Announcement: Lecture Changes
Please note that the order of our lecture plan is changing. Next week (Week 6: Oct 5-9) will switch with Week 7 (Oct 12-16). Also note that Test 1 scheduled for Week 6 has been moved earlier to Week 5.
Test: Poetic Devices -- Figures of Speech
We will have a test on Thursday, October 1st.
The test will cover the poetic devices and figures of speech we have discussed so far, namely: denotation & connotation, imagery, simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, synecdoche, symbol, and allegory. You should be able to define these terms, as well as identify examples of these in given poems.
The test will cover the poetic devices and figures of speech we have discussed so far, namely: denotation & connotation, imagery, simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, synecdoche, symbol, and allegory. You should be able to define these terms, as well as identify examples of these in given poems.
Figurative Language II: Symbol & Allegory
Symbolism
When talking about “symbolism” It is necessary to make a distinction between how the word is generally understood, and how it is understood in poetic studies. Generally, a symbol is anything that represents something else. In poetry, however, a symbol is something that “functions literally and figuratively at the same time” (Sound & Sense, p. 91).
In Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” we find the speaker (a traveler) recounting a time when he had to make a choice between two roads in a wood. He literally had to make a choice about which road to take. This incident also has a figurative meaning of our daily life choices when we have to make a decision between two (or more) options. Choosing which path to talk becomes a symbol for our choices in life.
Allegory
“Allegory is a narrative [i.e. a story] . . . that has a second meaning beneath the surface. Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the author’s major interest is in the ulterior meaning” (Sound & Sense, p. 99).
An allegory always has two parts: a story/description and a deeper meaning. While we will not be studying specific allegory poems this semester, some poems have embedded within them some allegorical elements.
When talking about “symbolism” It is necessary to make a distinction between how the word is generally understood, and how it is understood in poetic studies. Generally, a symbol is anything that represents something else. In poetry, however, a symbol is something that “functions literally and figuratively at the same time” (Sound & Sense, p. 91).
In Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” we find the speaker (a traveler) recounting a time when he had to make a choice between two roads in a wood. He literally had to make a choice about which road to take. This incident also has a figurative meaning of our daily life choices when we have to make a decision between two (or more) options. Choosing which path to talk becomes a symbol for our choices in life.
Allegory
“Allegory is a narrative [i.e. a story] . . . that has a second meaning beneath the surface. Although the surface story or description may have its own interest, the author’s major interest is in the ulterior meaning” (Sound & Sense, p. 99).
An allegory always has two parts: a story/description and a deeper meaning. While we will not be studying specific allegory poems this semester, some poems have embedded within them some allegorical elements.
Some Themes in the Poems of Robert Frost
There are a number of reoccurring themes in the work of Robert Frost.
Youth & Aging/Death
Youth and especially the loss of innocence is a key theme in Frost’s poems. Contrasted with youth is aging and death. Think of the poem “Out, Out—“. How do the themes of youth, loss of innocence, and/or death present in this poem?
Boundaries & Liminality
Another common theme in Frost’s work is the theme of boundaries or barriers. Together with this theme is occurrence of liminal spaces, i.e. “in between” spaces. Look at the poem “Desert Places” and try to identify the boundaries in the poem. Now consider the poem “The Road Not Taken,” where would you say is the liminal space in this poem?
Isolation & Loneliness
A major theme in Frost’s work is the idea of isolation, alienation or loneliness. A regular motif used by Frost is the “solitary traveler” or “lonely wanderer.” Read the poem “Acquainted with the Night” and identify the different ways in which Frost highlighted this theme.
Man & Nature
The mystery of nature is a common theme for Frost. Man’s ability to gain self-knowledge from nature is also prevalent. What do you think does each speaker learn from nature in the poems “Design” and “A Considerable Speck”?
Youth & Aging/Death
Youth and especially the loss of innocence is a key theme in Frost’s poems. Contrasted with youth is aging and death. Think of the poem “Out, Out—“. How do the themes of youth, loss of innocence, and/or death present in this poem?
Boundaries & Liminality
Another common theme in Frost’s work is the theme of boundaries or barriers. Together with this theme is occurrence of liminal spaces, i.e. “in between” spaces. Look at the poem “Desert Places” and try to identify the boundaries in the poem. Now consider the poem “The Road Not Taken,” where would you say is the liminal space in this poem?
Isolation & Loneliness
A major theme in Frost’s work is the idea of isolation, alienation or loneliness. A regular motif used by Frost is the “solitary traveler” or “lonely wanderer.” Read the poem “Acquainted with the Night” and identify the different ways in which Frost highlighted this theme.
Man & Nature
The mystery of nature is a common theme for Frost. Man’s ability to gain self-knowledge from nature is also prevalent. What do you think does each speaker learn from nature in the poems “Design” and “A Considerable Speck”?
Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Robert Frost was born and raised (until the age of eleven) in San Francisco. He attended Dartmouth and Harvard College. For a decade, around the turn of the century, he worked as a farmer in New Hampshire. From 1912 until 1915 he, his wife, and their four children lived in England, where he met the poets Ezra Pound and Edward Thomas, both of whose shrewd reviews helped establish his reputation. Upon his return to America, Frost held a number of teaching appointments, his most enduring association being with Amherst College. In the year following the publication of his second book, North of Boston (1914), Frost became one of the best-known and most celebrated of American poets, and in 1961 he read his poem “The Gift Outright” at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Rooted in the rugged New England landscape, his poems were phrased in plain speech, set to traditional meters made to sound classical forms. Some intellectuals dismissed him as provincial, and modernists who preferred conspicuous difficulty and radical innovation thought him conventional. Even Frost’s adoring public was often hoodwinked by his pithiness into missing the menacing forces at work beneath the surface. Astute readers saw an altogether different sensibility, however, one possessed of propensity toward darkness and terror, in which a poem is “a momentary stay against confusion.” (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)
Figurative Language I
There are many types of figurative language. In this post we will look at six types, namely: metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, and synecdoche.
Simile & Metaphor
If I say the sun is like an orange, then an orange becomes a symbol for the sun. They are similar in color and in form (spherical). When I use terms such as "like", "as", "than", "resembles", we call it simile. "The sun is like an orange", is an example of a simile. When I omit such words of reference, and merely say X = Y, it is a metaphor. For example, "The sun is an orange" is a metaphor.
Sound & Sense (p. 72-74) explains that metaphor can take one of four forms, “depending on whether the literal and figurative terms are respectively named or implied.”
Personification
When a thing, animal or something abstract (e.g. Truth), is given the attributes of a human, it is called personification. In Dickinson’s poem “Apparently with no surprise” the flowers are described as “happy”; this is an example of personification.
Apostrophe
Apostrophe is a way of speaking to someone (dead) or something which one does not ordinarily speak to. For example, if I speak to my chair, or if I speak to Elvis Presley, it is called apostrophe. When I speak to my pet cat it would not be considered apostrophe because people often speak to their pets. However, if my cat is dead and I then speak to it, it would be considered apostrophe.
Synecdoche & Metonymy
Sound & Sense (p. 78) explains: “In contrast to the preceding figures that compare unlike things are two figures that rest on congruences or correspondences. Synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail or quality of an experience for the experience itself.”
If I ask you to give me a hand, your "hand" stands for the whole of you – this is called synecdoche. Similarly if you bought a new car and I compliment your new car by saying “Nice wheels!” then the "wheels", which is a part of the car, represents the whole car. This is another example of synecdoche.
When I describe the library as “a house of pens”, it is metonymy. A library is not a house of pens; rather it is a house of books. However, pens are associated with writing and with books. Pens and books are therefore closely related although not actually part of the same thing. When figures are compared that are closely related (although not part of the same thing), it is called metonymy.
Consider the following questions from the "Reviewing Chapter Five" section in Sound & Sense:
Simile & Metaphor
If I say the sun is like an orange, then an orange becomes a symbol for the sun. They are similar in color and in form (spherical). When I use terms such as "like", "as", "than", "resembles", we call it simile. "The sun is like an orange", is an example of a simile. When I omit such words of reference, and merely say X = Y, it is a metaphor. For example, "The sun is an orange" is a metaphor.
Sound & Sense (p. 72-74) explains that metaphor can take one of four forms, “depending on whether the literal and figurative terms are respectively named or implied.”
Personification
When a thing, animal or something abstract (e.g. Truth), is given the attributes of a human, it is called personification. In Dickinson’s poem “Apparently with no surprise” the flowers are described as “happy”; this is an example of personification.
Apostrophe
Apostrophe is a way of speaking to someone (dead) or something which one does not ordinarily speak to. For example, if I speak to my chair, or if I speak to Elvis Presley, it is called apostrophe. When I speak to my pet cat it would not be considered apostrophe because people often speak to their pets. However, if my cat is dead and I then speak to it, it would be considered apostrophe.
Synecdoche & Metonymy
Sound & Sense (p. 78) explains: “In contrast to the preceding figures that compare unlike things are two figures that rest on congruences or correspondences. Synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail or quality of an experience for the experience itself.”
If I ask you to give me a hand, your "hand" stands for the whole of you – this is called synecdoche. Similarly if you bought a new car and I compliment your new car by saying “Nice wheels!” then the "wheels", which is a part of the car, represents the whole car. This is another example of synecdoche.
