People don’t usually speak or write like in a poem so whenever you open a book of poetry you may be struck by the words and their organisation into fixed lines. Indeed, the word “poetry” comes from a Greek verb meaning “to make”.
A poem speaks to one’s sensibility and it conveys a message to the reader, it should be read aloud to listen to its sounds as well as its words. In order to study poetry it is crucial to understand that a poem is a form of communication with codes that need deciphering.
Among the most common types of poetry there is the ballad, which was meant to be sung, it tells a story through several stanzas. An ode was a long lyric poem often praising someone or something. The sonnet became famous thanks to Shakespeare in England and it has remained successful for five centuries. This short lyric poem consists of fourteen lines made up of two quatrains and a stanza of six lines following a set rhyme scheme (a/b / a/b / c/d / c/d / e/f / e/f / g/g). It mainly uses iambic pentameters (five feet per line and rhythmed with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one). An epic (or heroic) poem was a long narrative poem dealing with a serious subject. An elegy was often written for someone’s death whereas an epithalamion celebrated a marriage.
What sounds can be heard?
The alliteration, that is to say the repetition of initial consonants, was often compulsory in Old English verse (ex: “Full fathom five thy father lies…” – Shakespeare).
The consonance is the repetition of consonants within words (ex: “Alone, alone, all, all alone” – Coleridge) and the assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within a line (ex: “A host, of golden daffodils” – William Wordsworth).
As for rhyme, it is possible to distinguish end rhyme (at the end of lines), initial rhyme (at the beginning of lines), internal rhyme (inside a line) or slant rhyme which is imperfect rhyme mostly used in the 20th century poetry as a reaction against the regularity of classic poetry.
Rhythm is essential in English poetry, it consists in the succession of stressed (or strong) and unstressed (or weak) syllables, each line is divided into a number of feet and each foot is made up of 2 or 3 syllables and it contains at least one stressed syllable. Rhythm is all about musicality which is why poetry must be read aloud!
To convey : transmettre, communiquer
A stanza : une strophe
Rhyme scheme : disposition des rimes
Compulsory : obligatoire
Slant rhyme : rime défectueuse
