Romanticism to Realism

**Poetic structure**

the organization of parts that make it a whole - the way the words are arranged in lines, lines are arranged in stanzas, and the units of sound are arranged to achieve rhyme and rhythm

2 types of poetic structure

traditional form and organic form

Traditional form

follows certain fixed rules

**Organic form**

flexible verse forms to fit the new content of poetry in the early 19th century - the form of the poem “grows” from the content of the poem

**Ballad**

tells a story and usually has meter, rhyme, and repeated passages

**Epic**

long, thoughtful poem about the adventures of a hero

**Elegy**

**l**ong, thoughtful poem about a serious subject (especially death)

**Ode**

complex lyric poem (expresses personal thoughts and feelings) on a serious, dignified theme

**Blank Verse**

unrhymed iambic pentameter (each line contains 5 feet where a foot is a stressed and unstressed syllable, thus 10 syllables)

**Free Verse**

poetry that lacks regular meter and rhyme - does not follow any strict rules

**Enjambment**

running lines of poetry from one to the next without using any kind of punctuation (period, comma) to indicate a stop

Walt Whitman

Served as a civil war solider and gave first hand accounts of the war. Celebrated all aspect of American life- the unique and the commonplace, the beautiful and the ugly. Poems were vulgar and controversial…

Emily Dickson

Although a recluse, they were able to write poems about topics/themes they had never personally been able to experience. They were extremely close with their father, lived on the east coast (away from the issues of slavery), and fell in love with a minister…

Fedrick Douglass

Was originally a house slave and was taught to read and write. Their owner loaned them out to a fellow farmer where they began working in the fields. During their time working in fields, they learned to fight back against their masters. They wrote slave narratives…

Harriet Jacobs

Lived their life as a light-skinned house slave. They were well educated and had two children with a white man. When their master’s son tried to pursue them, they made a daring escape, leaving their two children behind. The father of her two children would later buy the children’s freedom. They also wrote slave narratives…

Walt Whitman

Unlike Emily Dickinson, whose poems usually rhymed and were short/concise, this authors poems were long and written in free verse…

Ambrose Bierce and Emily Dickinson

Both of these writers were influenced by the dark/gothic romantics…

Ambrose Bierce

Served as a civil war solider and wrote first-hand accounts of the war. Their stories normally dealt with the brutal contrast between soldiers’ dreams of glory and the senselessness of warfare. They exposed bigotry, hypocrisy, and corruption with razor-sharp satire…

Stephen Crane

This writer was influenced by Ambrose Bierce. Their works have been credited with marking the beginning of modern American Naturalism. They also wrote *The Red Badge of Courage...*

Stephen Crane

Work disregarded plot and character development, and therefore they were unable to sustain longer works of fiction.