A Brief

History of
English
Poetry
Periods of British Literature

– 600 – 1200 Old English (Anglo Saxon) Beowulf

– 1200 – 1500 Middle English Geoffrey Chaucer
– 1500 – 1660 The English Renaissance

– 1500 – 1558 Tudor period (Humanist era) ---

Thomas More, John Skeleton
– 1558 -1603 Elizabethan Period (High Renaisance) --
- Edmund Spenser, Sir philip Sidney
– 1603 – 1625 Jacobean Period (Mannerist Style (1590-1640) other
style: Metaphysical poets; Devotional Poets ---- Shakespeare, John
Donne, George Herbert
– 1625 – 1649 Caroline Period --- John Ford, John Milton
– 1649 – 1660 The commonwealth & the protectorate (Baroque style
and later Rocco style) --- Milton, Andrew Marvell. Thomas Hobbes
– 1660-1700 The Restoration ---- John Dryden
– 1700 – 1800 Eighteen Century (The Enlightenment; Neoclassical
Period; The Augustan Age) --- Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift,
Samuel Johnson
– 1785-1830 Romanticism (The age of Revolution) --- William
Wordsworth, Coleridge
– 1830-1901 Victorian Period (Realism) --- Robert Browning,
Lord Tennyson
– 1901-1960 Modern Period (The Edwardian Era (1901 –
1910); The Georgian Era (1910 – 1914)) --- Hopkins, T S
Elliot, Yeats
– 1960 – Post Modern --- Doris Lessing, Ted Hughes
Anglo Saxon

– The Anglo Saxon base words largely connected with

agricultural, Physical life, is built upon by the Normans,
who brought with them a language whose own native
qualities were enriched by words fro Latin and Greek
– Reste hine thâ rúm-heort; réced hlifade Geáp and góld-fâh,
gäst inne swäf.
Rested him then the great-hearted; the hall towered
Roomy and gold-bright, the guest slept within.
Conventions of Anglo Saxon
Lyric Poetry

– Use of caesura or pause mid-line

– Use of alliteration to connect the two parts
– Typically, four stressed syllables
– Use of kennings: two word metaphors (sea – whale road;
ship – sea horse)
– Didactic in nature: teach and entertain
– Combination of Christian & Pagan imagery
Middle English

– Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)

– His early works were often cast in the form of allegory
and dream
– The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales (1380s)
24 tales and a framing prologue that sets up the
fiction of pilgrims meeting at a tavern as they begin
their pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket
in Canterbury. Each agrees to tell a tale. The tales are
linked by prologues. The narrator begins the prologue by
describing the fine April day and each of the pilgrims in his
entourage. Some characters: Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath,
Prioress, Nun’s Priest, Squire, Reeve, Pardoner, Summoner,
Cook, Man of Law, Oxford Scholar, etc.
Medieval Lyrics: Both Secular and Religious

13th – 15th Centuries. Lyric poems, some of which were

set to music. Themes: love, the beauty of the beloved, the
seasons, the pain of unrequited love, Religious themes,
Biblical and liturgical themes, devotion to the virgin Mary,
other devotional themes.

Cuckoo Song: “Sumer is ycomen in,

Loude sing cuckou!”
Western Wind: “Western wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.”
Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596) A LONG narrative poem,
an allegorical epic in six books.

Each book contains twelve cantos, each of which contains

At least 40 stanza.

Each stanza is composed of nine lines. 1-8 are iambic

pentameter, and 9 is iambic hexameter (alexandrine);
each stanza is rhymed ababbcbcc. This form is called a
Spenserian stanza.
Phillip Sidney (1554-1586)

The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1578-83). A prose pastoral

romance dealing with shepherds and courtly people disguised as
shepherds. The plot involves mistaken identities, disguises,
amazon women, crossdressed men, wild coincidences,
melodramatic incidents, and tangled love intrigues.

The Defense of Poesy (1579; published 1595). An important

prose defense of poetry in which Sidney argues for the dignity,
moral importance, and social effectiveness of poetry, which
teaches and delights so that one will aspire toward virtue and
shun vice.
The sixteenth century

English Renaissance
– religious reformation
– the Commercial Expansion
– the War with Spain
The Renaissance, 16th
and 17th centuries.

– The highest form was the epic, and it only

concerned the most exalted subjects—Milton’s
Paradise Lost.
– The next highest was tragedy, which usually
involved the fall of kings.
 English Renaissance

– Feature(1): a thirsty curiosity for the classical literature

– Feature(2): the keen interest in the activities of humanity

– Humanism: It reflected the new outlook of the rising

bourgeois class. According to them, both man and world
are hindered only by external checks from infinite
improvement. Man could mould the world according to his
desires, and attain happiness by removing all external
checks by the exercise of reason.
More Genres from the
Renaissance

 Pastoral—involved lords and ladies in love

 the lyric--usually the expression of
personal emotion.
 Comedy could involves the middle class
 Farce—common people
– The baroque in literature. The main features of the literary
style known as baroque are a great emphasis on originality
and an overabundance of stylistic devices, particularly
metaphors, hyperboles, and antitheses
– Rocco Style is the extreme form of Baroque. Rococo
literature is refined and elegant but lacks depth and civic
ideals. It has no place for heroism and duty; courtly games
and frivolous insouciance reign supreme. Hedonism is the
supreme “wisdom” of the rococo, with poets singing the
praises of idleness
John Skeleton

– The priest at the court of Henry VIII

– Conventional poetical
– Rhythm is often merely slick, his satire shrill and noisy and
imprecise
 GO Piteous Heart
O, pytyous hart, rasyd with dedly GO, piteous heart, raised with
wo, deadly woe,
Persyd with payn, bleding with Persued with pain, bleeding
wondes smart, with woundes smart,
Bewayle thy fortune, with vaynys Bewail thy fortune, with
wan and blo. vanity’s wan and blow.
O Fortune vnfrendly, Fortune O Fortune unfriendly, Fortune
vnkynde thow art, unkine thou art,
To be so cruell and so ouerthwart, To be so cruel and so
To suffer me so carefull to endure, overthwart,
That wher I loue best I dare not To suffer me so careful to
dyscure ! endure,
That where I love best I dare
not disclose !
William Shakespeare

– 154 sonnets; 37 plays

(1) 1590-1594 Romeo and Juliet
(2) 1595-1600 The Merchant of Venice
(3) 1601-1607 Hamlet; Othello; King Lear;
Macbeth
(4) 1608-1612 The Winter’s Tale; The
Tempest
William Shakespeare

(1) Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world

literature.

Engels: Realism implies, besides truth in detail, the

truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical
circumstance.

(2) Shakespeare’s dramatic creation often used the method

of adaptation. He borrowed his plots widely from Greek
legends and Roman history, from Italian stories and English
chronicles, and from romances by his English contemporaries.
William Shakespeare

(3) Shakespeare’s long experience with the stage and

his intimate knowledge of dramatic art thus acquired
make him a master-hand for play-writing.

(4) Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the

Song; the sonnet; the couplet; the dramatic blank
verse.
William Shakespeare

(5) Shakespeare was a great master of the language.

He commanded a vocabulary larger than any other
English writer. He used about 16,000 words. Many
of his new coinages and turns of expression have
become everyday usage in English life. Shakespeare
and the Authorized Version of the English Bible are
the two great treasuries of the English language.

Shakespeare has been universally acknowledged to

be the summit of the English renaissance, and one
of the greatest writers the world over.
 John Donne (1572-1631) & the Metaphysical Poets/ Jacobean
Period
Metaphysical poetry is characterized by:

 energetic, rough, or uneven movement, unlike the studied

elegance, sweetness, and smoothness of 16th century verse

 elaborate, strained, or far-fetched “conceits”;

--dazzling displays of wit

a tendency toward logical argumentation or the structure
of an argument in a poem

--an interest in philosophical questions and speculation

Donne’s Works:
• Songs and Sonnets (not printed in his life time; begun in
1595 and probably written over the next 20 years)

“The Flea”
“The Good Morrow”
“Song”
“The Sun Rising” (an aubade or dawn poem)
“The Canonization”

• Holy Sonnets. Nineteen religious sonnets as part of his

Divine Poems.

• Sermons. As an Anglican preacher, Donne preached

Volumes of sermons, including his last, Deaths Duell
Other Metaphysical Poets:

George Herbert (1593-1633) The Temple (1633)

“The Altar” “Redemption”
“Easter Wings” “Affliction I”
“Church Monuments” “The Windows”
“The Collar” “Death”
“Love”

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695) Silex Scintillans

“Regeneration,” “The Retreat,” “The World”

“They Are All Gone into the World of Light,”
“Cock-Crowing”
The 18th C., also called the
neo-classical period

– Poets called for restraint--restrained

emotions and restrained style. The 18th
century distrusted emotion, in part
because the 18th century was a violent
time of revolution and war, and people
wanted restraint.
– Poetry, they said, should be like prose,
only more polished.
18th Century Forms

