Thursday, October 9, 2014

1. Discuss some elements of poetry.
REMINDER: SOCIAL CRITICISM IN LITERATURE PAPERS DUE ON MONDAY!


MEANING and POETRY
I said earlier that poetry is not always about hidden or indirect meanings (sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, if often is a major part of poetry, so here some of the important things to remember: 

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.
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.

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.

 FIGURATIVE/CONNOTATIVE DEVICES

1. Simile is the rhetorical term used to designate the most elementary form of resemblances: most similes are introduced by "like" or "as." These comparisons are usually between dissimilar situations or objects that have something in common, such as "My love is like a red, red rose."
2. A metaphor leaves out "like" or "as" and implies a direct comparison between objects or situations. "All flesh is grass." For more on metaphor, click here.
3. Synecdoche is a form of metaphor, which in mentioning an important (and attached) part signifies the whole (e.g. "hands" for labour).
4. Metonymy is similar to synecdoche; it's a form of metaphor allowing an object closely associated (butunattached) with a object or situation to stand for the thing itself (e.g. the crown or throne for a king or the bench for the judicial system).
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Personification occurs when you treat abstractions or inanimate objects as human, that is, giving them human attributes, powers, or feelings (e.g., "nature wept" or "the wind whispered many truths to me").
8. Irony takes many forms. Most basically, irony is a figure of speech in which actual intent is expressed through words that carry the opposite meaning.

• Paradox: usually a literal contradiction of terms or situations
• Situational Irony: an unmailed letter
• Dramatic Irony: audience has more information or greater perspective than the characters
• Verbal Irony: saying one thing but meaning another
  • Overstatement (hyperbole)
  • Understatement (meiosis)
  • Sarcasm

Irony may be a positive or negative force. It is most valuable as a mode of perception that assists the poet to see around and behind opposed attitudes, and to see the often conflicting interpretations that come from our examination of life. 

2. Discuss tanka.
3. Write two tanka.

TANKA

A tanka is a Japanese 31-syllable poem, traditionally written in one unbroken line. Its English version is in a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count form. It has a pivotal point in the third line, in which the upper poem, or examination of an image, is connected to the lower poem, or response. Tanka also use metaphors, similes, and/or personification.

Examples:

Beautiful mountains

Rivers with cold, cold water.

White cold snow on rocks

Trees over the place with frost

White sparkly snow everywhere.

hazy autumn moon
the sound of chestnuts dropping
from an empty sky
I gather your belongings
into boxes for the poor

Margaret Chula
Portland, Oregon

	Haiku	Tanka
number of syllables	The total number of syllables in the poem is seventeen	The total number of syllables in the poem is thirty one
the distribution of syllables in the lines respectively	5-7-5	5-7-5-7-7
Origin	Thirteen century	Seventeen century
Poetic devices	Concrete imagery without commentary	metaphors, similes and personification
Usual Tendency	To look at the exterior world	To look inward, concentrating on human feelings
Perspective	Objective	Subjective
Concentrating factor	Written in the present	Versatile as change in time, a change in subject, a change in person, etc,
Judgmental	Highly judgmental	Not considered judgmental
vocabulary	mixed	Elegant