Importance of Looking Deeper Into Poetry

October 1, 2016

This week in the classroom we learned about the types of poetry along with the different structures you are able to create within the poems. When analyzing poetry the first step is to determine what type of writing it is between the four choices of; lyric, narrative, didactic or dramatic monologue. After you determine this you are able to start picking apart the text from the diction to the rhymes. The diction inside of a text can range from a conversational text, to writing a formal essay, all the way to Formal English writing. Also, diction can either tell the emotions occurring, concrete diction, or they will show  the emotion a character is feeling, abstract diction.

The sounds from a poem are also extremely important because it conveys feelings from the writer to the reader without having to be blunt about it. There are two categories of sounds that determine how a reader reacts to certain words. If the word is read as harsh or discordant it is a cacophony word, if the word is pleasing to read, it is a euphony word. Euphony and cacophony are determined by sonorants and obstruents which are two different groups of letter sounds. The sonorants are the much softer and don't obstruct our airflow allowing us to hold the sound. Obstruents are very harsh and short sounds, such as the sound of /t/. Words that reflect sounds such as, yakety-yak or ding-dong, are called onomatopeia.

Along with the sound of each word, you have the sounds of combined phrases that may have special names. Alliterations consist of a phrase that has repeating consonants at the beginning of each word. Consonance is repeating consonants within the words, while assonance is repeating vowel sounds within words.

Lastly you have the four types of rhymes; end rhyme, internal rhyme, full rhyme, or rhyme royal. In the poem, "My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun" by William Shakespeare, contains end rhyme because if you notice every other line ends with a rhyming word. Also, rhyming can be separated into masculine and feminine by examining which syllable is stressed or unstressed. Masculine rhyme consists of stressed syllables, where feminine has two or more unstressed syllables.