– The dominant form was the heroic couplet--

iambic pentameter rhyming couplets.
– Alexander Pope:
"True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was said, but ne'er so well
expressed."
iamb--unstressed stressed
– rhyming couplet--aa bb cc etc.
Romantic Poetry

– In the first half of the 19th c., Wordsworth called

for poetry written in the language of men, not an
artificially literary language
– His longer and most serious poems are in blank
verse, iambic pentameter that is unrhymed.
Other Romantics

– The other Romantics (the early 19th c. British

poets-- Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats
and others) believed in expressing great emotion
in their poetry, not like WW. Their poems are
often highly charged, dramatic, intense, and their
object was to reproduce their own, subjective
sense of truth. This was the greatest period of
English poetry.
Lasting Influence of the
Romantics

– From this period, people have believed that

poetry should be the expression of great
emotion, and that the true poet should live on
the margins, in a garret, and die of consumption,
like John Keats, who died of consumption (TB) at
the age of 25.
Portrait of John Keats by
Severin
 William Blake

 Blake was often guided by his gentle and mystical views

of Christianity
The Little Black Boy: published it in 1789. His poem tells
of how a black child came to discover – through the
teachings of his mother – his own identity as well as God.
Blake‘s ―The Little Black Boy‖ seems to be full of
innocence and naivety, which is mainly due to two factors:
the author‘s treatment of the black characters and their
perception of the future. Blake depicts them as innocent,
naive, childish, having interiorized an inferior status.
 Victorian Age

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was born in San Francisco,

California.

Frost's best-known poems: 'Mending Wall,' 'The Death of the

Hired Man,' 'Home Burial,' 'A Servant to Servants,' 'After
Apple-Picking,' and 'The Wood-Pile.'
The poems, written with blank verse or looser free verse of
dialogue, were drawn from his own life, recurrent losses,
everyday tasks, and his loneliness.
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861)

was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her
poetry was widely popular in both England and the United
States during her lifetime

Elizabeth Barrett Browning opposed slavery and published two

poems highlighting the barbarity of slavers and her support for
the abolitionist cause. The poems opposing slavery include "The
Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" and "A Curse for a Nation";
in the first she describes the experience of a slave woman who is
whipped, raped, and made pregnant as she curses the slavers.
Moderns

– Early 20th c. poets reacted to this--TS Eliot

wanted poets to go back to the restraint of the
18th c. But the biggest development of modern
poetry was the breakdown (or liberation,
depending how you feel about it) of poetic form.
Modern Poetry
– In the nineteenth century, influential experiments in
metre were made by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-
89) and the American Walt Whitman (1819-92).
Hopkins invented a 'sprung rhythm' suggesting natural
speech, and in the United States, Whitman produced a
free-verse style which was widely emulated.
– Poetry now gradually came under the same influences
as those that affected painting and music, and which
made twentieth-century styles so different from those
of all preceding periods.
– In the early twentieth century, poetry was affected by the
Dada movement (Its purpose was to ridicule the
meaninglessness of the modern world as its participants
saw it), with its attacks on all tradition, and then by the
Surrealists (revolutionary movement and emphasize of
the element of surprise).
– The Surrealists were immensely influential. So in a rather
different way was the expatriate American poet, Ezra Pound
(1885-1972), who had issued the manifesto of the Imagists (c.
1912-14), calling for direct and sparse language and precise
images. Pound promoted the work of an array of splendid
talents, among them the great Irish poet, W. B. Yeats (1865-
1939), D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) and Robert Frost (1874-
1963). He also assisted in editing one of the great poems of the
century, T. S. Eliot's (1888-1965) The Waste Land.
 Post Modern Poetry

– Fluid subject matter, open (free verse) forms, inward-centered

themes, a mistrust of official language
Donald Allen (New American Poetry)
– In the Back Mountain School were Olson, Creeley, and Dorn, poets
who believed that lines should be constructed on the pattern of
taking breath rather than by syllable or metre.
 Doris Lessing

– Full name Doris May Lessing; has also written under the pseudonym Jane
Somers
– Persian-born English novelist, short story writer, essayist, dramatist, poet,
nonfiction writer, journalist, and travel writer
 Doris Lessing

Fable
“When I look back I seem to remember singing.
Yet is was always silent in that long warm room.

Impenetrable , those walls , we thought,

Dark with ancient shields. The light
Shone on the head of a girl or young limbs
Spread carelessly. And the low voices
Rose in the silence and were lost as in water.
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH Language & Literature

Novia Diah Lestari, S.S., M.Sas.

