Download language-pdf - Poetry – LANE 447

Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Department of European Languages and Literature
Semester 1, 1437/38 - 2016/17
Poetry LANE 447 – Sections BAR & GAR
Elements of Poetry – Language
Language is an element of poetry that plays a major part in poetry. In general, poetry deals with
particular things in concrete language, since our emotions most readily respond to these things.
From the poem's particular situation, the reader may then generalize; the generalities arise by
implication from the particular. In other words, a poem is most often concrete and particular;
the "message," if there is any, is general and abstract.
DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
Word meanings are not only restricted to dictionary meanings. The full meaning of a word
includes both the dictionary definition and the special meanings and associations a word takes in
a given phrase or expression. For example, a tiger is a carnivorous animal of the cat family. This
is the literal or denotative meaning. But we have certain associations with the word: sinuous
movement, jungle violence, and aggression. These are the suggestive, figurative
or connotative meanings.
General rule: Think like a poet, as well as a reader, when analysing literary sources: a good poet
will not only convey the story/idea/sentiment through what (s)he says – in other words, the
content – but also through theway (s)he says it – in other words, the language features.
Things to think about and look for in the language of poetry:
1. Lexicon/vocabulary: are there recurring words or types of words? Are there any reasons why
an author might choose some words instead of others?
 A poet might choose words for the way they sound (assonance), words with „s‟, „f‟, „r‟
combinations for a smooth, calm sound or words with „k‟, „t‟, „q‟, „x‟ to create a harsh,
jarring effect.
 poets often use lots of verbs of motion, when they want to create an effect of urgency or
hurriedness
 Character and place names are often symbolic: Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom (John Updike);
the Aurelianos and José Arcadios (García Márquez); Blanca, Alba, Nivea (Allende)
2. Syntax: pay attention to how poets use punctuation and sentence structure. They may be
entirely regular, which helps to give the reader an easy reading experience, or they may be more
unusual or complex in order to create some effect at different points in the poem or novel. Ask
yourself why a poet would do this?
 absence of punctuation, especially regarding dialogue.
 Short, heavily punctuated sentences.
 Long, flowing, often unpunctuated lines of free verse.
 Very verbose passages alternating with simple, folk tale narration.
3. Grammar: are sentences deliberately written with incorrect grammar? Consider the effect of
the following:
 Tenses: past, present, future, imperfect? Rabbit, Run, for instance, is almost entirely
written in the present tense – what effect does this produce for the reader?
 Poets often change rapidly and repeatedly between multiple tenses for rhetorical effect or
to compliment the multiple perspectives they might take within a poem.
4. Perspective: Omniscient narrator in the third person? First person narrative? Multiple
perspectives? Whose point of view does the poet present or make accessible to the reader at any
one time?
5. Imagery: what associations does the poet make between events, people, things in the narrative
or poem? Do any of these recur? Are strange comparisons made between things that one
wouldn‟t expect? Are there detailed or sparse descriptions of places, characters, objects?

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colours are often symbolic: black/dark vs white/light contrasts are frequently used. Hint:
watch out for yellow and red things in One Hundred Years of Solitude (the colours need
not be symbolic of something in and of themselves but can be used to connect together
other images that are significant)
nature/landscape/geography: how is location – both small, like neighbourhoods, streets
or houses, and large, like a nation or the world – described? What feelings does the writer
make it inspire in the characters, in the readers? Notice the different techniques the poets
use to describe something ordinary in different and unusual ways. Think about the effects
poets are trying to create in the reader and why they might do this.