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Poetry Unit: Shakespeare ENG1D Poetry Unit • Name: ____________________________

ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

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Page 1: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Unit: Shakespeare

ENG1D Poetry Unit • Name: ____________________________

Page 2: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak now.

• Shakespeare used powerful literary devices and an extensive vocabulary to create vivid imagery to help the audience understand the thoughts and feelings of his characters.

• One of the reasons he is still popular all over the world (and in many languages) is because he wrote about human nature and how people behave, which has changed little since the 1500s.

• Most often, he uses similes, metaphors, alliteration, hyperbole, and assonance. He also uses rhyme and in the form of sonnets within his plays, which can be clearly identified by the rhyme scheme and the rhyming couplet at the end.

• He used iambic pentameter. • There were no dictionaries, and spelling was not standardized. Over 2,000 of the words

Shakespeare used had not been recorded before; he may have made many of them up. • Line references (embedded citations) are done in the format Act, Scene, Lines: (II. iii. 34-40),

using Roman numerals for the act (capital) and scene (lower case), and numerals for the line(s).

Elizabethan Times Life was cruel and hard. Medicine was a combination of home remedies and dangerous drugs and procedures. Most people married young and died young. Women often died during childbirth.

1. Religion • People were much more religious than most people today. Almost everyone believed in God

and heaven and hell. • The King or Queen decided which religion was taught in schools. • At this time, England was a Protestant country which had broken away from the Catholic

Church of Rome. Many wars were fought because of conflicting beliefs about God.

2. The Elizabethan Concept of World Order • Universal order created by God • Chain of Being – a strict hierarchy or chain that stretched from God himself to the lowest

things in existence. o Everything had its own place o Humans in the middle of the chain (highest on the human section was the

monarch then the nobles and churchmen and followed by gentlemen and commoners)

Catholics Protestants

• The Pope was the link to God on Earth. • Anyone could be trained as a servant of God; as a link to God on Earth.

• The church should be elaborately decorated. • The church should be plain.

• There was a lot of corruption at the highest levels. • Martin Luther orchestrated the split from Catholicism due to corruption.

• Church services were in Latin. • Church services were in English.

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Poetry Shakespeare Study Notes

Page 3: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

o All women were considered to be inferior to men with the exception of the Queen o Accepting one’s place on the chain was man’s duty and would be rewarded by

God in heaven o Disrupting the chain was thought to lead to chaos and disorder

3. Myths and Magic • Elizabethans believed in fairies, magic, witches, spells and prophecies. • Many people believed that fairies, gnomes, etc., came at night to cause mischief. • Women who didn’t fit in with society were often accused of being witches and were tortured

until they ‘confessed,’ and were then put to death. • Many diseases and disasters were blamed on witches. • Shakespeare constantly refers to ‘the stars’ or ‘fate’ controlling the destiny of his characters. • Astrology (telling the future or your personality traits by the stars) was well respected and

trusted.

4. The Body and the Universe • The human body was thought to be a map of the universe. Various parts of the body were

linked to the zodiac (astrology) or the planets. • The body contained the ‘humours’: four fluids that caused people to act a certain way,

depending on their mixture within the body. They were: black bile, phlegm, blood and choler. • Most people were thought to have one dominant humour. • Illness and mental disorders were blamed on the ‘humours’ being out of balance. Depression

was ‘caused’ by black bile.

The Globe Theatre • Shakespeare sometimes referred to The Globe Theatre in his plays. • It was called The Theatre when it was first used by “The Chamberlain’s Men.” The Theatre was

dismantled in 1599 and The Globe was built to hold 3,000 people. • A spark set the roof on fire in 1613. It was rebuilt with a tiled roof, and was destroyed again by

the Puritans (a branch of the Protestant Church) in 1644. • The stage was called an ‘apron stage’ because it stuck out into the center of the theatre.

Important words were sometimes repeated three times so that the actor could address the audience on all three sides of the stage.

• The poorest members of the audience had to stand on the ground and were called ‘groundlings.’ The groundlings had the best view; they were right beside the stage!

• The main support posts were painted to look like marble, and the ceiling above the actors was painted to look like the sky with the sun, moon and stars.

• In 1970, a replica of the theatre was rebuilt near the original site.

The Plays Shakespeare had three categories for his plays: comedy, tragedy, and history. 1. Comedies

• Three types: “happy” comedies, problem plays, and romances. • They aren’t always funny, but they have happy endings and usually revolve around relationships,

love and marriage.

