William
Tuesday 2 August 2011
Sunday 24 July 2011
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.
Tuesday 19 July 2011
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
he then
Monday 18 July 2011
A Thing Of Beauty by John Keats
| ||
|
Tuesday 12 July 2011
All the World's a Stage written by William Shakespeare.
| ||||||||||
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)