Perrine's Poetry Chapter Introductions Study Guide

What two reasons does the text give for the universality of poetry?

It gives pleasure and regards as something central to existence.

What definition of poetry is offered at the beginning of the chapter?

Poetry is a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language.

What are the three most common uses of language? With which one is poetry most concerned?

Three most common uses of language are practical, literary, and argumentative. Poetry is most concerned with literary.

In what two ways does literature allow us to participate in an experience?

Literature allows us to participate in an experience by broadening and deepening our experience.

What two limiting approaches to poetry should we avoid? Why?

Two limiting approaches to avoid are to always look for a lesson or moral and to always find poetry beautiful because we are bound to be disappointed and poetry is sometimes to be ugly rather than beautiful.

Fill in the blank: "Poetry is the most ___________ and ___________ form of literature."

"Poetry is the most __condense__ and __concentrated__ form of literature."

What four dimensions make up the language of poetry? How does poetry achieve these "extra" dimensions?

Four dimensions are: intellectual dimension, sensuous dimension, emotional dimension, and imaginative dimension. Poetry achieves these "extra" dimensions by drawing more fully and more consistently than ordinary language on a number of resources.

What five suggestions does the text offer to help you develop your understanding and appreciation of poetry? (Note: Suggestion #5 has three sub-parts that should be addressed.)

1) Read a poem more than once.
2) Keep a dictionary by you and use it.
3) Read so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind.
4) Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying.
5) Practice reading poems aloud.
(a) Read it affectionately, but not affectedly.
(b) Of the two extremes, reading too fast offers greater danger than reading too slow.
(c) Read the poem so that the rhythmical pattern is felt but not exaggerated.

What does it mean to paraphrase a poem? Why should we do this, and what should a good paraphrase look like?

Paraphrase: To restate the poem in a different language, so as to make its prose sense as plain as possible.
The paraphrase may be longer or shorter than the poem, but it should contain all the ideas in the poem in such a way as to make them clear and to make the central idea, or theme, of the poem more accessible.

What four questions does the text suggest we ask ourselves after paraphrasing? Explain what is meant by each of these questions.

Four questions are: Who is the speaker? What is the occasion? What is the central purpose of the poem? By what means is that purpose achieved?
The speaker is someone other than the poet. The occasion is to think of poems as dramatic. The central purpose is to fully understand their function and meaning. The purpose is achieved by describing the poems dramatic framework.

What cautions does the text give about associating the poet with the speaker?

Some cautions the text gives us about associating the poet with the speaker is: to assume always that the speaker is someone other than the poet and that we must be very careful about identifying anything in a poem with the biography of the poet.

What kind of mental state should you be in when you read poetry? Why?

One should be in an utmost mental alertness to arouse and awake, shock us into life, and make us more alive. This is because poets want readers to be able to fully understand their work.

Explain the difference between structure and form.

Structure is the arrangement of ideas, images, thoughts, and sentences. Form is an external pattern or shape.

Explain the difference between continuous form, stanzaic form, and fixed form. (Note: Your explanation of "stanzaic form" should include a definition of the word "stanza.")

Continuous form, the lines follow each other without formal grouping. The only breaks are dictated by units of meaning. Stanzaic form, the poem writes in a series of stanzas, which is repeated units having the same number of lines. Fixed form is a traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem.

Rhyme scheme

Any fixed pattern of rhymes characterizing a whole poem or its stanzas.

Define sonnet, and describe the difference between Italian (Petrarchan) sonnets and English (Elizabethan) sonnets.

Sonnets must be fourteen lines in length. Italian sonnets are divided usually between eight lines called an octave. English sonnets consists of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.

Explain how the sonnet form relates to its structure.

The sonnet form relates to its structure because the form may seem appropriate or inappropriate but excellent sonnets have been written outside the traditional areas.

Define villanelle.

A 19-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19.

What three reasons does the text give for the use of fixed forms?

1) Fixed forms helps avoid the potentially monotonous effects of repetition by varying the stress patterns and the meaning of the repeated lines.
2) The fixed form serves the poem's meaning, since the repetition and the circular quality of the villanelle, its continued reiteration of the same two lines, emphasizes the speaker's emotional treadmill.
3) It does not merely display the poet's technical ability but appropriately supports the tone and meaning of them poem.

What does the text refer to as a primary distinction between the practical use of language and the literary use of language? What do you think this means?

The primary distinction between the practical use of language and the literary use of language is that in literature, especially in poetry, a fuller use is make of individual words.
I think this means that we need to examine the composition of a word.

What three component parts make up the average word?

The average word has three component parts: sound denotation, and connotation.

Explain the difference between denotation and connotation.

Denotation is the dictionary meaning or meanings of a word.
Connotation are what it suggests beyond what it expresses: its overtones of meaning.

Explain the difference between denotation and connotation of the pair of words:
House and home

Home:
Denotation means only a place where one lives, but by connotation it suggests security, love, comfort, and family.