Page 4: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

• Comedies often come with a ‘fool’ character who makes jokes, points out obvious things that the other characters don’t always see, and add innuendo (often sexual) to other character’s lines. Fools are also messengers and advisers and may also sing songs or recite poems.

• His early comedies relied almost entirely on jokes and slapstick to get laughs. • His later comedies relied on wit (usually from a female character). Her cunning allows her to sort

through problems. Relationships were also better developed in his later plays.

2. Tragic Plays • The protagonist must be an admirable but flawed character, with the audience able to understand

and sympathize with the character. • All of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil. • Shakespeare always gives his characters free will; the (anti) hero is always able to back out, to

redeem himself, but the hero must still move towards his doom.

3. Historical Plays • Shakespeare often wrote about the royals and incorporated them into many of his plays. Often, he

would praise Queen Elizabeth I secretly in his female characters by showing one as a tall, beautiful, intelligent woman, and portraying her rival, Mary Queen of Scots, as a shorter, darker, less-intelligent character.

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Page 5: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Sonnet Information Sheets

The sonnet is one of several forms of lyric poetry originating in Europe. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning: "little song" or "little sound". By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. One of the best-known sonnet writers is William Shakespeare, who wrote 154 of them (not including those that appear in his plays).

Stanzas: Poems are often broken into parts or lines, and are grouped to form an idea or theme.

two lines = couplet three lines = tercet four lines = quatrain five lines = cinquain six lines = sestet seven lines = septet eight lines = octave

1. Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet • The structure of a typical Italian sonnet includes two parts which together formed a compact

form of "argument". First, the octave (two quatrains), forms the "proposition" which describes a "problem", followed by a sestet (two tercets), which proposes a resolution.

• Typically, the ninth line creates what is called the "turn" or "volta" which acts to signal the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that don't strictly follow the problem/resolution structure, the ninth line still often marks a "turn" by signaling a change in the tone, mood, or stance of the poem.

• The a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a pattern became the standard for the octave in Italian sonnets and for the sestet there were two different possibilities, c-d-e-c-d-e and c-d-c-c-d-c.

2. English (Shakespearean) Sonnet Soon after the introduction of the Italian sonnet, English poets began to develop a fully native form. The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn"; the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets, however, the volta usually comes in the couplet, and usually summarizes the theme of the poem or introduces a new look at the theme.

• A Shakespearean, or English, sonnet consists of 14 lines, each line contains ten syllables each line is written in iambic pentameter: a pattern of an unemphasized syllable followed by an emphasized syllable is repeated five times.

• The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean sonnet is: a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet.

• Iambic Pentameter: An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The rhythm can be written as:

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Page 6: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:

The following line from John Keats' Ode to Autumn is a good example:

“To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells”

• Example of a Shakespearean sonnet:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a) Admit impediments, love is not love (b)* Which alters when it alteration finds, (a) Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)*O no, it is an ever fixéd mark (c)**That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)*** It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c) Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)*** Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e) Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)* Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e) But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)*

If this be error and upon me proved, (g)* I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)*

* PRONUNCIATION/RHYME: Note changes in pronunciation since composition.** PRONUNCIATION/METER: "Fixed" pronounced as two-syllables, "fix-ed."*** RHYME/METER: Feminine-rhyme-ending, eleven-syllable alternative

• Feminine Rhyme: Hip hop

• In hip hop music, especially since the 1990s, the use of feminine rhyme in rapping (often referred to by the colloquial terms "multis" or "multirhymes" — a contraction of "multisyllabic rhymes") is considered a sign of technical skill, and rap artists (such as Canibus, Big Pun, Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, Big L, Kool G Rap, Apathy, Pharoahe Monch, Nas, and Redman) have been known to string together large sequences of complex rhyme patterns.

• Eminem made extensive use of the technique in his early work, for example, “It's OK”; (rhymes are marked in bold for clarity):

da DUM

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

⋁/

⋁/

⋁/

⋁/

⋁/

To SWELL the GOURD and PLUMP the HA- zel SHELLS

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Page 7: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

“Praying for sleep, Dreaming with a watering mouth,Wishing for a better life for my daughter and spouse,In this slaughtering house, caught up in boutsWith the root of all evil.I've seen it turn beautiful people cruel and deceitful,…”

• Masculine Rhyme:

• A masculine rhyme is a rhyme that matches only one syllable, usually at the end of respective lines. Often the final syllable is stressed.

