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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? 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.