When I describe the library as “a house of pens”, it is metonymy. A library is not a house of pens; rather it is a house of books. However, pens are associated with writing and with books. Pens and books are therefore closely related although not actually part of the same thing. When figures are compared that are closely related (although not part of the same thing), it is called metonymy.
Consider the following questions from the "Reviewing Chapter Five" section in Sound & Sense:
- Distinguish between language used literally and language used figuratively, and consider why poetry is often figurative.
- Define the figures of comparison (simile and metaphor, personification and apostrophe), and rank them in order of their emotional effectiveness.
- Define the figures of congruence or correspondence (synecdoche and metonymy).
- Review the four major contributions of figurative language.
Figurative Language & Figures of Speech
Figurative language is language with a deeper and often aesthetic meaning and “cannot be taken literally” (Compare with connotation); a figure of speech is “any way of saying something other than the ordinary way,” (Sound & Sense, p. 71).
Figurative language contributes to poetry in four major ways (Sound & Sense, p. 79, 80):
Figurative language contributes to poetry in four major ways (Sound & Sense, p. 79, 80):
- Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure by linking different things in interesting ways.
- Figures of speech bring additional imagery into verse, making the abstract more concrete, and making poetry more sensuous.
- Figures of speech add emotional intensity to otherwise informative statements.
- Because figures of speech are so rich in meaning, they can say more in a small space.
More thoughts on Dickinson and Whitman
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are considered the two “original voices” in American poetry. Their themes and styles would become the bedrock of future American poetry. Note, however, how vastly different Dickinson and Whitman are in style. Dickinson’s verses read like hymns. She also made use of unconventional capitalization and the frequent use of the dash, especially at the end of verse lines. Whitman’s verses, on the other hand, are almost prose like and have a strong conversational feel to them. Whitman’s themes also differ in that he focused more on relationships and is considered to have been bisexual – his attraction to both men and women seeps through in his poetry.
For self-study try to answer the following exercise questions:
For self-study try to answer the following exercise questions:
- Read Kamilla Denman’s short essay “About Dickinson’s Use of the Dash” and then in your own words describe how you understand Dickinson’s use of the dash.
- Discuss Dickinson’s unconventional use of capitalization in “Apparently with no surprise”.
- Whitman often uses juxtapositions and paradoxes in his poems. See if you can find juxtapositions or paradoxes in the following poems: “Had I the Choice”, “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing”, and “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer”.
- Discuss the use of androgynous imagery in Whitman’s poem “To a Stranger”.
Two Great Voices: Dickenson & Whitman
Emily Dickenson (1830-1886)
Emily Dickenson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a prominent family. For one year she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now College), in nearby South Hadley then withdrew and returned to Amherst. Her adult life was as short on external incident as it was long on imagination. Dickenson lived at her family home in Amherst from 1848 on, she rarely received visitors, and in her mature years she never went out. Suffering from agoraphobia (the fear of public place) and perhaps from an eye disorder called exotropia, she became known as “Myth” and “the character of Amherst.” Fewer than a dozen of her poems were published in her lifetime. Such a solitary life hardly dulled her sensibilities, however, for Dickinson’s collected works—nearly two thousand poems, plus voluminous correspondence—brim with intense feeling, from terror to joy. The poems also reveal her intimate knowledge of the Bible, classical myth, and the works of Shakespeare; in addition, she admired the work of Transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson and read the Brontes, the Brownings, Keats, and George Eliot. In an era marked by its evangelical fervor, Dickinson adopted skepticism—though she did not arrive at it easily—and her poems are remarkable for their irony, ambiguity, paradox, and sardonic wit. She succinctly defined her aesthetic in the epigrammatic lines “Tell the Truth but tell it slant-/ Success in Circuit lies,” and she once told a friend: “If I read a book (and) it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” She wrote in the meters of hymns and made masterful use of the ballad stanza, often using slant rhyme. Although her innovations initially baffled critics, the public’s fascination with her life soon extended to her verse. She is, along with Walt Whitman, the most revered and influential of nineteenth-century American poets. (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Walt Whitman was born on Long Island, New York, and raised in Brooklyn. He left school at the age of eleven and worked as an office boy, a printer’s apprentice, and a teacher before establishing himself as a journalist affiliated with several prominent New York newspapers. In 1862, deeply moved by the scenes he witnessed while staying with his brother (a wounded Union soldier) in Washington, D.C., he spent several months visiting and nursing Civil War veterans. After the war, Whitman worked briefly at the Department of the Interior—he was fired for being the author of the “scandalous” Leaves of Grass (1855) – and for several years at the office of the attorney general. After suffering a debilitating stroke in 1873, he moved to his brother’s home in Camden, New Jersey, where he remained