week 11

blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse".


couplet
Two consecutive lines of verse linked by rhyme and meter; the meter of a heroic couplet is iambic pentameter.


figurative language
language that uses figures of speech.


figure of speech
Any word or phrase that creates a "figure" in the mind of the reader by effecting an obvious change in the usual meaning or order of words, by comparing or identifying one thing with another; also called a trope. Metaphor, simile, metonymy, overstatement, oxymoron, and understatement are common figures of speech.

metaphor
It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. Antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile are all types of metaphor.One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature is the "All the world's a stage" monologue from As You Like It:

simile

A simile (/ˈsɪməli/) is a figure of speech that directly compares two things. Although similes and metaphors are similar, similes explicitly use connecting words (such as like, as, so, than, or various verbs such as resemble), though these specific words are not always necessary. While similes are mainly used in forms of poetry that compare the inanimate and the living, there are also terms in which similes and personifications are used for humorous purposes and comparison.


meter
the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. This is determined by the kind of foot (iambie or dactylic, for example) and by the number of feet per line.


octa-:eight
octave
 in poetry is a line of eight metrical feet. It is not very common in English verse.


ode
An ode is a type of lyrical stanza. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist. It is an elaborately structured poem praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally.


overstatement
exaggerated language; also called hyperbole.


poetry
One of the three major genres of imaginative literature, which has its origins in music and oral performance and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax( often using meter and rhyme ); compression and compactness and allowance for ambiguity; a particularly concentrated emphasis on the sensual, especially visual and aural, qualities and effects of words and word order; especially vivid, often figurative language. 


rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (or the same sound) in two or more words, most often in the final syllables of lines in poems and songs. The word rhyme is also a pars pro toto ("a part (taken) for the whole") that means a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.


rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.

An example of the "abab" rhyming scheme, from To Anthea, who may Command him Anything, written by Robert Herrick:

Bid me to weep, and I will weep                   a
While I have eyes to see                              b
And having none, yet I will keep                   a
A heart to weep for thee                               b


understatement
Understatement is a form of speech or disclosure which contains an expression of lesser strength than what would be expected. It is the opposite of an embellishment. The rhetorical form of understatement is litotes in which understatement is used for emphasis and irony. This is not to be confused with euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression.

To Helen

(by Edger Allan Poe)

Helen, thy beauty is to me 
   Like those Nicéan barks of yore, 
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
   The weary, way-worn wanderer bore 
   To his own native shore. 

On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
   Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
   To the glory that was Greece,       
   And the grandeur that was Rome. 

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche 
   How statue-like I see thee stand, 
The agate lamp within thy hand! 
   Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 

   Are Holy-Land! 


The Lake Isle of Innisfree 
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.