it's implied by the images. MEANING AND POETRY 1. CONCRETENESS and PARTICULARITY Images, in turn, suggest meanings beyond the mere identity of the specific object. Poetry "plays" with meaning when it identifies resemblances or makes comparisons between things; common examples of this "figurative" comparison include: ticking of clock = mortality hardness of steel = determination white = peace or purity Such terms as connotation, simile, metaphor, allegory, and symbol are aspects of this comparison. Such expressions are generally called figurative or metaphorical language. 2. DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION Word meanings are not only restricted to dictionary meanings. The full meaning of a word includes both the dictionary definition and the special meanings and associations a word takes in a given phrase or expression. For example, a tiger is a carnivorous animal of the cat family. This is the literal or denotative meaning. But we have certain associations with the word: sinuous movement, jungle violence, and aggression. These are the suggestive, figurative or connotative meanings. 3. FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES a. Symbol b. Allegory c. Figures of Speech 3. FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES a. A symbol is like a simile or metaphor with the first term left out. "My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile. If, through persistent identification of the rose with the beloved woman, we may come to associate the rose with her and her particular virtues. At this point, the rose would become a symbol. 3. FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES b. Allegory can be defined as a one to one correspondence between a series of abstract ideas and a series of images or pictures presented in the form of a story or a narrative. For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is an extended allegory that represents the Russian Revolution through a fable of a farm and its rebellious animals. 1 He had my head on a platter. (refered to John the Baptist) The final game was John's Waterloo Sue did not want to endure Eve's curse, so she opted for the epidural (Eve's Curse, and it represents God giving Eve the curse of painful childbirth (Genesis 3:29) 1 A-N-S-L-U-I-O-L 1 ALLUSION 1 ALLUSION What is an Allusion? An indirect reference to a person, place or event made by mentioning or quoting a characteristic or aspect of the thing alluded to. Often A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work. The Bard – William Shakespeare King of Comedy - Dolphy 1 A-N-O-S-T-O-A-A-N-M-I ANTONOMASIA ANTONOMASIA What is an Antonomasia? Antonomasia is a rhetoric device where a word or phrase is substituted for a proper name P-E-T-I-O-N-S-O-F-A-R-N-I-I-C PERSONIFICATION O Captain! My Captain!, “Love! Love!... When will you come my way?”’ “Death! O, Death! Visit me not for now, I still have dreams to chase! "Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour” A-S-P-P-O-T-E-R-O-H APOSTROPHE APOSTROPHE What is an Apostrophe? A rhetorical device which is used to directly address an absent or imaginary person or object as if alive and present and could reply. A rich man is no richer than a beggar. I'm a liar. How do you know if I'm telling the truth? I'm nobody. P-A-D-A-O-X-R PARADOX PARADOX What is a Paradox? A paradox is a self contradictory statement or situation. It's a logical process, in which the facts appear to be opposed to themselves. Examples of Paradox "War is peace." "Freedom is slavery." "Ignorance is strength." (George Orwell, 1984) What figure of speech is exemplified? He remembers their bitter-sweet memories. O anything of nothing first create; O heavy lightness, serious vanity, O-Y-X-N-O-R-M-O OXYMORON OXYMORON What is an Oxymoron? a figure of speech that combines two usually contradictory terms in a compressed paradox Dramatic example: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles in which Oedipus searches to find the murderer of the former king of Thebes, only to discover that it is himself, which is known to the audience all along. Verbal example: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare "Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man“ Situational example: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge: Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink ; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink O-I-N-Y-R IRONY IRONY What is Irony? A contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant or an incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. Exercises 1. The snow whispered as it fell to the ground during the early morning hours. 2. "O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times." from Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1. by William Shakespeare 3. "The Great Bard" for William Shakespeare 4. Allysa is the Aphrodite of Iv-St. Thomas. 5. The water called out invitingly to the hot swimmers. 6. “Wise Man” for Solomon 7. "Roll on thou dark and deep blue ocean." from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" by Lord Byron 8. The car engine coughed and sputtered when it started during the blizzard. 9. Students aim to reach Mt. Olympus. 10. "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race." (James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) 11. He was suspended for his little mishap. 12. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate 13. You can save money by spending it. 14. O Shakespeare, behold my sonnets! 15. No one wants to receive the Trojan horse. POETRY AS A LANGUAGE OF INDIRECTION Thus, if we recognize that much of the essential quality of our experience is more complex than a simple denotative statement can describe, then we must recognize the value of the poet's need to search for a language agile enough to capture the complexity of that experience. Consider this four-line stanza: O Western wind, when wilt thou blow That the small rain down can rain? Christ, that my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again! POETRY AS A LANGUAGE OF INDIRECTION The center of the poem is the lover's desire to be reunited with his beloved (lines 3 and 4). But the full meaning of the poem depends on the first two lines also. Obviously, the lover associates his grief with the wind and rain, but the poet leaves to implication, to indirection, just how the lover's situation and the wind and rain are related. We note that they are related in several ways: the need for experiencing and manifesting love is an inherent need, like nature's need for rain; in a word, love, like the wind and rain, is natural. Secondly, the lover is living in a kind of drought or arid state that can only be slaked by the soothing presence of the beloved. Thirdly, the rising of the wind and the coming of the rain can neither be controlled nor foretold exactly, and human affairs, like the lover's predicament, are subject to the same sort of chance. POETRY AS A LANGUAGE OF INDIRECTION Undoubtedly, too, there are associations with specific words, like "Western" or "small rain" that the reader is only half aware of but which nonetheless contribute to meaning. These associations or connotations afford a few indirections that enrich the entire poem. For example, "small rain" at once describes the kind of rain that the lover wants to fall and suggests the joy and peace of lover's tears, and "small" alone might suggest the daintiness or femininity of the beloved.