Explain the difference between denotation and connotation of the pair of words:
Childlike and childish

Childlike and childish:
Connotation, both mean "characteristic of a child," but childlike suggests meekness, innocence, and wide-eyed wonder, while childish suggests pettiness, willfulness, and temper tantrums.

Explain the difference between denotation and connotation of the pair of words:
Nickel and doubloon

The denotation of both nickel and doubloon, is that they are both a form of money. The word doubloon, suggests pirates, though a dictionary definition includes nothing about pirates. (This was all that was stated in the book)

Why are connotation and words with multiple denotations particularly important in poetry?

Connotation is very important because it is one of the means by which the poet can concentrate or enrich meaning (say more in fewer words). The practical writer will usually attempt to confine words to one denotation at a time; the poet will often take advantage of the fact that the word has more than one meaning by using it to mean more than one thing at a time.

Define diction. What role does it play in poetry?

Diction: The choice and use of words in writing or speech (definition from collinsdictionary.com)
In poetry, diction may help to provide clear insight into the purpose of the poem by helping to characterize the speaker.

What two ways does the text suggest you can develop a stronger sense of language?

Two ways the text suggests to develop a stronger sense of language is through the extensive use of the diction and extensive reading.

Which word in each group has the most "romantic" connotations? Explain your choice.
Horse, steed, nag

Nag

Which word in each group has the most "romantic" connotations? Explain your choice.
King, ruler, tyrant, autocrat

Tyrant

Which word in each group has the most "romantic" connotations? Explain your choice.
Chicago, Pittsburgh, Samarkand, Detroit

Samarkand

Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative? Explain your choice.
Female parent, mother, dam

(May be incorrect)
Mother because it evokes a feeling of safety and affection.

Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative? Explain your choice.
Offspring, children, progeny

(May be incorrect)
Children because it evokes a feeling of happiness and innocence.

Which word in each group is the most emotionally connotative? Explain your choice.
Brother, sibling

(May be incorrect)
Brother because it is more specific, conveying a deeper sense of feeling.

Arrange the words in each group from most positive to most negative in connotation:
Skinny, thin, gaunt, slender

(May be incorrect)
Skinny, slender, thin, gaunt

Arrange the words in each group from most positive to most negative in connotation:
Prosperous, loaded, moneyed, affluent

(May be incorrect)
Affluent, prosperous, moneyed, loaded (subject to change/be incorrect)

Arrange the words in each group from most positive to most negative in connotation:
Brainy, intelligent, eggheaded, smart

(May be incorrect)
Intelligent, brainy, smart, eggheaded

Of the following, which should you be less offended at being accused of:
(a) having acted foolishly, or
(b) having acted like a fool?
Why?

I would be less offended at being accused of having acted foolishly because it is less harsh and has a more positive connotation than having acted like a fool.

In any competent piece of writing, the possible multiple denotations and connotations of the words are controlled by context. The context screens out irrelevant meanings while allowing the relevant meanings to pass through. What denotation has the word fast in the following contexts? What are the varying connotations of these four denotations of fast?
a. Fast runner
b. Fast color
c. Fast living
d. Fast day

Disclaimer: This may all be incorrect, except for the definitions
a. Denotation: The runner is moving at a great speed.
Connotation: Someone who is running quickly.
b. Denotation: The color does come out of the fabrics they are used on when they get wet.
Connotation: Color associated with something that is occurring at high speeds.
c. Denotation: Fast living is one which involves a lot of enjoyable and expensive or dangerous activities.
Connotation: Life is moving by very quickly.
d. Denotation: A fast day is where a clock is showing a time that is later than the real time.
Connotation: You are having a lot of fun so it feels as though time has not moved at all when in fact, it is later than you perceived.

Explain how in the following examples the denotation of the word white remains the same. but the connotations differ:
(a) The young princess had blue eyes, golden hair, and a breast as white as snow
(b) Confronted with the evidence, the false princess turned as white as a sheet.

White in both examples is a shade of color.
However, in (a), the use of the word white is to describe the young princess's appearance and conveying how her complexion is fair.
In (b), the use of the word white conveys that the false princess is shocked at being discovered and confronted.

According to the first paragraph of the chapter, how is a poet's language different from ordinary language?

The poet's language is more sensuous than ordinary language. It is richer than imagery.

Define imagery.

Imagery is the representation through language of sense of experience.

Define and give an example of the seven types of imagery:

1) Auditory imagery (sound)
ex. The sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.
2) Factory imagery (smell)
ex. Sea-scented beach
3) Gustatory imagery (taste)
ex. Rich, creamy sweetness of homemade ice cream
4) Tactile imagery (touch)
ex. The feeling of sand on the beach
5) Organic imagery (internal sensation)
ex. "I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend."
6) Kinesthetic Imagery (movement or tension in the muscles or joints)
ex. The startled little waves with their fiery singlets.
7) Visual imagery (a mental picture)
ex. The gray sea

What determines the sharpness and vividness of an image?