until his death. In Leaves of Grass, his masterpiece, Whitman assumed the mantle of the public poet; his preface to the 1855 edition calls “the United States themselves” his subject. Although his poetry offers a Transcendentalist view of the human being as wholly attuned with divine creation, individual poems that celebrated the body and sexuality opened him up to charges of obscenity. His prosody proved as controversial as his subject matter, and one critic stated that he was “as unacquainted with art as a hog is with mathematics.” In fact, Whitman’s refusal to follow the prevailing taste for regular meter, standard forms, and studied artifice was based on long and careful thought. His direct, realistic, intense, and exuberant poems have profoundly influenced modern poetry (for instance, William Carlos Williams’ Paterson and the work of the Beats) as well as American culture. (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)
Emily Dickenson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a prominent family. For one year she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now College), in nearby South Hadley then withdrew and returned to Amherst. Her adult life was as short on external incident as it was long on imagination. Dickenson lived at her family home in Amherst from 1848 on, she rarely received visitors, and in her mature years she never went out. Suffering from agoraphobia (the fear of public place) and perhaps from an eye disorder called exotropia, she became known as “Myth” and “the character of Amherst.” Fewer than a dozen of her poems were published in her lifetime. Such a solitary life hardly dulled her sensibilities, however, for Dickinson’s collected works—nearly two thousand poems, plus voluminous correspondence—brim with intense feeling, from terror to joy. The poems also reveal her intimate knowledge of the Bible, classical myth, and the works of Shakespeare; in addition, she admired the work of Transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson and read the Brontes, the Brownings, Keats, and George Eliot. In an era marked by its evangelical fervor, Dickinson adopted skepticism—though she did not arrive at it easily—and her poems are remarkable for their irony, ambiguity, paradox, and sardonic wit. She succinctly defined her aesthetic in the epigrammatic lines “Tell the Truth but tell it slant-/ Success in Circuit lies,” and she once told a friend: “If I read a book (and) it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” She wrote in the meters of hymns and made masterful use of the ballad stanza, often using slant rhyme. Although her innovations initially baffled critics, the public’s fascination with her life soon extended to her verse. She is, along with Walt Whitman, the most revered and influential of nineteenth-century American poets. (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Walt Whitman was born on Long Island, New York, and raised in Brooklyn. He left school at the age of eleven and worked as an office boy, a printer’s apprentice, and a teacher before establishing himself as a journalist affiliated with several prominent New York newspapers. In 1862, deeply moved by the scenes he witnessed while staying with his brother (a wounded Union soldier) in Washington, D.C., he spent several months visiting and nursing Civil War veterans. After the war, Whitman worked briefly at the Department of the Interior—he was fired for being the author of the “scandalous” Leaves of Grass (1855) – and for several years at the office of the attorney general. After suffering a debilitating stroke in 1873, he moved to his brother’s home in Camden, New Jersey, where he remained until his death. In Leaves of Grass, his masterpiece, Whitman assumed the mantle of the public poet; his preface to the 1855 edition calls “the United States themselves” his subject. Although his poetry offers a Transcendentalist view of the human being as wholly attuned with divine creation, individual poems that celebrated the body and sexuality opened him up to charges of obscenity. His prosody proved as controversial as his subject matter, and one critic stated that he was “as unacquainted with art as a hog is with mathematics.” In fact, Whitman’s refusal to follow the prevailing taste for regular meter, standard forms, and studied artifice was based on long and careful thought. His direct, realistic, intense, and exuberant poems have profoundly influenced modern poetry (for instance, William Carlos Williams’ Paterson and the work of the Beats) as well as American culture. (Biographical Summary from Norton's Anthology of Poetry, 4th Edition.)
Imagery
When language evoke our senses it is called imagery; everytime a poem makes us imagine something – something we can see (visual imagery), touch (tactile imagery), smell (olfactory imagery), taste (gustatory imagery), or hear (auditory imagery). When we can imagine movement it is known as kinesthetic imagery. Also, when the poetry makes us imagine internal sensations such as thirst, hunger, fatique, even nausea, it is known as organic imagery. Sound & Sense describes imagery as “the representation through language of sense experience” (p. 56).
Try to answer the following questions from the “Reviewing Chapter Four” section in Sound & Sense (p. 59):
1. State the definition of poetic imagery.
5. Draw the distinction between abstract statements and concrete, image-bearing statements, providing examples.
6. Demonstrate that ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings contribute to the richness of poetic language.
Try to answer the following questions from the “Reviewing Chapter Four” section in Sound & Sense (p. 59):
1. State the definition of poetic imagery.
5. Draw the distinction between abstract statements and concrete, image-bearing statements, providing examples.
6. Demonstrate that ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings contribute to the richness of poetic language.
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