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Stanza

Outline:

Every poem has a pattern, and it is the line which determines the pattern. The foot is the unit of the line; the line is the unit of the verse, or stanza; the stanza is the unit of the poem as a whole.

The shortest stanza is the couplet. As the name implies, it consists of two lines. Sometimes a couplet may form a complete poem, as, for example, this German proverb:

Away with recipes in books!
Hunger is the best of cooks!

The following lines from Milton's L’Allegro illustrate iambic tetrameter couplets, sometimes called octosyllabics:

Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare fancy's child
Warble his native wood-notes wild,
And ever against eating cares, 5
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out. 10

The following lines from the beginning of Dryden's The Hind and the Panther are an example of iambic pentameter couplets, usually called heroic couplets:

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and bounds
And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,
And doom'd to death, tho' fated not to die.

Each of the first two couplets in the Dryden passage contains a complete unit of thought; such couplets are called closed couplets.

The sense of the next couplet (the third) runs over into the following one; such a couplet is called a run-on couplet.

 Similarly a line in which a unit of thought is complete is called an end-stopped line, and a line in which the unit of thought "leaks" over into the next line or lines is called a run-on line. Another name for the "running-on" of the sense from one line to another is eniambement

The three-line stanza is sometimes called a triplet, sometimes a tercet. Many poems are written in this form, such as the Latin epigram:

Now I know everything! "so cries
The foolish youth. But when he sighs
Ali, I know nothing," he is wise

Sometimes the three-line stanza is so arranged that the first and third line of each tercet is rhymed, and the end-word of the second (unrhymed) line is carried over as the first and third rhymes of the stanza following. This stanza form is known as terza rima (literally "third rhyme"). It is the basis of and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind," which begins:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! 0 thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The four-line stanza, or quatrain, is the most common of all verse forms. In its simplest meter (the so-called ballad stanza) only the second and fourth lines are rhymed,

Usually, however, all the lines of the quatrain are rhymed; the first line is rhymed with the third, the second with the fourth.

Another form of the quatrain in which all the lines rhyme is composed of two couplets. It rhymes in pairs (a-a-b-b),

Another quatrain form, also with all lines rhyming, is known as "enclosed rhyme" (a-b-b-a); the first and last lines seem to bracket, or enclose, the inner pair of rhymes

There are still other variations of the quatrain form, the best of which is the so-called " Omar stanza " because it was popularized by Edward FitzGerald in his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Three of the four lines are rhymed, but not the third (a-a-x-a).

Less familiar are stanzas of five lines (cinquain or quintet), six lines (sestet), seven lines (illustrated by the rhyme royal of William Morris and John Masefield), eight lines (octave), and nine lines. The last, used frequently by John Keats and Byron, is at its best in the Spenserian stanza, so called because Spenser employed it so smoothly in "The Faerie Queen." Longer stanzas are rare; but one of them, the sonnet, has been immensely popular ever since it originated in Italy more than seven centuries ago.

Summary:

meter is the measure of rhythm in a line of poetry The smallest of the metrical units is the 'syllable'. .the largest metrical unit in the line is the 'foot', which is group of two or more syllables. There are six common kinds of feet in English metrics. IAMBIC foot, TROCHAIC foot, DACTYLIC foot ,ANAPESTIC foot, SPONDAIC foot, and PYRRHIC foot .The next largest metrical unit is the 'line' The length, or measure, of a line is called the meter.. The shortest line of poetry contains only one foot (monometer).  A line containing only one foot is called a "monometer"; one with two feet, a "dimeter" line; and so on through "trimeter", "tetrameter", "pentameter", "hexameter", "heptameter", and "octameter".(eight feet) one of the longest (octameter) consists of eight feet. 

Rhyme Scheme

Outline:

 In most poems, the lines are written according to patterns of rhythm. Poetic meter is the measure of rhythm in a line of poetry.  Rhythm is thus measured in poems.    The smallest of these metrical units is the 'syllable'.  English syllables are two kinds: accented or stressed, and unaccented or unstressed. An "accented syllable" requires more wind and push behind it than an unaccented; it also maybe pitched slightly higher or held for a slightly longer time. 

        After the syllable, the next largest metrical unit is the 'foot', which is group of two or more syllables.  The six common kinds of feet in English metrics have been names as derived from Greek: 

1. IAMBIC foot consists of unaccented syllable followed by an accented. It can be heard in such words as "because, hello, Elaine, afraid, begin, receive, because"

. The following, by Robert Frost, is an iambic line of verse:

  u     '       u    '    u   '    u   '

Whose woods / these are / I think /I know

 

2. TROCHAIC foot is the exact opposite of the iambic foot; consists of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented. These are trochaic words: answer, Tuesday, Albert, weary, flowing, silent.

The following, by Longfellow, is an example of trochaic verse:

  '   u     '  u    ' u    ' u

Then the / little / Hia / watha

. 

3. DACTYLIC foot consists of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. You can hear the dactylic beat in these words: beautiful, silently, Saturday, daffodil, murmuring.

. The following, by Thomas Hood, illustrates a dactylic line:

  '   u   u    '  u u

Take her up / tenderly

 

4. ANAPESTIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. These words are anapestic: cavalier, tambourine, Marianne, interrupt, contradict, engineer.

The following, from Browning's "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," is an example of an anapestic line:

  u   u    '      u u  '     u  u   '      u    u    '

Till at length / into Aix / Roland gal / loped and stood.

. 

5. SPONDAIC foot consists of two accented syllables.

The following from ‘Browning’s ‘The Bishop orders his tomb’

Good Strong thick stu  pe fy ing in cense smoke

6. PYRRHIC foot consists of two unaccented syllables. 

The following from Byron’s ‘Don Juan’

My way is to be gin with the be gin ning

The next largest metrical unit is the 'line'. A line is the regular succession of feet, and, though it is not necessarily a sentence, it customarily begins with a capital letter. Feet are combined to make a line of poetry. The number of feet in a line of verse determines the measure or meter The length, or measure, of a line is called the meter.. Most poems are not built on a fixed meter, but rather on a combination of meters and variety of them.

The shortest line of poetry contains only one foot (monometer).  A line containing only one foot is called a "monometer"; one with two feet, a "dimeter" line; and so on through "trimeter", "tetrameter", "pentameter", "hexameter", "heptameter", and "octameter".(eight feet) one of the longest (octameter) consists of eight feet.

Perhaps the best known is the five-foot line (pentameter), usually with an iambic beat and therefore called iambic pentameter. It is easily recognized in the plays of Shakespeare, the blank verse of John Milton, and the unrhymed narratives of Robert Frost. 

 A poem need not have a meter. The poems, written in rhythmical language but not in traditional meters, are called 'free verse'. Nonmetrical poetry is called free because the poet has freed himself from conforming himself to the set of metrical patterns. Free verse must not be confused with "blank verse', which is the customary label for iambic pentameter without rhyme. Blank verse is regular in meter but does not rhyme; free verse is irregular in meter and also does not rhyme       

Meter has two functions. First, it makes poem pleasurable because it is from within  and is delightful. In addition to making a poem enjoyable, meter makes it more meaningful. It is a part of the total meaning -- a part that cannot always be described in words, but can always be felt and is always lost when a poem is paraphrased or when it is translated from one language to another. 

  Rhyme, is a likeness of terminal sounds of words, frequently used in versification either at the end of a line of verse or within the line. Rhyme was not established as a technique in English poetry until the 14th century.  Rhyme appeared frequently in songs of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. Since then some kinds of poetry have employed rhyme, but it has never been discontinued in their usage. Rhyme functions as an element of rhythm, emphasizing poetic beat.

There are three types of true rhymes: masculine rhymes, in which the final syllable of the word or line is stressed ("spring," "bring"); feminine rhymes, in which two consecutive syllables, the first of which is accented, are alike in sound ("certain," "curtain"); and triple rhymes, in which all three syllables of a word are identical ("flowery," "showery").

Words in which the vowel and the following consonants in a stressed syllable are identical in sound, even if spelled differently, are called perfect rhymes ("two" and "too," or "spring" and "bring"). In eye, or sight, rhyme the words look as if they rhyme, but do not: "move," "love." Slant, or oblique, rhyme uses words with an imperfect match of sounds. Within this category, consonance relies on the similarity of consonant sounds: "shift," "shaft"; assonance relies on the similarity of vowel sounds: "grow," "home."

A pair of rhyming lines is called a couplet; three lines that rhyme are called a triplet. Traditional poetic forms have prescribed rhyming patterns; for example, sonnets usually follow the Italian rhyme scheme, abba abba cde cde, or the English rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg..

