Sound & Structure Notes PDF

Alliteration, Consonance, SOUND & STRUCTURE NOTES Assonance, Anaphora, Onomatopoeia, Enjambment, Caesura, Juxtaposition © Lit & More ALLITERATION & CONSONANCE Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds. Once upon a mi...

Alliteration, Consonance, SOUND & STRUCTURE NOTES Assonance, Anaphora, Onomatopoeia, Enjambment, Caesura, Juxtaposition © Lit & More ALLITERATION & CONSONANCE Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds. Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary – “The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe Hot-hearted Beowulf was bent upon battle – Beowulf Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields – Sir Galahad by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Consonance is the repetition of final consonant sounds. Great, or good, or kind, or fair, I will ne’er the more despair “Shall I Wasting in Despair” by George Wither He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. – “Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost © Lit & More ASSONANCE Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Do not confuse it with simple vowel repetition, as each vowel has several different sounds. Hear the mellow wedding bells – “Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe Sudden crowings of laughter, monotonous drone of song – “The Feast of Famine” by Robert Louis Stevenson “Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming” - ”Travel” by Edna St. Vincent Millay © Lit & More  The Pool Players. Seven At The Golden Shovel. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We “WE REAL Sing sin. We Thin gin. We COOL” BY Jazz June. We Die soon. GWENDOLYN BROOKS Identify the alliteration, assonance, and consonance in this poem. How does it make the poem sound stronger, even musical? Discuss the unique form of the poem. Try reading it with longer pauses at punctuation, then try by pausing at the ends of lines. How does the meaning and tone change? Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (STR 3.C). © Lit & More REPETITION Repetition is a literary device that repeats the same words or phrases several times to make an idea clearer and more emphatic.  Note: Repetition is deliberate. The common repetition of simple words such as “the” and “a,” for example, are not considered repetition since their overuse is unintentional.  But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” - “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost  Let it wash you clean / Like a river / Going up stream / Like a river / Cutting through right / Like a river / ‘Cause it never gives up / Like a river / So full of life / Like a river / Liquid like time / Like a river / That’ll wash away / Like a river / The pain from yesterday – “Mighty River” by Mary J. Blige  In this last example, consider how the repeated similes enhance the message in this song. Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (FIG 6.A). © Lit & More  ’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I Have ventured all upon a throw; Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so This side the victory! Life is but life, and death but death! “‘T IS SO MUCH Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath! And if, indeed, I fail, JOY” BY EMILY At least to know the worst is sweet. Defeat means nothing but defeat, No drearier can prevail! DICKINSON And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea, Oh, bells that in the steeples be, At first repeat it slow! For heaven is a different thing Conjectured, and waked sudden in, And might o’erwhelm me so! Which stanzas use a lot of repetition and which do not? What meaning or significance can you find in this? © Lit & More ANAPHORA Anaphora is a type of refrain device, where the first word or phrase is repeated in a series of lines. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. – “I Have a Dream,” Martin Luther King, Jr. Some feel rain. Some feel the beetle startle in its ghost-part when the bark slips. Some feel musk. Asleep against each other in the whiskey dark, scarcely there. – “Some Feel Rain,” Joanna Klink When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? – “The Tyger,” William Blake © Lit & More  I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. “I SING THE Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies BODY ELECTRIC” conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? BY WALT And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? WHITMAN How does anaphora drive home the theme of this poem? How does the cadence or speed of this poem change as it is read? Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (FIG 5.B). © Lit & More ONOMATOPOEIA Onomatopoeia means the use of words which sound like they mean. A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings – “Piano,” D. H. Lawrence I heard a fly buzz—when I died— Emily Dickinson Hark, hark! Bow-wow The watch-dogs bark! Bow-wow. Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” – The Tempest, William Shakespeare © Lit & More  All I know is a door into the dark. Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting; Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring, The unpredictable fantail of sparks Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water. The anvil must be somewhere in the centre, Horned as a unicorn, at one end square, Set there immoveable: an altar Where he expends himself in shape and music. “THE FORGE” BY Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose, He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter SEAMUS HEANEY Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows; Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and a flick To beat real iron out, to work the bellows. How does onomatopoeia further the atmosphere created in this poem, and why is it a fitting poetic element for the poem’s subject? How does it enhance the characterization of the blacksmith? Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (CHR 1.A). © Lit & More ENJAMBMENT & CAESURA Enjambment occurs when a line does not stop at the end of the line, but continues onto the next line without pause or punctuation. i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) – “I Carry Your Heart With Me,”e. e. cummings Caesura refers to a pause within a line of verse. To be or not to be, that is the question – Hamlet, William Shakespeare It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. – “A Noiseless, Patient Spider,” Walt Whitman © Lit & More  in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come “IN JUST—” running from marbles and piracies and it’s BY E. E. spring CUMMINGS when the world is puddle-wonderful… E. E. Cummings made a creative use of space and line arrangement. This is only the first third of his highly confusing poem “In Just—,” but identify where caesura and enjambment is used and why he may have arranged this poem in this way. Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (STR 3.D). © Lit & More JUXTAPOSITION Juxtaposition refers to the act of placing two or more things side by side to compare or contrast something, or to create an interesting effect.  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. – “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost  The image of two roads laid side by side is both literal and figurative juxtaposition, as each one represents a different path or meaning.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way… - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens  This passage shows several opposites juxtaposed in succession. © Lit & More  So the black walnut tree Swings through another year Of sun and leaping winds ”THE BLACK Of leaves and bounding fruit, WALNUT TREE” And, month after month, the whip- BY MARY Crack of the mortgage. OLIVER Compare the three bolded words (whip-crack is one word (EXCERPT) stretched over two lines). Consider what Mary Oliver is trying to accomplish by using these words. What effect is made by juxtaposing the first two against the last? Consider the role figurative language plays in this juxtaposition as well. Record your discussion and thoughts in the AP Lit Skill Spotlight (FIG 6.B). © Lit & More CLOSED VS. OPEN FORMS OF POETRY Every poem falls into one of two categories: open or closed. The way to determine its category is to study the poem’s form. Closed form poetry fits into a previously established form, using structure, rhyme and/or meter. It adheres to these rules, or breaks them strategically to make a point. See the following slide for examples of common forms of closed poetry. Open form poetry does not yield to any rules. While open form poetry may use some rhyme, rhythm or structure, it doesn’t follow any previously established pattern. © Lit & More EXAMPLES – WHAT ELEMENTS OF STRUCTURE, RHYTHM AND RHYME CAN YOU FIND IN EACH? HOW DOES CLOSED FORM USE PATTERNS AND RULES? Closed Form Poem Open Form Poem A Bird, came down the Walk - I buried my father He did not know I saw - in the sky. He bit an Angle Worm in halves Since then, the birds And ate the fellow, raw… clean and comb him every morning - A Bird, Came Down the Walk, by Emily and pull the blanket up to his chin Dickinson every night. - Little Father, Li-Young Lee © Lit & More COMMON CLOSED POETRY PATTERNS The College Board released the Sonnet following statement, “The AP Exam will not require students to label or identify Villanelle specific rhyme schemes, metrical patterns, or forms of poetry.” However, Ballad being able to identify a closed form poem by its type is sometimes helpful. Haiku (unlikely to be on the AP This is usually done by its rhyme scheme exam) and/or meter. Other types of closed form poems Here are some common closed poetry are simply in rhyming or metered types: stanzas. © Lit & More