Prosody of Dickinson and Whitman - Essay Example

Street Address ST ZIP e-mail phone fax Word Count: 1697 Introduction Poetry is a form of communication that writers use to tell a story. Writers use various poetic forms to help the reader understand the meaning behind the words. Just as writers have tools they use to express meaning in words readers have tools they can use to evaluate or understand poetry. This paper will examine poetic devices and form that writers have used. The poetry of Emily Dickenson and Walt Whitman will be used as examples of usage of poetic devices. 1. Prosody Webster's Dictionary gives the following definition of Prosody: Prosody Noun 1. The patterns of stress and intonation in a language. 2. A system of versification. 3. The study of poetic meter and the art of versification. When examining a poem one should, with pencil in hand, read and reread the poem. Poets use all sorts of cues to get their poetry to speak beyond what the words alone can do. Examples of cues used are the structure, rhyme, line breaks and language. Each cue gives a desired effect. For example: The space between stanzas gives a cue to reader to pause. 2. Comparisons There are many different types of poetic form used by poets. Again, these are used by the poet to create a desired affect. Imagery can be used by poets. Walt Whitman used Imagery in his poem O Captain! My Captain!. When looking at the poem the structure stands out. Whitman used the layout to make it look like a ship heading toward its destination. If you trace around the stanzas you will find that the outline looks much like a ship. That's the desired affect that Whitman wanted. Below are the first two stanzas: O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead. Metaphorical Language is language used to compare one thing with another. In Emily Dickenson's poem 632 she uses metaphorical language: The Brain is deeper than the sea- For - hold them- Blue to Blue- The one the other will absorb- As Sponges - Buckets - do - In this poem she compares the brain's ability to absorb with sponges and buckets. Rhetorical schemes are used by poets to continually change the meaning of a poem. These schemes are parallelism, anaphora, antithesis, and chiasmus. All are used to heighten the patterns in poetry. Walt Whitman uses anaphora in his "Song of Myself". He uses a part of speech in the beginning of some lines (92-92): And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love, And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, And brown ants in the little wells beneath them, And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed. A poetic device that most are familiar with is 'rhyme'. Rhyme is the repeating of ending sounds in a poem. Emily Dickenson used rhyming patterns in her poetry such as "To Make a Prairie (1755)" and Poem 632 In the poem "I Cannot Live With You" rhyme is used in the fourth section: And were You lost, I would be- Though My Name Rang loudest On the Heavenly fame- And were You-saved- And I-condemned to be Where You were not- That self-were Hell to Me- Not only did Dickenson use the traditional form of rhyme in her poems she used what is called 'slant rhymes'. Slant rhymes are words that are similar in meaning. In her poem "Bustle in a House" Dickenson used slant rhymes such as Death/Earth and Away/Eternity. Other poetic cues used in poetry are alliteration, assonance, meter, and point of view. Alliteration is the repeated use of consonants at the beginning of words. Assonance is the repeated use of vowel sounds in initial position. Meter is the recurrence of a pattern in the poem. Dickenson was noted for using the meters of hymnals which were short four-line stanzas. Sometimes punctuation is used to show the reader where to stop, pause, or how to control their voice. These punctuational pauses are called end-stop, enjambed, and caesura. In the poem "O Captain! My Captain! Whitman uses the exclamation point to tell the reader to recite the poem with forceful voice. This poem was written after President Lincoln had been assassinated and shows the shock that must have gone through the whole United States. "Oh Captain! My Captain!" might be recited much like the phrases we often use today: Oh My God! Holy Cow! As stated earlier this particular poem has its stanzas positioned like a ship. This shape helped convey the loss of the Captain of the United States. The end-stop is typically noted with a comma or a period. The enjambed is typically noted with text that moves right on into the next line with no punctuation. A caesura is a pause in the middle of a line indicated by a comma or a period Walt Whitman's poetic style was a departure from the norm at that time in history. Most English language poets used "accentual-syllabic" form. This was a mixture of syllables and stresses in any line. Whitman's poetry was written in free verse which is poetry that has no set or regular rhyme or rhythm. But, when