Metaphor & Simile

Outline:

A Metaphor is the application of a name or a descriptive term to an object to which it is not literally applicable.Meta means change or transfer.Phero means bear.Metaphor is the bringing together of several points of observation on a particular object and get one commanding image and express it in a complex idea not by analysis but by an abstact statement.A good metaphor implies an instinctive perception of similarity in dissimilarities.A metaphor is an implied Simile.It is the recognition of common charcteristics underling externally dissimilar objects.For e.g camel is the ship of the desert.A ship is in  literal sense a vessel that travels over the sea which is as we know is body of water.A desert is a body of vast sand.The camel crosses the desert as a ship crosses the sea.So the camel by metaphor or transference of meaning is called the ship of the desert.Another e.g. The newas of his death was a thunderbolt to me. Example: life is but a walking shadow. In a metaphor a word which is in literal usage which signifies one kind of thing, quality or action is applied to another in the form of statement of identity instead of comparison the term metaphor, as opposed to a metaphor, is used to include all figures of speech, so the expression, "metaphorically speaking," refers to speaking figuratively rather than literally.

A metaphor takes two things and claims they are the same One way of doing this is by comparing one to another  as in T.S. Elliot’s The love poem of Alfred. J. Prufrock

Let us go then,you and I,

 When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patien etherized upon a table t

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-

Panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another. It could then bring a likeness or comparison between them. Some e.g. of metaphor:

“The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one”. Edward Fitzgerald,

“I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind"

.”The cherished fields put on their winter robe of purest white” -James Thomson,

While most metaphors are nouns, verbs can be used as well:

      

 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
 Are each paved with the moon and these.(The Cloud)
                                       --- Percy Bysshe Shelley, ""

A word or expression like "the leg of the table," which originally was a metaphor but which has now been assimilated into common usage, has lost its figurative value; thus, it is called a dead metaphor.According to M.H.Abrams a Mixed metaphor combines two or more diverse metaphors, which leads to absurd effect.Girding up his loins, The chairman ploughed through the mountainous agenda.’

Simile:

Simile comes from Latin term ‘Similes’ which means a thing alike. Simile is a figure of speech in which the comparison between two objects are identified and stated. But in a metaphor it is identified and only implied, not expressly stated. Thus metaphor is a condensed Simile. Both metaphors and similes are comparisons between things which are unlike, but a simile expresses the comparison directly, while a metaphor is an implied comparison that gains emphatic force by its indirect value.

In Simile one person or thing is compared to another. Words such as ‘Like’ and ‘as’ are used to effect the comparison. In Simile both sides of the comparisons are stated. When the word ‘like’, ‘as’ is used, it gives the idea of both objects being compared to each other. It is used to give concreteness to an abstract idea. A simile is a comparison that claims that things being compared as similar, rather than the metaphors claims that things being compared are similar. Look at the words ‘as’ and ‘are’, ‘As’ says something is similar, but ‘Are’ says that it is definitely similar.

 According to M.H.Abrams, Simile is an explicit comparison made between  two essentially unlike things, usually using’ like’ , ‘as’ or’ than’ as in Burns’  ‘O, My love is a red red rose’. Technically speaking he would have used a metaphor. Burns says ’O my love is like a red red rose’. Hence technically speaking he has used a Simile. The Simile in Wordsworth ode, ‘Intimations of immortality’ differs from Burn’s is that it specifies the aspects in which custom is similar to frost (heavy) and to life (deep) ; And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost and deep almost as life.

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Simile A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two essentially unlike things, usually using like, as or than, as in Burns' "O, my luve's like A Red, Red Rose," or Shelley's as in "The Cloud."

A RED, RED ROSE

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
    That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve is like the melodie,
    That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
    So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
    Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,    

And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
    While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,

 And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
    Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

A simile is a comparison between two distinctly different things indicated by the word ‘like’ or ‘as’. A Simile consists in likening one thing to another formally, generally but not always. This contrast is not always expressed by words’ like’, ‘as’ .It must be remembered that things compared must be different in kind as in Keats’

Her red cheeks bloomed with youth,

As rose opens with tender pink.