Imagery
 Definitions

In poetry, imagery is a vivid and vibrant form of

description that appeals to readers’ senses and
imagination. Imagery is the use of words to create
pictures, or images, in your mind. It appeals to the five
senses: smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch.
 II. 7 Types of Imagery

1 2 3 4
Visual Auditory Gustatory Tactile
imagery imagery imagery imagery

5 6 7
Olfactory Kinesthetic Organic
imagery imagery imagery
 Visual
imagery
In this form of poetic imagery, the poet
appeals to the reader’s sense of sight by
describing something the speaker or
narrator of the poem sees. To provide
readers with visual imagery, poets often
use metaphor, simile, or personification
in their description.
 Auditory imagery

● This form of poetic imagery appeals

to the reader’s sense of hearing or
sound. The poet might use a sound
device like onomatopoeia, or words
that imitate sounds, so reading the
poem aloud recreates the auditory
experience.
 Gustatory imagery

● In this form of poetic imagery, the

poet appeals to the reader’s sense
of taste by describing something
the speaker or narrator of the poem
tastes. It may include sweetness,
sourness, saltiness, savoriness, or
spiciness.
 Tactile imagery

● In this form of poetic imagery, the

poet appeals to the reader’s sense
of touch by describing something
the speaker of the poem feels on
their body. It may include the feel
of temperatures, textures, and
other physical sensations.
Olfactory imagery

● In this form of poetic imagery,

the poet appeals to the reader’s
sense of smell by describing
something the speaker of the
poem inhales. It may include
pleasant fragrances or off-
putting odors.
 Kinesthetic imagery

● In this form of poetic imagery, the poet

appeals to the reader’s sense of motion.
It may include the sensation of speeding
along in a vehicle, a slow sauntering, or
a sudden jolt when stopping, and it may
apply to the movement of the poem’s
speaker/narrator or objects around them.
 Organic imagery

● In this form of poetic imagery, the

poet communicates internal
sensations such as fatigue, hunger,
and thirst as well as internal
emotions such as fear, love, and
despair.
 REFERENCE

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022).

English Poetry Analysis Module.
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH Language & Literature

Novia Diah Lestari, S.S., M.Sas.

Figurative
language
MEETING TWO
 Definitions

Knickerbocker and Reninger (1955) stated that figurative

language, sometimes called metaphorical language or
simply metaphor, is composed of many kinds of figure
of speech.
 Definitions

Perrine (2001) explained that figure of speech offers

another way of adding extra dimensions to language.
She argued that figure of speech is any way of saying
something other than the ordinary way. Figure of
speech is a way of saying one thing and meaning
another.
 DENOTATION CONOTATION

Connotation can be defined as the wide

Denotation is commonly defined collection of positive and negative
associations that most words carry within
as literal meaning. It means
them. It also means that words consist of
that a word has only the additional meaning or value.
one specific meaning.
 Types of Figurative Language

Metaphor Simile
● Metaphor is created when a ● Simile is a comparison that is
figurative term is substituted expressed, by the use of
for or identified with the some word such as like, as,
literal term. than, similar to, resembles, or
● In addition, metaphor is a seems.
statement that one thing is ● Simile is a comparison of two
something else, which, in a things that expresses a
literal sense, it is not. similarity.
 Types of Figurative Language

Personification Apostrophe
● Personification is the
● Apostrophe consists in
attribution of human
addressing someone absent
characteristics to nonliving
or dead or something
objects.
nonhuman as if that person
● Personification consists of
or thing were present and
giving the attributes of a
alive and could reply to what
human being to an animal, an
is being said.
object, or a concept.
 Types of Figurative Language

Hyperbole Litotes

● Hyperbole is an
exaggeration that is created
● Litotes is an understatement
to emphasize a point or bring
in which a positive statement
out a sense of humor.
is expressed by negating its
● It is often used in every
opposite.
conversation without the
speaker noticing it.
 Types of Figurative Language

Metonymy Synecdoche
● Metonymy as the use of
something closely related for
the thing which actually ● A synecdoche is a figure of
meant. Then, metonymy is speech which allows a part to
the literal term for one thing stand for a whole or for a
is applied to another which it whole to stand for a part.
has become closely
associated.
 Types of Figurative Language

Paradox Irony
● Irony is a figure of speech and
● Paradox is a concept which one of the most widely-
may sound absurd or self- known literary devices, which
contradictory but if the is used to express a strong
concept is investigated or emotion or raise a point.
explained, it may prove to be ● It conveys a meaning that is
true. opposite of what is actually
said.
 Types of Figurative Language

Antithesis Symbol
● “Antithesis” means
● A symbol may be defined as
“opposite” – it is usually used
something that means more
to describe the opposite of a
than what it is.
statement, concept, or idea.
● Then, symbols vary in the
● It is a pair of statements or
degree of identification and
images in which the one
definition given to them by
reverses the other to show
their authors.
more contrast.
 EXAMPLES

Metaphor Simile Personification

The wind began to scream
You were as brave
Love is a battlefield. and the tree danced in
as a lion.
the dark.

