Poetry Techniques

You need to show you can understand-

Descriptions

Ideas

Attitudes and tones

Techniques

Theme, Mood and Structure

Theme: The main idea or message conveyed by the piece.

Mood: The atmosphere or emotional condition created by the piece, within the setting. Mood refers to the general sense or feeling which the reader is supposed to get from the text. You can not say ‘the author uses mood’; you must say how they create mood.

The mood of Macbeth is dark, murky and mysterious, creating a sense of fear and uncertainty.

Structure: The manner in which the various elements of a story or poem are assembled.

In poetry, structure would look at stanzas, verses, etc. It would also include     

repetition- the poet may repeat certain parts of the poem

punctuation- the poet may have used little or no punctuation

rhythm- some poems may have no natural or fixed rhythm

rhyme- some poems may have an unusual rhyme scheme or none at all

USEFUL TERMS IN POETRY

Allegory: Where every aspect of a story is representative, usually symbolic, of something else.

Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds close together such as ‘Many men might make music’.

Blank verse: Non-rhyming poetry, usually written in iambic pentameter.

Most of Shakespeare’s dialogue is written in blank verse, though it does occasionally rhyme.

Connotation:  The emotional association with a word, eg the connotation of words such as ;’ dark’, ‘wet’, ‘damp’ would be negative such as representing evil or sadness.

Couplet: a complete thought written in two lines with rhyming ends.

Denotation: The exact meaning of the word without the connotations

eg. The heart as an organ without the connotation of love

Figurative language: Any use of language where the intended meaning differs from the actual literal meaning of the words themselves. There are many techniques which can rightly be called figurative language, including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, verbal irony, and oxymoron. (Related: figure of speech)

The poet makes extensive use of figurative language, presenting the speaker’s feelings as colors, sounds and flavors.

Iambic pentameter: A poetic meter wherein each line contains ten syllables, as five repetitions of a two-syllable pattern in which the pronunciation emphasis is on the second syllable.

Shakespeare wrote most of his dialogue in iambic pentameter, often having to adjust the order and nature of words to fit the syllable pattern, thus endowing the language with even greater meaning

Imagery: Language which describes something in detail, using words to substitute for and create sensory stimulation, including visual imagery and sound imagery.

Metaphor: A direct relationship where one thing or idea substitutes for another.

Shakespeare often uses light as a metaphor for Juliet; Romeo refers to her as the sun, as “a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear,” and as a solitary dove among crows.

Onomatopoeia: Where sounds are spelled out as words; or, when words describing sounds actually sound like the sounds they describe eg ‘screech’, ‘bang’ etc.

Repetition: Where a specific word, phrase, or structure is repeated several times, usually in close proximity, to emphasize a particular idea.

Simile: An indirect relationship where one thing or idea is described as being similar to another. Similes usually contain the words “like” or “as,” but not always eg. ‘she jumped up like a cat on a hot tin roof’.

Slant rhyme: also known as near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, oblique rhyme, or pararhyme. A distinctive system or pattern of metrical structure and verse composition in which two words have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common.