A simile is a comparison of two unlike things introduced by "like" or "as". For example, Menelaus is compared to a wild beast because of his eagerness to find Paris, who had been rescued by Aphrodite: "Menelaus was wandering through the throng like a wild beast. The basic purpose of this simile from Homer’s ‘Iliad” or any simile is to present a word-picture which will make the reader experience in a more vivid way what is being described. In the above example Menelaus’ movement in search of Paris is brought to life by the picture of a wild beast, which suggests the frantic agitation of a man who has been frustrated in his desire for revenge. The simile is an important feature of Homer's style. He uses both short similes like the one above and extended ones which became a standard feature of the epic tradition after Homer. The first 35 lines of Book 3 contain four extended similes.

Akin to the simile is a figure of speech called a metaphor, a comparison between two different things without the use of "like" or "as". The simile describing Menelaus stated that he was "like a wild beast". That simile could be stated as a metaphor: "Menelaus is a wild beast". This, of course, does not mean that Menelaus is literally a wild beast, but that at this time he shares some characteristics with a wild beast. Metaphors are not as common in the Iliad as similes, but they do occur as in the formulaic phrase, "winged words". Obviously, words do not have wings, birds do. But words do fly out of the mouth like birds, and once they have been said, they are as hard to take back as birds are to capture.

  

Imagery

Outline:

Imagery is a word used in literary terms to refer to mental images that are evoked by the use of descriptive language. Imagery in this sense is a series of words used to create visual picture of the experience. It helps the reader imagine the sensations described by the author, through his language. The author uses action words which bring out sensory experience by creating the mental image of the subject. Such images can be created by using figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, personification and assonance.

Imagery is the name given to the elements in a poem that trigger the senses and help create mental images. Imagery need not be only visual; they also include the five senses, such as sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell which responds to the description of the author. Examples of visual imagery can be found in the poem. Ode to A Nightingale." It is a poem in which Keats uses detailed description to contrast natural beauty and reality, life and death. In the opening verse, the writer becomes captivated by the nightingale's peaceful song. Throughout, the song becomes a powerful spell that transcends the mortal world of Keats. Interwoven throughout the poem are images that reflect his thoughts about death. It is important to note that Keats' father & mother died when he was young and his brother had recently died of tuberculosis, which probably accounts for this focus.

In the first stanza, Keats' mood is low and depressed but the nightingale's song creates a state of euphoria in him that allows him to escape reality. He is not envious of the bird's happy "lot" but is comforted by the nightingale's singing which lifts him from his unhappy mood.

              

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,  

  But being too happy in thine happiness,
 That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
   In some melodious plot
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
  Singest of summer in full-throated ease

The elements in a literary work are used to evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used in reference to figurative language, imagery is a term which can apply to any and all elements of a poem that evoke sensory experience and emotional response, whether figurative or literal, and also applies to the concrete things which are used as a image.

Imaginative language transfers the poet's impressions of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch to the attentive reader as in "The Cloud  ," by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 The Cloud

I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers,

  From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

  In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

 The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,

 As she dances about the sun.

 Effective imagery has the power to utilize the inner wisdom of the reader and arouse meditative and inspirational responses. It adds more concrete initial impact, when the reader is able to get an image to relate to the description.

Related images are often clustered or scattered throughout a work, thus serving to create a particular effect. Images of disease, corruption, and death, for example, are recurrent patterns of Shakespeare's ‘Tempest’ .Imagery can also emphasize a theme or a thought, as do the suggestions of dissolution, depression, and mortality in John Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale." Imagery is used effectively by W.H.Davies to state that nothing is wonderful than “Leisure” to enjoy the beauty of life.

LEISURE

What is this life if’ full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to see in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

.

The poet states in the first two lines, the theme of the poem. Then he goes onto paint small little pictures, which we can see and enjoy. The poet could just state ‘I see this or that’ but it is possible to conjure up, much more specific images by using figures of speech such as simile, personification or metaphor. The poet compares nature to beautiful woman, sparkling water to star studded sky at night. This line is simile.

According to M.H. Abrahams, Imagery is one of the most common terms used in modern criticism. Its application ranges from the mental pictures experienced by the reader of the poem, to the totality of elements which make up a poem. C.Day. Lewis in his ‘Poetic Image’ talks of an image, as a picture made out of words and that, a poem may itself be, an image, composed from multiplicity of images. Three uses of the word imagery are frequently meant.

