Understanding Poetry Analysis: Scansion, Refrain, and Literary Devices
Delve into the world of poetry analysis with a focus on scansion, refrain, and literary devices such as apostrophe, abecedarian, metonymy, and synecdoche. Explore the nuances of metrical patterns, rhyme schemes, and organizational structures in poems, along with repeated refrains and figures of speech that add depth and meaning to poetic works.
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SCANSION This is simply the term to describe the ANALYSIS of poems. In a scansion, you might analyze and make note of: the metrical pattern the type of feet the stressed & unstressed syllables pauses stanza breaks rhyme scheme structure of the poem We did a scansion of the poem Yes
REFRAIN A part of a poem which is repeated. Example: O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again By James Laughlin
APOSTROPHE This is when a poem sounds like it is speaking to someone or something. The poem may address a dead or absent person. It may also address something that is personified. John Donne s Death, Be Not Proud is an example. In it, the poet speaks directly to death. Emily Dickinson addresses a person who is no longer in her life in Wild nights! Wild nights!
ABECEDARIAN Related to acrostic, a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet. Or, a poem which uses the alphabet as its organizational structure. These are usually long poems, but here is a shorter example on the next slide.
A Primer of the Daily Round by Howard Nemerov A peels an apple, while B kneels to God, C telephones to D, who has a hand On E s knee, F coughs, G turns up the sod For H s grave, I do not understand But J is bringing one clay pigeon down While K brings down a nightstick on L s head, And M takes mustard, N drives to town, O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead, R lies to S, but happens to be heard By T, who tells U not to fire V For having to give W the word That X is now deceiving Y with Z, Who happens, just now to remember A Peeling an apple somewhere far away.
METONYMY A figure of speech when a word is not used because it is more poetic to use another term which represents that word. For example, instead of saying, The British Monarchy, you could use the metonymy Crown. In Shakespeare, lend me your ears should not be taken literally. Ears is a metonymy for your attention. The pen is mightier than the sword. Pen is a metonymy for the written word, and sword is a metonymy for the force of the military.
SYNECDOCHE A figure of speech when you use a part of something as a replacement for the actual word. You might call your car your wheels. Wheels is a synecdoche for vehicle or car. We often say we will give someone a hand. Hand is a synecdoche for assistance, help, support, applause. Hand can also be a synecdoche for a person when it is used, hired hand.
CAESURA This is a stop or a pause in a line of poetry. It is often marked by some punctuation or by a grammatical boundary. Dead! One of them shot by sea in the east No voice says my mother again to me. What? These are lines from Elizabeth Barrett Browning s long poem Mother and Poet
END-STOPPED When a line of poetry ends at a grammatical boundary or break. Sometimes a dash, punctuation, a closing parenthesis. Example of end-stopped lines of poetry from Alexander Pope: Then say not man s imperfect, Heav n in fault; Say rather, man s as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measur d to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest today is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago.
ENJAMBMENT This is the opposite of end-stopped. Enjambed lines continue and cross-over from one line to the next, as in this example: the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle
