1. Poetic Forms & Genres Poetic Language and Poetic Form Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

2. Genre ‘In literature genre refers to the classification into ‘types’ or ‘forms’ or ‘kinds’… How tightly or prescriptively genre can be defined has been a long-standing argument in literary studies as theorists propose new criteria and different classifications.’ (Wainwright, Poetry: the Basics) Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

3. Epic, lyric, dramatic ‘For the medium being the same, and the objects the same, the poet may imitate by narration - in which case he can either take another personality as Homer does, or speak in his own person, unchanged - or he may present all his characters as living and moving before us.’ (Aristotle, Poetics, c. 335 BC) Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

4. Definitions Epic: concerned with narrative, long poem Lyrical: concerned with states, incidents and moments, often in 1stperson Dramatic: verse as spoken, sung, or chanted in plays as part of a dialogue, voice of other character(s) Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

6. a hierarchy ranging from epic and tragedy at the top to the pastoral, short lyric, epigram, and other types at the bottom

7. appropriate subject to the appropriate form and language was known as the concept of decorum

8. Neoclassical Genre TheorySarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

9. Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form C18 onwards: confidence in the fixity and stability of genres gradually weakened. Early C19 onwards: the lyric poem became the most important poetic genre, replacing that of the epic and dramatic poem. Critics tended to use broader terms such as “sincerity,” “intensity,” “organic unity” which didn’t imply a particular literary genre.

10. Points to bear in mind... genres are always evolving and developing we can bring our knowledge of poetic genres to a poem to see if these conventions have been employed, or omitted and subverted in some way. Sometimes a poet will evoke a whole tradition through referring to a particular poetic genre: Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

11. Elegy (W.S. Merwin) Who would I show it to Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

12. Relationship of Genre to History & Culture Early Epic or Heroic Poetry The Medieval Romance The Elizabethan Sonnet The Neoclassical Verse ‘Essay’ The Romantic Ode Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

13. Developing definitions Just as genres change and develop throughout literary history, so do our ideas about the nature of literary genre itself. It is that capacity of the work to transgress boundaries that makes genres such protean and paradoxical conventions. The system is dynamic, multidimensional, constantly changing. (F & B) Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

14. Structuralism Attention paid to all kinds of conventions and generic codes ‘a desire to isolate codes, to name the various languages with and among which the text plays...’ (Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics, 1975) SYNCHRONIC occurring at one point in time DIACHRONIC evolving over time ‘Literary Competence’ Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

15. Tzvetan Todorov Poetry in general does not exist, but variable conceptions of poetry exist and will continue to exist, not only from one period or country to another but also from one text to another (Genres in Discourse, 1990). Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

17. Fixed Forms: set patterns, e.g. Sonnet, Limerick.

18. Traditional fixed forms such as the sonnet can also be a genre, because apart from the specific pattern, it also builds up various conventions of structure and content, which have a history. Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

19. Limerick There was a young woman from Norway Who hung from her toes in the doorway She said to her beau ‘Come over here Joe I think I’ve discovered one more way!’ (attrib. Swinburne 1837) Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

20. Poetic Form Poetic form (singular): everything that goes into a poem – the way the poem is structured. ‘The form of a work is the principle that determines its organization’ (Abrams) the organization of the poem’s contents in order to generate specific meanings or effects Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

21. Formal devices specific to poetry The poetic line Rhythm, rhyme stand out more The double pattern: looking at a poem’s formal structure together with its individual language and phrasing Look at the shape of the poem: visually patterned poetry is known as Emblem (traditional) or Concrete (modern) poetry. Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

22. ‘Easter Wings’ (George Herbert 1633) Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poore: With thee Oh let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did beginne: And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sinne, That I became Most thinne. With thee Let me combine And feel this day thy victorie: For, if I imp my wing on thine Affliction shall advance the flight in me. Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

24. From ‘Song of Myself’ (Walt Whitman, 1855) I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth Anaphora: a word or phrase repeated at the start of lines Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

26. From ‘Paradise Lost’ (Milton, 1667) …For so I formed them free, and free they must remain, Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change Their nature Double syntax on ‘change’ Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

27. From ‘Tintern Abbey’ (William Wordsworth, 1798) Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye and ear – both what they half create, And what perceive… Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

29. (b) poetic form echoes or reflects content/meaning but there is still a distinct division between the two aspects of poetry;

30. (c) poetic form and content are organically interrelated. It’s difficult to talk about one aspect of the poem without acknowledging the work of the other.Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form

31. Sarah Law Poetic Language and Poetic Form All [poems] are verbal spaces, marked out deliberately, with deliberation, and for deliberation. The poet feels for a space that seems at one demanding and accommodating, whether given by tradition or made anew. It is a space marked for special attention... the deliberate space of the poem. (Wainwright, Poetry: The Basics)