Imagery is used to refer to all the qualities , objects or images taken collectively in the poem or works of literature , whether by literal description or by indirect reference using figures of speech such as simile, metaphor personification. For e.g. in Wordsworth’s poem ‘She dwelt among the Untrodden’ ways

 ‘She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy tone
Half hidden from the eye!
-- Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

The imagery in this broad sense refers to literal objects. The poem refers to (ways, maid grave) as well as the violet, and stone of the metaphor and star and sky of the simile; in the second stanza. The term image should not be taken to imply a visual reproduction of the object referred to, as some readers experience visual images on reading the passage and some do not and among those who do, the explicitness and details of the mind – pictures vary greatly. Also imagery includes auditory, tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste) or kinesthetic (sensations of movement) as well as visual qualities. In his’ In memoriam’ number 101 for e.g.: Tennyson’s references are to qualities of smell and hearing, as well as to sight, in the lines

Unloved, that beech will gather brown…

         And many a rose-carnation feed

           With summer spice the humming air…

         

Imagery is used in the narrow sense, to signify only descriptions of visual in         

Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.

 The rock shone bright, the Kirk no less,

           That stands above the rock:

           The moonlight steeped in silentness

           The steady weathercock.

Most commonly imagery is used to signify figurative language, especially usage of metaphors and similes. In fact recent criticism has stressed imagery in this sense as an essential component in poetry and as a major clue to poetic meaning, structure and effect.

 TYPES OF VISUAL IMAGES :

SIMPLE DESCRIPTION - a  large   number  of  images  which  arise  in a poem come from simple description of visible objects or actions. . DRAMATIC SITUATION 
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE - as soon as the reader becomes aware that the poem is a dramatic monologue, he visualizes a speaker with the result that the particularity of the situation is evident. 

 DIALOGUE - has the same effect as Dramatic Monologue. 

 STORY - like description, narration causes the reader or hearer to form images.  When the reader realizes that he is being told a tale he visualizes from habit; he does not wish to miss the point of the story. 

 METONYMY - when a poet uses metonymy, he names one thing when he really  
means another thing with which the first is closely connected. e.g. Seven little foreheads stared up at me from the first row. (where "foreheads" is used for "eyes" ). 

 SYNECDOCHE - when a poet uses synecdoche, he names a part of a thing when he means whole thing  (or vice versa) or the genius for the species. 6. ONOMATOPOEIA - although imagery usually  refers to visual images, there are also aural images.  The use of words which sound like their meaning is called onomatopoeia. e.g. buzz, hiss, clang , splash, murmur, chatter, etc. 

          

The persona of the poet, which is the deep well of his poetry will be a world created from all that he has known and felt and seen and heard and thought. His image-making poetic faculty and his imagination will put together his memories and his immediate perceptions into numberless varieties of shapes and associations beauty and power. The poet will always employ images in his poetry. However hard he tries, he cannot make poetry with out imagery.

Characteristics of Poetry

Introduction:

Poetry is the expression of an imagination in a rhythmic form. Carlyle says ‘Poetry is not merely a criticism of life; it is the very truth of life’. Swinburne says ‘Poetry is the voice of man’s soul’.

Broadly speaking, poetry can be brought under two headings, Subjective and Objective poetry. Subjects which are supplied by the poet’s own thoughts and feelings become subjective poetry. In here the poet brings his own reflections on what he has seen or heard. On the other hand the subject matter supplied by external objects such as events and the things we see around us gives rise to objective poetry. In this case, the poet functions as an objective observer, describing what he has seen or heard. The poet may then be viewing it from outside, confining it to its external structure. The treatment becomes objective. Where as if he views it from within giving expression to their thoughts and feelings it arouses in his mind, the treatment is subjective. Hence the same subject can be treated in an objective or subjective manner. Subjective poetry is personal where as Objective poetry is impersonal, often narrative and descriptive. The poems ‘Youth and Age’ by Shakespeare and Coleridge demonstrate the example of Subjective and Objective poetry.

Crabbed Age and Youth

Cannot live together:

Youth is full of pleasance,

Age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn,

Age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave,

Age like winter bare:

Youth is full of sport,

Age’s breath is short,

Youth is nimble, Age is lame:

Youth is hot and bold,

Age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild, and Age is tame.

                                                     Shakespeare.

