Poetry
is a form of literary art. Poets use words, ideas, imagery, feelings,
and experience in their lives and combines them all into a poem.
Poetry is an ancient art form. It's roots is found in the 4th and
6th century B.C. One of the most beautiful poems ever written are
found in the Book of Psalms. This ancient book was written mostly
by a Hebrew lad named David. Most of the psalms deal with human misery
and suffering. Other poems in this book is about praise and about
the victories won by the Hebrew people. The Psalms are really hymns
that are meant to be sung or played with lyres or harps. Hebrew poetry
has two characteristics. It uses both parallelisms,
and membrorum. To cite an example, listen to
Psalm 61:
“O Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger,
nor chasten me in thy wrath.”
These two lines are synonymous. On the other hand, the second line in the unit may state the negative side of the first line's point, as in Proverbs 15:1:
“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Another form of biblical poetry is Wisdom Poetry. This form of poetry teaches a lesson, yet uses beautiful imagery and alliteration in its form. All poetry is written in some type of rhythmic pattern. Poetry is sort of set to music. When you listen closely to a line or stanza of poetry, you there is a steady beat and rhythm to it. Meter, is the highly regular element of verse rhythm. It depends on the strength and weakness of the stresses of adjacent syllables and monosyllables in words. A line of verse is measured in feet, measured by the total number of syllables in a line. An example of this is found in French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Welsh poetry. Geoffrey Chaucer first introduced this rhythmic pattern in his poems entitled, the Canterbury Tales.
In
English the very popular foot of poetry is called an
iamb.
It is composed of one unstressed syllable
followed by one stressed syllable (~ `). The number of feet in a
line of poetry gives you the meter. Shakespeare wrote in iambic
pentameter, a poem composed of five iambs
with a pattern of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables.
Shakespeare wrote just about all his sonnets
in
iambic
pentameter.
Many years later in the twentieth century a poet by the name of Robert
Frost published a very unique style of poetry. This
style of poetry was written in Blank Verse.
In Blank verse, the foot in a line of poetry is unrhymed iambic
pentameter.
List of Terms to Describe
Meter
Foot Example
Iambic
(unstressed, stressed)
Ex-plode
Trochee
(stressed, unstressed)
writ-ter
Spondee (stressed,
stressed))
hum-drum
Anapest (unstressed,
unstressed, stressed) after-noon
Dactyl
(stressed, unstressed, unstressed) type-wri-ter
Basho, a very popular Japanese
poet, made popular the Japanese Haiku.
The haiku is a short poem that is written about nature.
It is a seventeen line poem. In a haiku, the first line is composed
of five syllables, the second has three syllables, and the third seven
syllables. Bellow is a sample of one of Basho's haiku.
To a leg of a heron
Adding a long shank
Of a pheasant.
Basho
The elegy
is
a poem about death. The elegy mourns or laments upon the death of
a particular person. The pastoral elegy is a poem which represents
both the mourner and the person whom he mourns.
The narrative
poem
tells a story. Many poets like Dante used this type of poetry to
convey a story.
His 'Paradise Lost' told the story
of Creation and how man fell short out of God's favor. A type
of 'narrative' poem, is the ballad,
a type of poem that was popular in the Elizabethan age.
The word 'ballad' means 'to dance' and it was intended to accompany music
and dance. The ballads were supposed to be sung and used for dancing
as in a ballet. In a ballad poem the poet uses the ballad quatrian,
four - and -three stressed iambic lines. Many ballads have refrains
that must be sung over and over again, (much like a song). Many ballads
are really stories about a particular person.
The allegory
is
a poetic piece that tells a story. It fall under the Narrative Poems.
This type of poetry uses potent imagery to convey a lesson. Our lord
used this figure of speech in His parables.
The allegory uses words and images and abstract ideas to convey a higher
meaning or lesson.
The epic
is
a long poem. They discribe historical characters and heroic deeds.
The Lliad is a good example of an Epic. They were written
in the 700's B.C. by Homer, a Greek Poet.