Apostrophe Hyperbole Litotes

Why don’t you ever
She’s going to die of The trip wasn’t a
work, you stupid
embarrassment. total loss.
computer!
Metonymy synecdoche Paradox
A boy has been admitted
We will swear to the hospital. The I must be cruel
loyalty to the nurse says, only to be
crown kind
“He’s in good hands.”

Irony Antithesis Symbol

What a beautiful Poseidon is a symbol
Keep your mouth for the sea. He is
day
closed and your extremely powerful,
eyes open but also wrathful and
*After having a ridiculous unpredictable.
day
 REFERENCE

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022).

English Poetry Analysis Module.
-Fin-

MEETING TWO
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
English Language & Literature

Meeting Three
Rhymes
NOVIA DIAH LESTARI, S.S., M.SAS.
 I. DEFINITIONS

A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar

terminal sounds in two or more different words
and is most often used in poetry. Rhymed words
conventionally share all sounds following the
word's last stressed syllable.
 II. Rhyme Schemes

1 2 3
A rhyme scheme is the Rhyme schemes can change The patterns are
pattern of sounds that line by line, stanza by encoded by letters
repeats at the end of a stanza, or continue of the alphabet.
line or stanza. throughout a poem
 III

Type of Rhyme Schemes

 01 02 03

Alternate Ballade Coupled

Rhyme Rhyme Rhyme

04 05

Monorhyme Enclosed
rhyme
 06 07 08

Simple four- Triplet Terza Rima

line rhyme

09 10
Limerick Villanelle
Rhyme Rhyme
 Alternate
Rhyme
In an alternate rhyme, the first and
third lines rhyme at the end,
and the second and fourth lines
rhyme at the end following the
pattern ABAB for each stanza.
This rhyme scheme is used for
poems with four-line stanzas.
 Ballade Rhyme

❖ A ballade is a lyric poem that

follows the rhyme scheme
ABABBCBC.
❖ Ballades typically have three,
eight-line stanzas and
conclude with a four-line
stanza.
❖ The last line of each stanza is
the same, which is called a
refrain.
 Coupled
Rhyme
Coupled rhyme is a two-line
stanza that rhymes following
the rhyme scheme AA BB
CC, or a similar dual rhyming
scheme. The rhymes
themselves are referred to as
rhyming couplets.
 Monorhyme

In monorhyme, all the

lines in a stanza or entire
poem end with the same
rhyme.
 Enclosed
rhyme

Enclosed rhyme (or enclosing

rhyme) is the rhyme scheme
ABBA (that is, where the first
and fourth lines, and the
second and third lines rhyme).
Simple four-
line rhyme

Poems written in this pattern

have a basic rhyme scheme of
ABCB used in quatrains
(four-line stanzas) or poems
 Triplet

A triplet is a three-line
stanza (tercet) with
shared end lines, such as
AAA, BBB, CCC, etc.
 Terza Rima

An Italian form of poetry that

consists of tercets, a terza rima
follows a chain rhyme in which
the second line of each stanza
rhymes with the first and last line
of the subsequent stanza.
The pattern is ABA BCB CDC
DED EE
 Limerick
Rhyme

A limerick is a short, five-

line poem with just
one stanza. Limericks
have an AABBA
rhyme scheme.
 Villanelle Rhyme

A type of poem with five

three-line stanzas that
follow a rhyme scheme of
ABA.
The villanelle concludes with a
four-line stanza with the
pattern ABAA.
 REFERENCES

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022). English Poetry

Analysis Module.

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/collection/abcb-rhyme-

—scheme/
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH Language & Literature

Novia Diah Lestari, S.S., M.Sas.

