ELEMENTS OF

POETRY

SOUND

FORM AND

STRUCTURE

METER AND

RHYTM

RHYME

ASSONANCE

ALLITERATION

The Ancient Mariner

By Samuel T. Coleridge

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew

The furrow followed free

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea

Example:

Each-Either

Old-Mouldy

Lady-Baby

Deep-Tree

Example:

If all be true that I do think, (a)

There are five reasons we should drink, (a)

Good wine, a friend, or being dry, (b)

Or lest we should be by and by (b)

Or any reason why (b)

A rhyme can be a source of

inspiration

Rhyme pleases most readers

because it is interesting and

pleasing

Appeal to the reader memory

Behold, we know not anything (a)

I can but trust that good shall fall (b)

At last-far off-at last to all (b)

And every winter change to spring (a)

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not

wander more

When read aloud, this heptameter line will

sound as though it were written

O, rest ye, brother mariners,

We will not wander more

Stanza Form

Fixed Form

Continuous Form

The elements of formal design is slight. Without formal

grouping.

Example: a poetry by Walt Whitman

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the learn’d astronomer

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room

Writes in a series of stanzas, that is

repeated units having the same number of

lines, same metrical pattern , and often an

identical rhyme scheme.

Example: a poetry by Thomas Gray

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea

The plowman ho meward plods his weary way

And leaves the world to darkness and to me

Traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem. It

has been experimented by limerick and sonnet

Example:

The Limerick

There was a young lady of Niger

Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;

They return from the ride

With the lady inside,

And the smile on the face of a tiger

Blank Verse: or unrhymed iambic

pentameter lines

Example:

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more

Percy Bysshe Shelley-Ode To The

West Wind

O wild west wend, thou breath of

Autumn’s being

Thou, from where unseen presence

the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghost from an

enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and

hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O

thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry

bed

The winged seeds, where they lie

cold and low,

Each like corpse within its grave,

until

Thine azure sister of the spring

shall blow

Free Verse is actually not verse at all;

it is not metrical.

It may be rhymed or unrhymed-most

often are rhymed

It doesn’t conform to any kind of

meter.

Its diction, it’s liberal use of figurative

language and of symbols, and its

essentially dramatic method all mark

it as belonging to the great tradition of

poetry

Must be fourteen lines in length, and it almost always is iambic pentameneter.

William Wordsworth

IT IS BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE

It is beautious evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration: the broad sun

Is sinking down and its tranquility;

The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea

Listen the mighty Doing Is awake,

….

Meter is the kind of rhythm we can tap our foot to. In language that is metrical the accents are so arranged as to occur at apparently equal intervals of time, and it is this interval we mark of with the tap of our foot.

Rhythm implies: something is here, then it is replaced by something and then the first thing return. E.g.; the rhythm of season: winter, spring, summer, autumn. The rhythm of heavenly bodies: moon, stars, the sun.

Scansion is the act of marking a poem to

show the metrical unit of which is composed.

The smallest of this metrical units is syllable

Example:

Learned until flattery forceps alabaster

Accented/

stressed

Unaccented/

unstressed

Combination of stressed and unstressed

syllable which constitutes the recurrent

rhythmic unit of line.

Iambic Unaccented-Accented

Trochaic Accented-Unaccented

Dactylic Accented-Unaccented-

Unaccented

Anapestic Unaccented-Unaccented-

Accented

Spondaic Accented-Accented

Phyrrhic Unaccented-Unaccented

A line is a succession of feet which usually

begins with capital letter.

Iambic: with loads of learned lumber in his

head

Trochaic: pleasant was the landscape

Dactylic: one more unfortunate

Anapestic: with his nostrils like pits full of

blood to the brim

Monometer : one foot

Dimeter : two feet

Trimeter : three feet

Tetrameter : four feet

Pentameter : five feet

Hexameter : six feet

Heptameter : seven feet

Octameter : eight feet