read aloud the poem develops its own version of rhyme that can be detected by the reader. Although his poetry was not the norm it was well received. Onomatopoeia is the use of words to imitate sounds. Examples include: I am swooshing down the hill. I will swish with mouthwash. A bee says buzz. Click the button to take a picture. Simile is a comparison between objects such as "the water is like the sun". Emily Dickenson used simile in her poem "If you were coming in the Fall": It goads me, like the goblin bee, that will not state its sting She is comparing waiting for the bee to sting to her impending loneliness. Other poetic forms include personification, point of view, and use of language. Personification is when the writer gives animals or inanimate objects human traits. In the Walt Disney film "Beauty and the Beast" the members of the Beast's household were turned into objects. During the film these objects spoke, danced, served tea, etc Disney's writers personified the objects. Using the 'point of view' is when the writer puts the reader at a sort of vantage point. For example, when reading a poem aloud that begins with "I" the vantage point of the reader is as the speaker or writer. This can be done in first person and third person. Some poets use language or dialect to add character to their poems. Irish poet Seamus Heaney often uses Irish or Anglo-Saxon dialects in his poetry. It adds a sense of being there to his poems. One can almost imagine being in the Irish countryside driving around and stopping at checkpoints (Northern Ireland). 3. Conclusion Poets have many tools at their disposal when they write. Poets use these tools to help the reader understand what is written. Many poems are stories put to rhyme or verse. Writers use punctuation, structure, line breaks, and repetition to help tell their stories. Poems written in dialect or formal language give the reader cues on how to read the poetry. Poems are often written in stanzas of four lines. The break between stanzas encourages the reader to pause before reading the next stanza. Imagery is also a powerful tool as shown in the poem "O Captain! My Captain!" That poem uses three things to capture the reader: punctuation, imagery, and underlying meaning. Readers of poetry have tools at their disposal as well. To read and garner meaning from poetry the reader needs to be familiar with prosody. Again, prosody is the language of poetry. Understanding the use of patterns, intonations, meter, and versification will help the reader understand what the writer was trying to convey. Readers should consider a poem carefully by examining the title and looking for any imagery that may, or may not, be apparent. Sometimes paraphrasing a poem aloud allows the reader to become aware of what the poem means. Unfolding a poem is just thatit is the slowing down and taking a closer look at the structure of the poem and answering questions that include deciding whether the poem is a comparison or an analogy. The reader can examine the poem for allusions that may be present, divisions, rhymes, patterns, or rhythms that may be apparent. The reader could also look up difficult words or words that belong to a different dialect or language. Sometimes the poet may use figurative language that might not be immediately apparent. It might be useful to the reader to read up on the writer. Some background or history might make the poem more understandable. Both the poets examined were ahead of their time when they wrote poetry. Many of Emily Dickenson's poems were not published until after she passed away and her family found her notebooks. Whitman also wrote his works using notebook design. The handwritten "O Captain! My Captain!" shows how he lined up his work to resemble a ship. The fact that he took time to write the poem tells how he, and maybe the Nation, felt about their President Lincoln. Works Cited: Bradford, Richard. "A Linguistic History of English Poetry". London. Routledge. 1993 Glossary of Poetic Devices. "Poet's Bookshelf" 2007. www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/poetry2.htm Hollander, John. "Rhyme's Reason: A guide to English verse". Yale University Press. 1989. Morris, Timothy. "The Ghost of Meter: Culture and Prosody in American Free Verse". University of Texas Arlington. 1994. www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspxid=1G1:16130841 Oliver, Mary. "A Poetry Handbook". San Diego: Harcourt Brace. 1994. Poets.org "Guide to Emily Dickenson's Collected Poems." The Academy of American Poets. 2007. www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/310 University of Madison, Wisconsin. "Writers Handbook, Common Writing Assignments, Reading Poetry". 2007. www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/ReadingPoetry.html University of Toronto. Representative Poetry Online. "Walt Whitman (1819-1892)Song of Myself". http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2288.html Read More