OUR LADY OF FATIMA UNIVERSITY

ENGLISH DEPARMENT

LITERARY GENRE: POETRY

Poetry, like a song, is an expression of a feeling, an insight, a discovery (Tomeldan

et al., 1986, p. 269). Unlike prose, a poetry is more magical that deals with
hightened aesthetics in terms of language, rhythmic patterns, structures and
word order to make it meaningful.

According to Romero & De Los Reyes (2014), poetry is a major genre of literature
that uses a more concentrated style than other literary forms. Traditional poetry
generally has rhyme and rhythm which may determine its lines and stanzas. Other
poems have less restricted structure with the use of free verse and therefore,
place no constraints on the rhythm or length of lines. However, most poems
incorporate the basic elements of imagery, tone, figurative language, vividness,
and precision of words (p. 287).

Five things that we have to remember about poetry (Baritugo, 2004, p. 1):

a. Poetry is a concentrated thought.

b. Poetry is a kind of word-music.
c. Poetry expresses all the senses.
d. Poetry answers our demand for rhythm.
e. Poetry is observation plus imagination.
Elements of Poetry:

1. Sense – is revealed through the meaning of words, images and symbols.

a. Diction – denotative and connotative meanings/symbols
Word Passage Denotative Connotative
meaning meaning
1. arm For only when our arms are
sufficient beyond doubt can we be
certain beyond doubt that they will Part of a Work
never be employed Passage from: body
Inaugural Speech of John
F. Kennedy
2. tiger Those who foolishly sought power
by riding the back of their tiger
ended up inside. Passage from: An animal Power
Inaugural Speech of John
F. Kennedy

b. Images and sense impression – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch,

motion, and emotions.

SENSE IMPRESSION PASSAGE

Sight And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Sound A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and
fears, Than the two hearts beating
each to each!
Meeting at Night by Robert Browning

Smell Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
Meeting at Night by Robert Browning
Taste In tea and coffee I delight,
I smoke and sip my grog at night.
My Indian Summer by Robert William Service

Touch The fuzzy purple blanket under me,

Like fur caressing my skin,
So soft, so sensual, like a soft massage.
Second Skin by Bethaney Davis

Motion Father Mckenzie writing the words

Of a sermon that no one will hear-
Eleanor Rigby by Lennon-Mc Artney

Emotion Come live with me and be my

love
And we will all the pleasures
prove.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by
Christopher
Marlowe

a. Figure of Speech – Simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe,

metonymy, synecdoche, hyperbole, irony, allusion, antithesis,
paradox, litotes, oxymoron, onomatopoeia.

Figure of Characteristics Example

Speech
Simile Uses like or as She is like a lion in the war.
Metaphor A direct comparison of Mr. Umban is the Albert Einstein of
two unlike things the class.
Personification Gives human attributes The chair moved to the other room.
to inanimate objects or
ideas
Apostrophe Is a direct address to Little Sampaguita
someone absent, dead, With the wandering eye
or inanimate. Did a tiny fairy
Drop you where you lie

(Lines from The Sampaguita by

Natividad Marquez)
Metonomy Substitutes a word that I have read all of Shakespeare
closely relates to a
person or a thing.
Synecdoche Uses a part to represent The neighbor bought a new wheels.
the whole
Hyperbole Makes us of exaggeration I am very hungry and I might eat the
whole ricefield.
Irony Says the opposite of what If all these men whose heads are
is meant with the stars,
Who dream unceasingly of blazing
royalty,
Will only strive to be like you, A
dweller of the sod with the heart of
loyalty!

(Lines from To A Dog by Florizel

Diaz)
 Allusion Refers to any literary, The pendulum
biblical, historical, Is a thing of thread
mythological, scientific To nervous persons like me
event, character or place. It reminds one of swaying Iscariot-
Suspended from a tree

(Lines from After Palanan by Rene

A. Iturralde)
Antithesis Involves a contrast of “Love is so short….Forgetting is so
words or ideas long.”
Paradox Uses phrases or My dear, canst thou resolve for me
statement that on This paradox of love concerning thee
surface seems
Mine eyes, when opened, with thy
contradictor, but makes
beauty fill –
some kind of emotional
sense But when they’re closed they see
thee better still.

(Lines from Paradox by

A.E.Litiatco)
Litotes Makes a deliberate War is not healthy for children
understatement used to And other living things
affirm by negating its
opposite.
Oxymoron Puts together in one Resident-alien
statement two Silent scream
contradictory terms Living dead
Clearly misunderstanding

2. Sound – is the result of a combination of elements.

 a. Tone color – alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, repetition,
anaphora
b. Rhythm – ordered recurrent alteration of strong and weak elements
in the flow of the sound and silence: duple, triple, running or
common rhyme
c. Meter – stress, duration, or number of syllables per line, fixed
metrical pattern, or a verse form: quantitative syllabic, accentual,
and accentual syllabic
d. Rhyme scheme – arrangement of rhymes in stanza or the
poem.

Three types of rhyme scheme: (Buhisan & Sayseng, 2016, p. 28)

Types Characteristics Sample
True rhyme Rhyme that occurs on the “Here Captain! Dear father this arm
words beneath your head! It is some
dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.”
(Oh Captain My Captain, Walt
Whitman)
Internal rhyme Rhyme that occur within “Once upon a midnight dreary, while
lines I pondered, weak and weary.” (The
Raven,
Edgar Allan Poe)
Off rhyme or slant Not a true rhyme but the “In the sun and in the snow,
rhyme sound of the words are Without pleasure, without pain, On
alike the dead oak tree bough.”
(The Gallows, Edward Thomas)

3. Structure – refers to (1) arrangement of words, and lines to fit together, (2)
the organization of the parts to form a whole.
 Word order - natural and unnatural arrangement of words
a. Ellipsis – omitting some words for economy and effect
b. Punctuation – abundance or lack of punctuation marks
c. Shape – contextual and visual designs: jumps, omission of spaces,
capitalization, lower case.

The following are the three types of poetry: (Buhisan & Sayseng, 2016, p.
29)

Type Characteristics Sample forms

Descriptive Poem Focuses on details Didactic poem

Narrative poem Tells a story Epic, ballad

Lyric poem Expresses the feelings Ode, sonnet, dramatic

and thoughts of the monolog
poet