 Shakespeare’s poem is objective, stating a plain fact, where as Coleridge’s poem ‘Youth and old Age’ which is prescribed for your study is, Subjective, Which contains an expression of personal feeling on the subject.(Refer to Coleridge’s poem ‘Youth and old Age’ in the section-Romantic poets, Coleridge.)

Poetry has many different forms such as lyric, Ode, Sonnet, Elegy, Idyll, Epic, Ballad, and Satire.

Lyric poetry is used to denote personal poetry. The subject matter could vary but the deep emotion and the manner in which the emotion is rendered must be harmonious (musical) and vivid. We see this in the example of Herrick’s ‘To Blossoms’.

Ode is a lyric in the form of an address, dignified and exalted in subject matter and style. Look at Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ as an example.

Elegy includes all utterances of personal sorrow to speak about sorrow as a memorial to a great person. Please see Milton’s ‘Lycidas’ as an example.

An Elegy can be war songs, love poems, political verses, and lamentations for the dead and other wide range of subjects, both sad and happy. Example, Spenser’s ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ is a pastoral Elegy.

The Idyll is not a distinct type. It can be a Lyric, a longer poem or sometimes a passage in an Elegy, play, Epic or Ballad. Please see the example of ‘Wordsworth’s ‘Lines written in March’ which depict a spring scene in England.

The Epics are, as we see in the great examples of ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’ written by the ancient Greek poet Homer. It is a long tale of verse with famous heroes for its principal characters and brings it together, in an artistic form, the many great stories of their adventures.

The ballads arise out of folk literature. Ballad is a short story in verse, intended to be sung to an audience. we have he example in Coleridge’s ‘ The Rime of the ancient Mariner’.

The Satire is found in both prose and poetry. It has no literary form. It can be written as an ode, elegy, a ballad or anything else.

Figures of speech are used in poetry such as Simile, Metaphor, and Personification to formally express one’s thoughts. Imagery is necessary to convey the thoughts and experiences of the writer. In general term Imagery refers to the use of language to represent descriptively, things, actions, or even abstract ideas. The term becomes synonymous with idea or vision. In short it serves as the vehicle for the imaginative thought, the artistic experience which the writer wants to communicate. 

The Early Twentieth Century:

Outline of the Twentieth century:

Irish drama blossomed in the early 20th century, largely under the umbrella of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin John Millington Synge, William Butler Yeats, and Sean O'Casey all wrote on Irish themes—mythical in Yeats’ poetic drama, political in O’Casey’s  realistic plays. Also Irish, George Bernard Shaw wrote ironical dramas that reflect all aspects of British society. In fact, many of the towering figures of 20th-century English literature were not English; Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, O'Casey, and Beckett were Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, T. S. Eliot was born an American, and Conrad was Polish.

Poetry in the early 20th century was characterized by the conventional romanticism of such poets as John Masefield, Alfred Noyes, and Walter de la Mare and by the experiments of the imagists, notably Hilda Doolittle (H. D.), Richard Aldington, Herbert Read, and D. H. Lawrence. The finest poet of the period was Yeats, whose poetry fused romantic vision with contemporary political and concerns. Though the 19th-century tradition of the novel lived on in the work of Arnold Bennett, W.H Hudson, and John Galsworthy, new writers like Henry James, H. G. Wells, and Joseph Conrad expressed the doubt and alienation that were to become features of post-Victorian sensibility.

World War I shook England to the core. So also were shaken, social customs artistic conventions. There were also poets, who were influenced by the world wars fought and wrote war poems. The wars produced a new category of poets called French poets. They wrote against the myth that wars were noble. They wanted to show, the sadness of senseless slaughter. This movement used romantic conventions of English poetry. Chief among them were Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon. The work of war poets like Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, was particularly influential. Ford Maddox’s landmark tetralogy,’ Parade's End’, is perhaps the finest depiction of the war and its effects.

The new era called for new forms, signified by the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins, first published in 1918, and of T. S. Eliot, whose long poem, ‘The Waste Land’ (1922) was a watershed (Classical work)  in both American and English literary history. Hopkins adopted metrical forms and a verse technique of metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century .He was more of an innovator. To describe in his own language, he used the term,’ sprung rhythm’, and the word’ inscape’ to denote his aim in the treatment of subject material. The far reaching,  influence of Hopkins after 1918, was not altogether fortunate for English poetry , since it encouraged lesser minds than his to cultivate the illusion that obscurity and profundity go hand in hand.

Two great poets of the twentieth century who wrote best poetry and brought about a change in the poetry form are Eliot and Yeats. Between 1919 and 1939 Yeats wrote the best poetry. His important poetic works are the Winding stairs, Tower, The wild Swans of Coole, and Byzantium among others. The Gyre, the spiral form and the cycle of civilization, are the symbols that occur in his poems. He was a poet, as well as a visionary, whose work is relevant even today. T.S.Eliot remarked that Yeats is one of the greatest English poets.

Eliot himself is the greatest English poet and a critic. He was greatly influenced by the American poet Ezra Pound and T.E.Hulme.He learnt to write sharp and clear images under their influence. His poetry is distinct for its irony and obscurity. His poetry reflects the disillusionment of the present age. He departed from conventional poetry. He revived the tradition of the seventeenth century metaphysical .His poetry reflect the influence of metaphysical school of thought. He does not follow narrative method or logical sequence of ideas or events. He was influenced by Symbolists. His poems highlight the horror and boredom of modern life.

T.S. Eliot was the disciple of Hopkins but his first poem was published in 1917,before Hopkins’s was published in 1918.It is important to distinguish the writing style of Hopkins and T.S.Eliot, though their fame has happened in the same time and there are close resemblances in the writings of these two poets. Eliot’s’ work is original and personally creative. His poem the waste land portrayed a disturbing picture of the contemporary world. It was a vision of the human society as he saw it. He uses free verse intermingled with allusions, quotations, imagery, and a note of bleakness. He used allusions, and imagery from shabby side of life. Its difficulty, formal invention, and bleak Anti- Romanticism were to influence poets for decades. It was unromantic and designed to shock.

Equally important was the novel Ulysses, also published in 1922, by the expatriate Irishman James Joyce. Although his books were controversial because of their freedom of language and content, Joyce's revolutions in narrative form, the treatment of time, and nearly all other techniques of the novel made him a master to be studied, but only sometimes copied.

Though more conventional in form, the novels and poems of D. H. Lawrence were equally challenging to convention; he was the first to champion both the primitive and the super civilized urges of men and women. D.H.Lawrence (1885-1930) was a controversial figure. He believed it his mission to seek to release English people from the pressures of moral restraints which are regarded as essential for holding together civilized society.

Moved by the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and English policies of appeasement, many writers and intellectuals sought solutions in the politics of the left—or the right. The poets W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, and C. Day Lewis all proclaimed their leftist respective political commitments, but the pressing demands of World War II superseded these long-term ideals.

The Postwar Era to the Present:

The division of literature into periods convenient for study may create an impression that the writers in each age can be put into tight compartments, and can be land treated independently of their predecessors and successors. This view is not right. What ever seems to be new in literature seems to have its roots in the past. The poetry of 1930s returned to the serious mood of the Victorian period but with a difference in the theme. The Victorians were occupied with the condition of England while the 1930s were occupied with the conditions of the whole world. There is no parallel in history to Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) whose poetry influenced the younger poets so much that the aspect of modern poetry was changed. It is the same with T.S.Eliot whose popularity is unparalleled. After the war most English writers chose to focus on aesthetic or social rather than political problems; C. P. Snow was perhaps the notable exception. The novelists Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Joyce Cary, and Lawrence Durrell, and the poets Robert Graves, Edwin Muir, Louis MacNeice, and Edith Sitwell tended to cultivate their own distinctive voices. Other novelists and playwrights of the 1950s, often called the angry young men, expressed a deep dissatisfaction with British society, combined with despair that anything could be done about it.

While the postwar era was not a great period of English literature, it produced a variety of excellent critics, including William Empson, Frank Kermode, and F. R. Leavis. The period was also marked by a number of highly individual novelists, including Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Doris Lessing, who continued to work in the expansive 19th-century tradition, producing a series of realistic novels chronicling life in England during the 20th century.

Some of the most exciting work of the period came in the theater, notably the plays of John Osborne, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), reached a larger audience. His poetry had metaphysical mannerisms. Thomas's lyricism and rich imagery reaffirmed the romantic spirit, and he was eventually appreciated for his technical mastery as well. Walter De La Mare (1873-1956) was a poet of high rank. His poetry carried depths of meaning beyond what the words actually say. There was also Irish expatriate novelist and playwright, Samuel Beckett. Beckett, who wrote many of his works in French and translated them into English, is considered the greatest exponent of the theater of the absurd.