• John Donne's poem "Lecture Upon the Shadow" is one of many that utilize exclusively masculine rhyme:

“Stand still, and I will read to thee A lecture, love, in Love's philosophy. These three hours that we have spent Walking here, two shadows went Along with us, which we ourselves produced. But now the sun is just above our head, We do those shadows tread, And to brave clearness all things are reduced.”

3. Modern Sonnet

With the advent of free verse, the sonnet came to be seen as somewhat old-fashioned and fell out of use for a time among some schools of poets. New Formalism is a late-twentieth and early twenty-first century movement in North American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical and rhymed verse. The advent of the New Formalism movement in the United States has also contributed to contemporary interest in the sonnet. It does not have to rhyme, but it must be consistent.

4. Other types of sonnets: • Occitan sonnet – The sole confirmed surviving sonnet in the Occitan language is dated to 1284. • Spenserian sonnet – a variation on the English sonnet, named after Edmund Spenser (c.1552–

1599) in which the rhyme scheme is, abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee. In a Spenserian sonnet there is no requirement that the initial octave sets up a problem that the closing sestet "answers", as is the case with a Petrarchan (English) sonnet.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet

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Page 8: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Use your time in the school library to practice your note-taking skills, MLA citation skills,

and have a little fun at the same time. You will have about 12 minutes at each station to

complete the tasks provided. Use your time wisely. For each station, there is an

instruction sheet attached. You must complete each sheet, as well as the note-taking

sheets provided and hand them in to your teacher upon completion. Good luck!

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Poetry Shakespeare Stations

Page 9: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

1. On your desktop, click on the “My Computer” icon. Access the “School

Zone (Z:)” drive. Open the “Grade 9 Shakespeare” folder. Double-click the

Globe Theatre file.

2. Using the graphic organizer below, practice your note-taking skills using the different areas you discover inside and outside of the Globe Theatre.

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List 5 other things you find inside the Globe with a brief description for each:

The Hut: The Heavens:

Lord’s Rooms: Frons Scenae:

Stage:

The Grounds:

The Crest & Motto:

Tower & Flag Pole:

Poetry The Globe Theatre

Page 10: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Shakespeare’s Biography

Instructions: 1. On your table, you have two biographies. These works were taken from an electronic

encyclopedia. 2. Using a green note-taking sheet, read ONE of the articles, or both of if you have time,

and take organized, well-written notes. 3. Then, using the information provided, write a properly MLA-formatted reference for

the book you are using in the space below. You need to hand in your notes AND this sheet to your teacher.

Title of Source: _______________________________________________________________

MLA Citation:

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

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Page 11: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry The Boy Player

Instructions: 1. On your table, you have two books and copies of the information from the books. The

pages are marked with sticky notes. 2. Using a white note-taking sheet, read ONE of the articles, or both of if you have time,

and take organized, well-written notes. 3. Then, using the information provided, write a properly MLA-formatted citation for the

book you are using in the space below.

Title of Source: _______________________________________________________________

MLA Citation:

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

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Page 12: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry The Sonnet Station

View the clip titled “Shakespeare: The Sonnets” (Z:\Grade 9 Shakespeare).

1. How many lines must a sonnet have? __________

2. When did the earliest sonnets evolve? ____________________

3. When were Shakespeare’s sonnets published? ____________________

4.Shakespeare’s sonnets were first written from a man to a ____________________, and then later to a

____________________ known as the ____________________.

5. Why does Shakespeare alter the typical Italian/English description of women in his sonnets?

_____________________________________________________________________

6. Sonnets 1-126 were known as: __________________________________________________

7. Sonnets 127-154 were known as: _______________________________________________

8.Shakespeare’s sonnets were scandalous because they dealt with ____________________ and

____________________.

Now, view the “Sonnet 130” clip (Z:\Grade 9 Shakespeare). “Sonnet 130” is also on the next page.

A. Divide the poem into iambic pentameter such as:

Shall I / compare / thee to / a sum / mer’s day

Thou art / more lov / ly and / more temp / erate.

