Chapter 1: Reading Poetry – Flashcards
49 test answers
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answers 49question
Origins of poetry?
answer
No one knows; tribal ceremonies using rhythmic patterns of words into their rituals (possibility) = chanting
Unlock the answer
question
Doggered
answer
Poetry lines whose subject matter is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed. "I scream/ You Scream/ We all Scream/ For icecream!"
Unlock the answer
question
How long has poetry existed?
answer
Most ancient of arts; since human beings discovered pleasure in language
Unlock the answer
question
What is special about READING poetry?
answer
Inevitably increases sensitivity to language; more likely to become a better reader of words in any form.
Unlock the answer
question
What makes poetry valuable?
answer
Consists in the words that work their magic by allowing us to feel, see, and be more than we were before.
Unlock the answer
question
Why should we read poetry?
answer
For emotional and intellectual discovery -- to feel and to experience something about the world and ourselves.
Unlock the answer
question
How is poetry different from prose?
answer
Prose paraphrase poetry. Allows a clearer understanding but misses all the sport and fun of a poem. Also, different strategies used when reading poetry.
Unlock the answer
question
12 Strategies for reading poems
answer
1. Read more than once 2. Pay attention to the title 3. First reading: Avoid focusing on things you don't understand 4. Second reading: Identify words/ passages you don't understand. 5. Read the poem aloud. (Or have someone it to you). 6. Read punctuation. 7. Paraphrase 8. Gain a sense of the speaker. Who is it? 9. What are the purpose of each element? 10. Entertain perspectives, values, experiences and subjects. 11. Develop a coherent approach to shape a discussion. 12. Don't expect a definitive meaning.
Unlock the answer
question
What is poetry?
answer
Undefinable. "Poetry has two outstanding characteristics. One is that it is undefinable. The other is that it is eventually unmistakable." -Edwin Arlington Robinson
Unlock the answer
question
What is the different purposes of writing poetry?
answer
To capture mood or feeling, create vivid experience, express point of view, narrate a story, or portray a character.
Unlock the answer
question
Paraphrase
answer
A prose restatement of the central ideas of a poem in your own language.
Unlock the answer
question
Speaker
answer
The voice used by the author in the poem; a created identity rather than the author's actual self.
Unlock the answer
question
Metaphor
answer
Makes comparison between two UNLIKE things. Implicitly, without words such as 'like' or 'as'.
Unlock the answer
question
Concentrated use of language in poetry
answer
Emphasis on individual words to convey meanings, experiences, emotions and effects
Unlock the answer
question
Words in poems frequently
answer
Create their own tastes, textures, sounds, and shapes; More sensuous than ordinary language.
Unlock the answer
question
Verse
answer
Lines composed in a measured rhythmic patter, often -- but not always -- rhymed.
Unlock the answer
question
Anagrams
answer
Words made from letters of other words; read = dare.
Unlock the answer
question
Setting of a poem?
answer
The context in which individual words interact to provide a larger meaning.
Unlock the answer
question
Juxtaposition
answer
To place or deal with close together for contrasting effect.
Unlock the answer
question
Theme
answer
A central meaning or idea of a poem.
Unlock the answer
question
Lyric
answer
Brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker; usually written in first person. Often about love and death. Evoked intense emotional response.
Unlock the answer
question
3 Types of Lyric Poems
answer
Sonnet, elegy, and ode
Unlock the answer
question
Sonnet
answer
A poem of 14 lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having 10 syllables per line.
Unlock the answer
question
Elegy
answer
Modern literature: A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead. Greek and Latin: A poem written in elegiac couplets, as notably by Catullus and Propertius.
Unlock the answer
question
Ode
answer
In the form of an address to a particular subject, written in varied or irregular metre; meant to be sung.
Unlock the answer
question
Narrative Poem
answer
Tells a story
Unlock the answer
question
An Epic
answer
A long narrative poem on a serious subject chronicling heroic deeds and important events.
Unlock the answer
question
Examples of Epics
answer
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, John Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Old English Beowulf.
Unlock the answer
question
Narrative vs Epics
answer
Narratives are much shorter.
Unlock the answer
question
Predominant TYPE of poetry today?
answer
Lyric poems (most wildly HEARD)
Unlock the answer
question
Most popular FORM of poetry today?
answer
Greeting cards (most wildly READ)
Unlock the answer
question
Greeting cards vs other poetry
answer
Impersonal/casual (but efficient) way to convey an important message no matter what the occasion is. It demonstrates the impulse our culture has to generate and receive poetry. Written to be immediately accessible without complexity.
Unlock the answer
question
Clichés
answer
Ideas/expressions that have become 'tried and true' from overuse. AKA "Stock Responses". "Hallmarks of weak writing"
Unlock the answer
question
Stock Responses
answer
Predictable, conventional reactions to language, characters, symbols, or situations; Examples: God, heaven, the flag, motherhood, hearts, puppies, and peace.
Unlock the answer
question
Sentimentality
answer
Do not confuse with sentiment! (Emotion/feeling) Exploits the reader by inducing responses that exceed what the situation warrants. Example: cons reader to fall for the mass murderer who is devoted to stray cats. Biting into cotton candy: sweet but wholly unsubstantial.
Unlock the answer
question
Unmistakable Poetry
answer
Achieved freshness l, vitality, and genuine emotion that sharpens are perception of life.
Unlock the answer
question
"Hard" poetry
answer
Not to be hard to read but is hard to write. Hard enough for the growing poem to meet with healthy resistance in a tight rhyming scheme and strict meter. Enough to baffle -- but not completely. Not hard to make sense of but hard to exhaust its meaning and beauty. -Robert Francis
Unlock the answer
question
Concrete meaning
answer
The pattern or shape poetry is. The typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on
Unlock the answer
question
Rhythm
answer
The stressed and unstressed syllables. Take the word, poetry, for example. (Pauses, breaks, natural rhythm.) The first syllable is stressed, and the last two are unstressed, as in PO-e-try.
Unlock the answer
question
Symbolism
answer
Can take many forms including: A figure of speech where an object, person, or situation has another meaning other than its literal meaning. The actions of a character, word, action, or event that have a deeper meaning in the context of the whole story.
Unlock the answer
question
Image/Imagery
answer
Includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor.
Unlock the answer
question
Simile
answer
A figure of speech that compares two things by using the words 'like' or 'as' something else. They are compared indirectly.
Unlock the answer
question
Allusion
answer
A figure of speech that refers to a well-known story, event, person, or object in order to make a comparison in the readers' minds.
Unlock the answer
question
Connotation
answer
IMPLIED: meaning something else, something is hidden. Usually sharing an emotion with associated word.
Unlock the answer
question
Dennotiation
answer
LITERAL: meaning exactly as it says
Unlock the answer