Stanza
 Definitions

Stanzas are the verse equivalent of a

paragraph. Sometimes, they contain
one idea or are simply a few lines
discussing a broader idea.
 Function

The function of stanzas in poetry is like what

paragraphs do in prose. They allow for the poet to
include divisions in the poem to show shifts in
subject or mood. Therefore, it allows for a rhythm
and flow to happen as the audience reads the poem.
 Types of Stanzas

1 2 3 4

Couplet Triplet Quartrain Quintain

5 6 7

Sestet Septet Octave

Couplet (set of
two lines) Open Couplet

A couplet is a stanza structure

with two lines that usually Closed Couplet
rhyme. Couplets are one of the
most common types of stanzas
 Triplet/ Tercet

● A stanza made up of
three lines is called a
triplet or tercet. In a
tercet, all three lines
rhyme or the first and
third line rhyme.
 Quatrain

● A quatrain is a stanza
with four lines. In a
quatrain, the second and
fourth lines typically
rhyme. It usually has a-
b-a-b, a-a-a-a, a-b-c-b
or a-a-b-b rhyme
 Quintain

● Quintain is a stanza
with five lines which
has various rhyme
schemes.
 Sestet

● Sestet is a stanza with six

lines. It is usually used in
sonnet.
 Septet

● Septet is a stanza with

seven lines.
 Octave

● Octave is a stanza
with eight lines
Diction
 Definitions

Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction was

a result of desire to find a suitable
language for the new territory of human
life which was conquering for period
treatment.
Wordsworth has mentioned six causes that lead to poetic composition

(i) observation and (iv)imagination and fancy

description
(v)invention
(ii)sensibility
(vi) judgment
(iii)reflections.
Four Basic Principles of Wordsworth’s Theory of Poetic Diction

The language of poetry should

be the language "really used by It should be the language of
men", but not all the words used men in a state of vivid
by the people can be employed sensation. It means that the
in poetry. Only some selected language used by people in a
words which are used in common state of animation can form
parlance can serve the purpose the language of poetry.
of poetry.
 Words of prose and poetry
are not clearly demarcated, so
It should have a certain that words which can be used
colouring of imagination. The in prose can find place in
poet should give the colour of poetry and vice versa. When
his imagination to the language the poet is truly inspired, his
employed by him in poetic imagination will enable him
composition. to select from the language
really used by men
 REFERENCE

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022).

English Poetry Analysis Module.
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
English Language & Literature

Meeting Eleven
 Tone
NOVIA DIAH LESTARI, S.S., M.SAS.
 DEFINITIONS

1. Tone is the attitude writers take towards their subject.

2. Mays in Mays, Kelly J (2017:794) The Norton
Introduction to Literature explains on tone: Tone, a
term borrowed from acoustics and music, refers to the
qualities of the language a speaker uses in social
situations or in a poem, and it also refers to a
speaker’s intended effect.
 DEFINITIONS

1. Tone is closely related to style and diction; it is an

effect of the speaker’s expressions, as if showing a real
person’s feelings, manner, and attitude or relationship
to a listener and to the particular subject or situation.
2. Tone does not mean quite the same thing in literature
as it does for the way people speak, but it’s pretty
close; it refers to the “feel” of a piece of writing.
 ExampleS

These two sentences convey

- I’ll just swing by your office at 4
exactly the same ideas, but
tomorrow!
- I will meet you in your office tomorrow one does it in a highly
at 4:00. informal tone while the other
uses a formal tone.
 Types of Tone

There are an infinite number of different tones, all composed

of different qualities such as dark, humorous, serious,
emotional, objective, chaotic, etc. Perhaps the most
important aspect of tone, though, is the formal / informal
distinction.
 The Importance of Tone
Tone affects how readers will respond to your writing. Although its
effects can be very subtle, they are profound, in much the same way
as a person’s body language and overall personality.

tone is important in writing the same way personality is important in

any situation.
 A few ways to create tone in a literary work

Word choice Figurative

language
for example, uses the use of metaphors,
colloquial diction, slang similes, hyperbole, etc.
words, formal language, or These can help the reader
even inside jokes. understand how the speaker
feels about something.
 Sentence Punctuation
structure
the length of sentences, whether
they’re in passive or active voice, including periods,
and the arrangement of other words, exclamation points, and the
can influence how the reader use of enjambment.
thinks about the narrator/writer and
then how they think about the
subject.
 Literature Tone Examples

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: dark and suspenseful

Othello by William Shakespeare: suspicious and cynical

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison: pessimistic and depressing

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: wistful regret

 Mood
NOVIA DIAH LESTARI, S.S., M.SAS.
 The mood in this poem is happy
Barefoot Days by Rachel Field

In the morning, very early,

That is when the birds go by
That’s the time I love to go
Up the sunny slopes of air,
Barefoot where the fern grows
And each rose has a butterfly
curly
Or a golden bee to wear;
And grass is cool between each
And I am glad in every toe –
toe,
Such a summer morning-O!
On a summer morning-O!
Such a summer morning!
On a summer morning!
 The mood in this poem is angry
Mad Song by Myra Cohn
Livingston
Just time you took
I shut my door
Yourself away
To keep you out
I lock my door
Won’t do no good
To keep me here
To stand and shout
Until I’m sure
Won’t listen to
You disappear.
A thing you say
 The mood in this poem is sad

I loved my friend.
Poem – By Langston He went away from me.
Hughes There’s nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began –
I loved my friend
 Don’t Confuse Tone & Mood!