B. At the end of each line, identify the rhyme scheme using letters:

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, a

I all alone bowed my outcast state, b

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, a

And look upon my self and curse my fate, b

C. Lastly, Shakespeare always ends with a rhyming couplet. What are the two words in his rhyming couplet?

______________________________ and ______________________________

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Page 13: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Shakespeare’s Sonnets

When most people think about poetry and Shakespearean sonnets, they immediately picture Harry Potter…wait, what? Well maybe not, but watch the following clip (Z:\Grade 9 Shakespeare) of Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Rickman reading one of Shakespeare’s most famous poems, Sonnet 130, and read along below.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

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Page 14: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Introducing Shakespeare

��� Through this assignment, you will get a chance to learn about the life, times, and plays of one of the most famous writers of the English language…William Shakespeare.

Each group will rotate through the following stations and create a one-page, point-form information sheet, for each station, using the note taking sheets provided.

1. Shakespeare: background information and plays 2. The Theatre 3. Shakespearean Language 4. Women in Shakespeare’s England and Plays 5. Science and Superstitions: fairies, hobgoblins and the like 6. Life in Elizabethan England

The Process Day One: You will learn how to effectively take notes and begin researching at the stations. Day Two: You will learn how to follow MLA (Modern Language Association) guidelines and how not to plagiarize. You will finish rotating through the stations and complete your research notes. These will be handed in and marked.

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Page 15: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Rubric Note-Taking • Introducing Shakespeare /20

Name: ______________________________________

**Submit this sheet to your teacher prior to presenting.**

Feedback:

Criteria Below Level 1 (0-49%)

Level 1 (50-59%)

Level 2 (60-69%)

Level 3 (70-79%)

Level 4 (80-100%)

Knowledge/Understanding

• Research does not demonstrate an understanding of the topic

• Research demonstrates limited understanding of the topic

• Research demonstrates some understanding of the topic

• Research demonstrates considerable understanding of the topic

• Research demonstrates thorough understanding of the topic

Thinking/Inquiry • Took no meaningful notes- missing notes from more than 3 stations

• Took few meaningful notes- missing notes from 3 stations

• Notes are not organized

• Took some notes- missing notes from 2 stations

• Notes are written as one continuous list of information (note taking sheets were not used)

• Took many notes • Notes are

organized according to sources where information found

• Took thorough notes

• Notes are organized by headings, subheadings, topic, etc.

Communication • Notes are copied directly from source

• Notes neither in point form nor in own words

• Either not in point form or not in own words

• Most notes are in point form and own words

• All notes are in point form and in own words

Application • No bibliographic information recorded

• Little bibliographic information recorded

• Some bibliographic information recorded on notes

• Most bibliographic information recorded on notes

• All bibliographic information is recorded on notes

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Page 16: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Glossary (Literary Devices are found in the Language Resource)

Term DefinitionAcrostic A poem, word puzzle, or other composition in which certain letters in each line form a word or words.Alexandrine (dodecasyllable)

A line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. They are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often uses alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted by iambic pentameter.

Anapest (Anapestic)

A metrical foot consisting of two short or unstressed syllables followed by one long or stressed syllable. Example: Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.

Ballad A poem that can be sung or recited, telling a story in a simple but dramatic way. In the past, ballads were passed from generation to generation orally, helping people to remember their history. Since then, poets and singers have used the traditional ballad form to create “literary” ballads.

Blank Verse Verse without rhyme, especially that which uses iambic pentameter.Caesura (in Greek and Latin verse) A break between words within a metrical foot. (in modern verse) A pause

near the middle of a line.Concrete Poetry in which the meaning or effect is conveyed partly or wholly by visual means, using patterns of

words or letters and other typographical devices.Couplet Two lines of verse, usually in the same metre and joined by rhyme that form a unit.Dactyl (Dactylic) A metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.Descriptive A class of poem that belongs mainly to the 16th through 18 centuries in Europe. Often the

description is considered to have a didactic purpose or is itself the centre of interest, appealing to its reader’s senses. It mainly attempts to describe accurately and profoundly.

Dimeter A line of verse consisting of two metrical feet.Discursive A poem that is essayistic in nature and presents an argument. Sometimes it attempts to give both

sides of a topic or issue.Dramatic Verse (Verse Drama, Poetic Drama)

Any drama written as verse to be spoken. It occurs in a dramatic work, such as a play, composed in poetic form.

Elegy A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.Enjambment (in verse) The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or

stanza.Epic A long and highly stylized narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject, celebrating the

heroic achievements of its hero and events significant to a culture or nation. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are usually regarded as the first important epic poems, and much later, Paradise Lost by John Milton, and are considered to define the form.

