CREATIVE WRITINGUnit One – 25 Common Literary Terms

Session 5

REVIEW

• Examples

• Personification

• Puns

• Rhyme Scheme

• Rhythm

• Simile

STANZA

• Stanza-a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.

• Examples-I Love To Write Poems(First Stanza)I love to write Day and nightWhat would my heart do But cry, sigh and be blue If I could not write(Second Stanza)Writing feels good And I know it should Who could have knew That what I do Is write, write, write- Unknown Author 

STANZA

• Examples

• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

• Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

• And sorry I could not travel both

• And be one traveler, long I stood

• And looked down one as far as I could

• To where it bent in the undergrowth;

STANZA

• ExamplesDylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

• Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

STANZA

• Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

NOW YOU TRY

• Create 2 stanzas

Share

SYNECDOCHE

• Syncecdoche-a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as inCleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland's baseball team”).

• Examples-

• The word “bread” refers to food or money as in “Writing is my bread and butter” or “sole breadwinner”.

• The phrase “gray beard” refers to an old man.

• The word “sails” refers to a whole ship.

• The word “suits” refers to businessmen.

• The word “boots” usually refers to soldiers.

• The term “coke” is a common synecdoche for all carbonated drinks.

SYNECDOCHE

• Examples-

• Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

• The woods are the journey through life

SYNECDOCHE

•

Everyone on Deck-Everyone Help

• Lend me your ears.Meaning: Listen to me.

• White-collar criminals.Meaning: Corporate criminal activity.

NOW YOU TRY

• Write 2-3 lines that have a theme or instances of synecdoche

• Share

TONE

• Tone- is generally conveyed through the choice of words or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject. Creates a Theme or Subject

Example #1Father: “We are going on a vacation.”Son: “That’s great!!!”- The tone of son’s response is very cheerful.Example #2Father: “We can’t go on vacation this summer.”Son: “Ok. Great! That’s what I expected.”– The son’s tone is sarcastic in the given response.a

TONE

• Examples-

“The School” by Donald Barthelme:“And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.”

TONE

• Examples From Catcher in the Rye-Salinger

• “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

• “Catholics are always trying to find out if you’re Catholic.”

• “If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a darn if she’s late? Nobody.”

NOW YOU TRY

• Create 2 sentences or a few short lines that contain a tone

• Share

UNDERSTATEMENT

• Understatement-the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is.

• Examples –

• “It rained a bit more than usual” while describing an area being flooded after heavy rainfall.

• “It was O.K.” is an understatement if someone who got the highest score in a test said this when asked about his result.

• “It is a bit cold today,” when the temperature is 5 degrees below freezing.

UNDERSTATEMENT

In Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield says:

“I have to have this operation. It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.”

This is going to ruin my whole day-Actor James Cameron says after he’s been shot.

UNDERSTATEMENT

• "The grave's a fine and private place,But none, I think, do there embrace."(Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress")

•

"I am just going outside and may be some time."(Captain Lawrence Oates, Antarctic explorer, before walking out into a blizzard to face certain death, 1912)

NOW YOU TRY

• Create an understatement

• Share

VERSE

• Verse-writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme.

• Examples-

Example #1 Daffodils by William WordsworthI wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

VERSE

 After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman

After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;

VERSE

• I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –A Ribbon at a time –The steeples swam in AmethystThe news, like Squirrels, ran –The Hills untied their Bonnets –The Bobolinks – begun –Then I said softly to myself –“That must have been the Sun”!But how he set – I know not –There seemed a purple stileThat little Yellow boys and girlsWere climbing all the while –Till when they reached the other side –A Dominie in Gray –Put gently up the evening Bars –And led the flock away – Emily Dickinson

NOW YOU TRY

• Create a verse of poetry

• Share