Tone Mood
is the author's or the is how the poem makes the
poet's towards his or reader or the listener
her subject. feel.
Pay attention to the Example
 REFERENCE

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022). English Poetry

Analysis Module.

—
 ENGLISH POETRY
ANALYSIS:
English Language & Literature
 Theme
NOVIA DIAH LESTARI, S.S., M.SAS.
 I. DEFINITION

As a literary device, theme refers to the central,

deeper meaning of a written work. Writers
typically will convey the theme of their work,
and allow the reader to perceive and interpret it,
rather than overtly or directly state the theme.
 II

Types of Themes
 01 02 03

Love Death Religion

04 05 05

Aging Beauty Nature

 07 08 09

Desire Celebration Journey

10 11 12

Apocalypse Dreams Self

 13 14 15

Recovery War Dis-

appointment

16 17 18

New Life Immortality Coming of

Age
 Love Thy love is such I can no way
repay;
Love is the most obvious. It can The heavens reward thee manifold,
be love for another person, love I pray.
for nature, or even love for Then while we live, in love let’s so
oneself. The first on this list is the persevere,
most obvious. Love for another That when we live no more, we
can be seen within the work of may live ever
countless poets since writing as a
form of expression came into Anne Bradstreet - ‘To My Dear and Loving
being. Husband’
 Death
❖ Avaunt! To-night my heart is light. No dirge will I
upraise,
❖ But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!
❖ Let no bell toll!–lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed
mirth,
❖ Just like love is one of ❖ Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the
damnéd Earth.
the most known themes ❖ To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant
in art, death is a ❖
ghost is riven–
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven–
pervasive theme in ❖ From grief and groan to a golden throne, beside the
King of Heaven.
poetry or other art
forms. Edgar Allan Poe - Lenore
 Spiritual /
Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Religion
cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow
loss, Like in the visual arts world, some of
And yet not weep? the more critical written forms of art
were done while the author considered
Not so those women loved a religion, faith, God, and often,
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; doubt. These themes often come
Not so fallen Peter, weeping bitterly; together into contemplating the
Not so the thief was moved; afterlife, a higher power, and the
forces that control our everyday lives.
The latter could be religious or more
Christina Rossetti’s ‘Good Friday’ spiritual, concerned with nature and
emotional universality.
 At low tide like this, how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and
glare
Nature and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as
matches.

Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,

Nature, undoubtedly, is one of the most
the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,
commonly utilized themes of poetry in the colour of the gas flame turned as low as
recorded history. Poems in this category possible
could speak on the natural world (as we
commonly think of it: trees, mountains, etc.) Elizabeth Bishop - The Bight
and its beauties or dangers.
London, my beautiful, Beauty
it is not the sunset
nor the pale green sky Beauty comes in many
shimmering through the curtain forms and can be seen
of the silver birch, through natural beauty,
nor the quietness physical human beauty,
beauty in spirit or action,
‘[London, my beautiful]’ by F.S. Flint
and an assortment of other
instances.
 Aging And showed the tender eyes.
Of angels in disguise,
Whose discipline so patiently she
Some of the most prominent
bore.
poetic works consider the age
The past years brought their
and one’s unstoppable
harvest prosperous and fair;
progression towards death.
While memory and love,
That being said, no one’s
Together, fondly wove.
experience of aging is exact as
A golden garland for the silver
anyone else’s.
hair

‘Transfiguration’ by Louisa May

Alcott
John Donne’s - ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’