Other outstanding contemporary poets include, Hugh MacDiarmid, the leading figure of the Scottish literary renaissance; Ted Hughes, who’s harsh, post war poetry celebrates simple survival, and Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, who is hailed for his exquisite style. Novelists generally have found as little in the Thatcher and Major eras, as in the previous period to inspire them, but the work of Margaret Drabble, John Fowles, David Lodge stands out, and the Scottish writer James Kelman stands out.

SWINBURNE.

A younger disciple of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement but also a strongly original artist was Algernon Charles Swinburne. During the next fifteen years he was partly occupied with a huge poetic trilogy in blank verse on Mary Queen of Scots, He produced also some long narrative poems, of which the chief is 'Tristram of Lyonesse.' His chief importance is as a lyric poet, and his lyric production was large. His earlier poems in this category are for the most part highly controversial in substance or sentiment. Many of his poems are dedicated to the cause of Italian independence or to liberty in general. His poetry is notable chiefly for its artistry, especially for its magnificent melody, proportion and restraint. From the intellectual and spiritual point of view his work is negligible, but as a musician in words he has no superior, not even Shelley.

MINOR VICTORIAN POETS.

Among the other Victorian poets, three, at least, must be mentioned. Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), a tutor at Oxford and later examiner in the government education office, expresses the spiritual doubt and struggle of the period in noble poems similar to those of Matthew Arnold, whose fine elegy 'Thyrsis' honours him. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883), Irish by birth, an eccentric though kind-hearted recluse, and a friend of Tennyson, is known solely for his masterly paraphrase (1859) of some of the Quatrains of the eleventh-century Persian astronomer-poet Omar Khayyam. The similarity of temper between the medieval oriental scholar and the questioning phase of the Victorian period is striking and no poetry is more poignantly beautiful than the best of this. Christina Rossetti (1830-94), the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote poetry, composition, prose articles and short stories. Her poetry is limited almost entirely to the lyrical expression of her spiritual experiences, much of it is explicitly religious, and all of it is religious in feeling. It is tinged with the Pre-Raphaelite mystic medievalism; and a quiet and most affecting sadness is its dominant trait; but the power and beauty of a certain small part of it perhaps entitle her to be called the chief of English poetesses.

Conclusion:

The preeminent poet of the Victorian age was Alfred, Lord Tennyson Although romantic in subject matter, his poetry was tempered by personal melancholy; in its mixture of social certitude and religious doubt it reflected the age. The poetry of Robert Browning and his wife, Elizabeth Barret Browning, was immensely popular, though Elizabeth's was more venerated during their lifetimes. Browning is best remembered for his superb dramatic monologues. Rudyard Kipling, the poet of the empire triumphant, captured the quality of the life of the soldiers of British expansion. Some fine religious poetry was produced by Francis Thompson, Alice Meynell, Christina Rossetti, and Lionel Johnson.

In the middle of the 19th cent the so-called Pre-Raphaelites, led by the painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, sought to revive what they judged to be the simple, natural values and techniques of medieval life and art. Their quest for a rich symbolic art led them away, however, from the mainstream. William Morris—designer, inventor, printer, poet, and social philosopher—was the most versatile of the group, which included the poets Christina Rossetti and Coventry Patmore.

Algernon Charles Swinburne began as a Pre-Raphaelite but soon developed his own classically influenced, sometimes florid style. A. E. Housman and Thomas Hardy, Victorian figures who lived on into the 20th cent., share a pessimistic view in their poetry, but Housman's well-constructed verse is rather more superficial. The great innovator among the late Victorian poets was the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. The concentration and originality of his imagery, as well as his jolting meter (“sprung rhythm”), had a profound effect on 20th-century poetry.

During the 1890s the most conspicuous figures on the English literary scene were the decadents. The principal figures in the group were Arthur Symons, Ernest Dowson, and, first among them in both notoriety and talent, Oscar Wilde. The Decadents' disgust with bourgeois complacency led them to extremes of behavior and expression. However limited their accomplishments, they pointed out the hypocrisies in Victorian values and institutions. The sparkling, witty comedies of Oscar Wilde, W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan were perhaps the brightest achievements.