Euphony The quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words.Foot A group of syllables constituting a metrical unit. A foot often has a fixed pattern; it can be compared

to a bar in music. In English poetry it consists of stressed and unstressed syllables, while in ancient classical poetry it consists of long and short syllables.

Found Does not originate as poetry. The poet finds an interesting selection or excerpt and arranges the words or sentences into poetic form.

Free Verse Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter. Also called vers libre.

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Page 17: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Glossary (Literary Devices are found in the Language Resource)

Haiku A Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world. Formal Japanese haiku are based on three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively Using the senses, the poet observes and records his or her experiences in exact language.

Hexameter A line of verse consisting of six metrical feet, especially of six dactyls.Iamb (also Iambus, Iambic)

A metrical foot consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.

Kinetic Poetry that presents the words of a poem in motion. The graphic representation must give the reader the sound, the shape, and the meaning. The print determines how the poem should be read aloud.

Limerick A poem of five lines. A humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba, popularized by Edward Lear.

Lyric Is a song-like work, often with the theme of nature’s beauty, expressing the writer's emotions, usually briefly and in stanzas or recognized forms.

Measure The rhythm of a piece of poetry. A particular metrical unit or group.Meditative (Reflective)

Combines the religious practice of meditation with verse. It occurs in many cultures, especially in Asian, European, and Hindu cultures.

Meter or Metre The rhythm of a piece of poetry, determined by the number and length of feet in a line.Monometer A line consisting of one metrical foot.Narrative Tells a story. The story can be presented from the viewpoint of a character in the poem or of a

narrator.Octave A poem or stanza of eight lines; an octet.Octometer A line of verse consisting of eight metrical feet.Ode A lyric poem in honour of a particular person, object, or subject, often elevated in style or manner to

be dignified and sincere, and written in varied or irregular meter.Ottava Rima A form of poetry consisting of stanzas of eight lines of ten or eleven syllables, rhyming abababcc.Parallel A poem that is a series of comparisons. The poem has one theme, and each of the lines describes a

new aspect of the subject.Parody An imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic

effect.Pentameter A line of verse consisting of five metrical feet.Petrarchan (Italian)

A form of sonnet that divides the poem’s 14 lines into two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet.

Poetry A literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.

Prosody The patterns of rhythm and sound used in poetry.Quatrain A stanza of four lines, especially one having alternate rhymes.Quintet A poem or stanza of five lines.Rhyme Correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, especially when these are used

at the ends of lines of poetry.Rhyme Royal (Rime Royal)

A rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. It consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c.

Term Definition

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Page 18: ENG1D Poetry Unit - Café Davis | Welcome Poetry Unit • Name: _____ Shakespeare’s Language The way people spoke and wrote in the 1500-1600s was very different from how we speak

Poetry Glossary (Literary Devices are found in the Language Resource)

Definitions from ABC’s of Creative Writing by David W. Booth/Stanley Skinner and Oxford American Dictionaries

Rhyming Couplet A unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and having the same meter and often forming a complete thought or syntactic unit.

Rondeau A thirteen-line poem, divided into three stanzas of 5, 3, and 5 lines, with only two rhymes throughout and with the opening words of the first line used as a refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas.

Scansion The action of scanning a line of verse to determine its rhythm.Sestet The last six lines of a sonnet.Shakespearean (English) sonnet

A type of sonnet much used by Shakespeare, written in iambic pentameter and consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

Sonnet A lyric poem of fourteen lines that follow a definite rhyming scheme. There are two types of sonnets: the Italian (with end rhymes abba abba cde cde) and the English (with end rhymes abab cdcd efef gg). The first eight lines describe the poet’s feelings, and the last six lines comment on those feelings.

Spenserian stanza

A fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queen. Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single ‘alexandrine’ line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is “ababbcbcc.”

Stanza A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse. NOT called a poem paragraph!

Stressed A syllable pronounced with stress. In Greek and Latin, referred to as a long syllable.Structure The arrangement of and relations between the parts or elements of something complex.Tercet A set or group of three lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme with an adjacent

tercet.Tetrameter A verse of four measures.Trimeter A line of verse consisting of three metrical feet.Trochee (Trochaic)

A foot consisting of one long or stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable.

Unstressed A syllable not pronounced with stress. In Greek and Latin, referred to as a short syllable.Verse Writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme. A group of lines that form a unit in

a poem or song; a stanza.Volta (or turn) A rhetorical shift or dramatic change in thought and/or emotion. Turns are seen in all types of poetry.

Term Definition

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