2. LEARN SOME OF THE ELEMENTS OF POETRY
You now know how to recognize a poem, but to effectively interpret one and know what's going on, you need to learn a little about the language of poetry: like the elements of meter, form, and diction, for example.
Meter
Form
Diction or poetic language
Meter
Meter is the regular rhythmic pattern of a poem. As we stated before, paying attention to the rhythm of words is part of what makes a poem a poem. In English, the units of rhythm are rather simple - speech may be broken down into patterns of stressed and unstressed beats (that is, stressed and unstressed syllables). The basic unit of rhythm in a poem is the foot, consisting of either two or three of these beats. Don't worry too much about the foot. It's just cool to know.
Now, iambic pentameter is one of the most common types of meter, or metrical schemes. The word pentameter is used because the line is broken up into five feet. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of one unstressed beat followed by a stressed one, and is often given the notation "|u x|," where u is the unstressed beat and x the stressed one (for example, "to-DAY". An example of how iambic pentameter is read would be:
| i WANT| to GO | to REST | au RANT | this EVE |
Other common types of feet are the trochee, a stressed beat followed by an unstressed one "|x u|" ("SWEET-ner"), and the spondee, two stressed beats in succession "|x x|" ("LET'S GO"). We will not discuss the familiar triple-x pattern: "|x x x|" - three beats in a row means you're just playing with it. Get it? triple x beating man, we're sickos
Earlier poets were far more concerned than contemporary ones with meter. Many poets wrote almost their entire body of work in a very limited number of metrical schemes. Shakespeare, for example, wrote his sonnets and the poetic language of his plays in iambic pentameter. So when he wrote, in his ironic "anti-sonnet" (praising his beloved for everything she is not),
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,"
he was using iambic pentameter.
To demonstrate the concept of iambic pentameter, we can break this line into five feet, each with an iamb, one unstressed followed by a stressed syllable, like so (read the line aloud and compare the stressed and unstressed syllables with the chart above them):
|u x |u x |u x |u x |u x| My mis- tress' eyes are noth ing like the sun,
Iambic pentameter is one of the most common metrical schemes in English, because
|u x |u x |u x |u x |u x| it sounds the most like or- di- nar- y speech.
However, much of twentieth-century poetry has been written in a style without a carefully observed meter, called free verse. If you like, call it slacker poetry. Rules, shmules.
Form
The form of a poem, like the meter, is a prescribed pattern, but in fact is even stricter, often involving the meter, structure, rhyme scheme and tone of a poem. The basic unit of form is the stanza, the series of lines that follow the form before it starts over again. So think of a stanza in poetry as like each new verse or chorus of a song. Often, a new stanza is preceded by a blank line. Even if you're not familiar with the form of the poem you're reading, a pattern will still most likely become evident as you read along.
Certain forms of poetry have become associated with particular subject matter, and so, for example, while an earlier poet like Shakespeare might use the sonnet in its conventional role as a love poem, a modern poet like W.B. Yeats could use the same form ironically, to describe the rape of Leda by Zeus, in his poem "Leda and the Swan." Poets are deep.
Modern free verse poetry (without regular meter) is also written in open form, meaning that the form may vary throughout the poem. You may have begun to notice that modern poets don't much like to follow a lot of rules. (Remember, however, that they do follow some rules. The stuff you scribble in your diary may have some value to you, but without some kind of discipline it most likely really is just scribbling. Except for the part about which Backstreet Boy is cutest we all know that it's A.J.)
Common forms
Blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter, is one of the simplest forms, in that each line is essentially a new stanza. Shakespeare used blank verse for the poetry in his plays (although not for his sonnets, which were rhymed).
We've provided a chart below of some of the longer forms. Note that this chart is in no way complete - there are plenty of less common forms you may run into, and a lot more information is available about these forms elsewhere. A poet may even create his/her own form.
NameLines per stanzaDescription Couplet Two Each stanza is a rhyming pair of lines
Triplet,
tercets
sestina Six Sestets may form part of a longer sonnet or sestina Rhyme royal Seven Named for James I of Scotland, who composed in that form (and got to name it, 'cuz he was the King) Ottava rima Eight Now usually reserved for comic poetry Spenserian
stanza Nine Named for the author of the Faerie Queen Sonnet Fourteen Commonly used in love poetry Villanelle Nineteen A particularly tricky form, with a complex rhyme scheme
Diction or poetic language
Diction refers to the language of a poem, and how each word is chosen to convey a precise meaning. Poets are very deliberate in choosing each word for its particular effect, so it's important to know the origins and connotations of the words in a poem, not to mention their literal meaning, too.
You're now asking yourself (we can read lips), "How am I supposed to know the history and connotation of all these obscure words? I didn't even finish the eighth grade!"
No problem. Fortunately, the Oxford English Dictionary will be available online beginning March, 2000. (Please settle down, we're excited too.) The OED (not the GED, though that's also helpful) is an indispensable resource for anyone who really wants to "get" a poem. If you're a student, your university library will probably have a subscription. If not, you'll find that at only $550 a year, it's a real bargain. (Just kidding - if you're not a student, we recommend the tattered Pocket Webster's you've got holding up one leg of the coffee table.)
The OED offers many definitions for each word, and provides the time of their usage, so that when you're reading earlier poets, you can find the meaning of a word at the time the poem was written, and avoid interpretations only a modern reader would make. The dictionary also offers a sampling of uses of the word in prominent works of literature; so that where a poet is using a word to allude to a previous author's work - a common technique in poetry - you will have access to this added layer of meaning, as the previous work may help illuminate the later one.
If you don't have access to the online version of the OED, you may wish to just purchase the latest edition of the multi-volume print version to carry around with you. It should fit comfortably in the back of a mid-sized Ryder truck.
