What is Poetry?

What is Poetry?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poetry (from the Greek 'poiesis'/ποίησις [poieo/ποιέω], a making: a forming, creating, or the art of poetry, or a poem) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry. It is published in dedicated magazines (the longest established being Poetry and Oxford Poetry), individual collections and wider anthologies.

Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The earliest poems evolved from folk songs, such as the Chinese Shijing, or from the need to retell oral epics, such as the SanskritVedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Odyssey and the Iliad. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing, such as manifestos, biographies, essays, and novels . From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally labeled as a fundamental creative act using language.

Poetry primarily is governed by idiosyncratic forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism,irony, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor, simile, and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe,Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as being written in lines based upon rhyme and regular meter, there are traditions, such as Biblical poetry, that use other methodologies to create rhythm and euphony. Much of modern British and American poetry is to some extent a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing (among other things) the principle of euphony itself, to the extent that sometimes it deliberately does not rhyme or keep to set rhythms at all. In today'sglobalized world poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.

We are Seven by William Wordsworth

'"We are Seven" is a poem written  in 1798 and published in Lyrical Ballads. It describes a discussion between an adult poetic speaker and a "little cottage girl" about the number of brothers and sisters who dwell with her. The poem turns on the question of whether to count two dead siblings.

The poem begins with the narrator asking:

A simple child, dear brother Jim,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death? (lines 1–4)

He transitions to describe a girl whose beauty pleased him:

She had a rustic, woodland air,

And she was wildly clad;

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

—Her beauty made me glad. (lines 9–12)

He begins to question her about her siblings:

"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

How many may you be?"

How many? Seven in all," she said,

And wondering looked at me. (lines 13–16)

He questions her further, asking where they are, and she simply responds that two are in Wales, two are at sea, and two are buried in a churchyard near her home. He is confused by her answer and asks:

"Yet you are seven; I pray you tell,

"Sweet  Maid, how this may be?" (lines 27–28)

She replies:

"Seven boys and girls are we;

"Two of us in the church-yard lie,

"Beneath the church-yard tree." (lines 30–32)

He questions her further, trying to have her admit that there are only five but she responds:

"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"

The little Maid replied,

"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,"

"And they are side by side."

"My stockings there I often knit,

"My 'kerchief there I hem;

"And there upon the ground I sit—

"I sit and sing to them.

"And often after sun-set, Sir,

"When it is light and fair,

"I take my little porringer,

"And eat my supper there (lines 36–48)

"If they two are in Heaven?" (lines 61–62)

"But they are dead: those two are dead!

"Their spirits are in Heaven!" (lines 65–66)

S'Twas throwing words away: for still

The little Maid would have her will,

And said, "Nay, we are seven!" (lines 67–69)]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A Thing Of Beauty by John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast, They always must be with us, or we die. Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Now while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, I must be near the middle of my story. O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end! And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

All the World's a Stage written by William Shakespeare.

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.