Your gown going off, such beauteous

state reveals,
As when from flowery meads, the
hill’s shadow steals.
Desire
Off with that wiry Coronet and shew
The hairy Diadem which on you doth
grows: Speaking of universally relatable
Now off with those shoes, and then themes, desire is undoubtedly an
safely tread. important one. Whether romantic,
In this love’s hallow’d temple, this erotic, or spiritual, desire poems are
soft bed expansive. Shakespeare’s sonnets to
the Fair Youth come to mind
 Identity/ What happens to a dream
deferred?
Self Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
No matter what period the writers Or fester like a sore—
lived in, they deeply considered And then run?
their own place in the world, the
impact (or lack thereof) they
‘Harlem’ by Langston Hughes
thought they were having, who
they wanted to become, or any
number of other contemplative
self-musings.
Many have pictured a river here,
but no one mentioned all the
Journeys
boats,
their benches crowded with
naked passengers, A journey can consist of
each bent over a writing tablet just about anything.
One could be moving
Billy Collins’ - ‘Writing in the physically, travelling
Afterlife’ from place to place, or
be transforming in some
significant way
 At the round Earth’s
imagin’d corners, blow.
Your trumpets, angels, and
arise, arise.
From death, you numberless
infinities.
Of souls, and to your
Apocalypse scattered bodies go;

No matter the writer’s religious or cultural

‘Holy Sonnet VII: At the
background, apocalyptically themed poems round Earth’s imagin’d
can be stimulating and disturbing. Some see corners, blow’ by John
Donne
a violent, bloody lot to the human race—
others, something more straightforward,
calmer, and even looked forward to.
 Mysterious shapes, with
wands of joy and pain,
Which seize us unaware in
Dream helpless sleep,
And lead us to the houses
where we keep
Our dreams can potentially change Our secrets hid, well
the way we experience the world. barred by every chain.
Negative or positive, they are a That we can forge and bind
reflection (and for some, a space
[…]
of inspiration) of how we live our
lives. Many a poet has written
‘Dreams’ by Helen Hunt Jackson
about nights ruined by strange
and terrible dreams.
Rich fresh wine of June,
we stagger into you Celebration
smeared with pollen,
overcome as the turtle In the category of celebration,
laying her eggs in there are endless reasons to be
joyful among friends and family.
roadside sand. Poets who take an interest in this
theme might consider traditional
‘More Than Enough’ by Marge Piercy holidays worth writing about, or
they might revel in a personal
victory or a celebration of the self.
Wellness/Recovery

New life, whether that of spring

I rode the waters and the roads of
or summer or the
Ireland,
human/animal variety, is
Rosie, to be with you, seashell at
powerful. This theme can be
my ear! How
taken in several different
I laughed when I cradled you in
directions, and any poet
my hand
considering it will understand
it differently.
‘Rosie Joyce’ by Paul Durcan
 But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain
in this wise?
Defeat may be a victory
in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the
Disappointment turn of the tide

The lines are written in the wake of

disappointment, disgust, and failure, often some ‘Loss and Gain’ by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
of the most moving. These emotions and
experiences are unifying, and reading the
eloquent words of another human being who
failed as you failed, can be therapeutic.
 But where His
desolation trod The
War people in their agony
Despairing cried,
An entire genre of poetry has “There is no God.”
emerged from historical wars.
Naturalistic and painfully
realistic, with shocking images Vera Brittain, and her poem
and language, intending to show ‘August 1914’
what the warlike, war poetry
shows us the mud, the trenches,
deaths, and sometimes even
compassion for soldiers.
 Immortality
From strength to strength
advancing—only he, His soul
well-knit, and all his battles
won, Mounts, and that hardly, Poets throughout the ages have
to eternal life. taken the theme on. Some discuss
eternal life in the context of
Matthew Arnold - ‘Immortality’ religion, God, and the afterlife.
Others engage with the topic or
whimsically, employing magic
realism, fantasy, and short magic.
 Coming of Age
Now I look and cook just like
This is one of the most popular him:
themes in classical and
my brain light; tossing this
contemporary poetry. The
period of one’s life in which
and that into the pot;
they “come of age” or grow seasoning none of my life the
out of childhood into same way twice;
adulthood is physically, happy to feed whoever strays
mentally, and emotionally my way.
transformative.
‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ by Alice
Walker
 The Importance of Using Theme

The importance of using theme in literary work is unparalleled.

The theme is the underlining idea an author is trying to convey to
an audience. A literary work without major ideas for the character
and reader to experience, think through, and learn from is not a
story at all.
 Why Should You Care About The Themes In Poetry?

Without themes, most poems do not have a purpose. Remember

that the purpose theme is to connect to the protagonist’s
journey. Without a theme, you’d have a plot that goes nowhere
and readers losing interest – in other words, a story without a
soul. Most importantly, the theme allows readers to relate to the
characters and their struggles – and to feel invested in the
outcome
 REFERENCES

Adlina, N. Amalia, D. Fatimah S. (2022). English Poetry

Analysis Module.

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/collection/abcb-rhyme-

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