They depend on how specific it is and on the poet's use of effective detail.

Why is imagery an "invaluable resource" for the poet?

Imagery is a peculiarly effective way of evoking vivid experience. It may be used to convey emotion and suggest ideas as well as cause a mental reproduction of sensations.

Should we evaluate a poem based on the absence or presence of imagery? Why or why not?

We cannot evaluate a poem by amount of quality of its imagery alone. Sense impression is only one of the elements of experience. We should never judge any single element of a poem except in reference to the total intent of that poem

Why does the text suggest that we use figures of speech in our everyday language?

We can say what we want to say more vividly and forcefully by figures of speech than we can by saying it directly.
Figures of speech offer another way of adding extra dimensions to language.

Define figure of speech and figurative language.

Figure of speech: Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly (and for the purposes of this book) a way of saying one thing and meaning another.
Figurative language: Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally.

Explain the difference between simile and metaphor.

In simile, the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase (like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems).
In metaphor, the comparison is not expressed but is created when a figurative term is substituted for or identified with the literal term.

Identify the four types of metaphors.

1) That in which the literal term and the figurative term are both named
2) That in which the literal term is named and the figurative term implied
3) That in which the literal term is implied and the figurative term named
4) That in which both the literal and the figurative terms are implied

Define personification, and explain its relationship to metaphor.

Personification: A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.
It is a subtype of metaphor, an implied comparison in which the figurative term of the comparison is always a human being.

Define apostrophe.

A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply.

Explain the difference between synecdoche and metonymy, and give an example of each.

Synecdoche is the use of the part for the whole.
ex. "These gun will fire" (The police will fire their guns)
Metonymy is the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant.
ex. "Catalogues of domes" (enough doomed buildings to fill a catalogue)

What four reasons does the text give for the increased effectiveness of figurative language over direct statement?

1) Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure.
2) Figures of speech are a way of bringing additional imagery into verse, of making the abstract concrete, of making poetry more sensuous.
3) A way of addition emotional intensity to otherwise merely informative statements and of conveying attitudes along with information.
4) An effective means of concentration, a way of saying much in brief compass.

What questions should we consider after identifying an example of figurative language?

What use is being made of this figure? How does it contribute to the experience of the poem?

Define symbol.

Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, or action that in addition to it literal meaning suggests other meanings as well.

Explain the difference between image, metaphor, and symbol.

An image means only what it is; a metaphor means something other than what it is, and a symbol means what it is and something more too.

Explain why symbols are both the richest and the most difficult of the poetic figures.

Although the poet may pin down the meaning of a symbol to something fairly definite and precise, more often the symbol is so general in its meaning that it can suggest a variety of specific meanings. (Richness and difficulty result from its imprecision).

Why is interpreting symbols a balancing act?

It requires delicacy, tact, and good sense in order to have an accurate interpretation of the symbol.

Why is it better to underinterpret a symbol than to overinterpret it?

It is better to underinterpret because the reader has at least understood part of the experience that the poem communicates, but the reader who reads into it anything imaginable might as well discard the poem and simply daydream.

Define allegory, and explain how it is different from a symbol.

Allegory: A narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface.
It is different from symbol because it puts less emphasis on the images for their own sake and more on their ulterior meanings and these meanings are more fixed.

Based on the discussion of modern versus medieval/Renaissance writing on p. 743, why do you think allegory is less common today than it used to be?

Allegory is less common today because it was mainly used to disguise meaning rather than reveal it.

Define paradox. Explain how we resolve the apparent contradiction and why paradoxes are valuable to a writer. (You may want to review the paradox in the example poem so you are able to answer a question about it on your test.)

Paradox: A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements.
We resolve the apparent contradiction by understanding all the conditions and circumstances involved in a paradox. It is valuable to a writer because of its shock value, its seemingly impossibility startles the reader into attention and, by the fact of tis apparent absurdity, underscores the truth of what is being said.

Define hyperbole, and explain why a writer might use it.

Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth.
A writer might use it to add emphasis to what they really mean.

Define understatement, and explain the two types identified in the text.

Understatement: A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.
1) Stating less than the truth
2) Stating what is literally true but with less force than the situation warrants.

Explain the difference between verbal irony, sarcasm, and satire.

Verbal irony says the opposite of what one means; sarcasm is simply bitter or cutting speech, intended to wound the feelings; satire is used to ridicule human folly or vice, with the purpose of bringing about reform or at least of keeping other people from falling into similar folly or vice.

Why are the risks of misunderstanding irony greater than those associated with misunderstanding another literary term?

If you misunderstand irony, the reader goes away with an idea exactly the opposite of what the user meant to convey.

Define both dramatic irony and irony of situation.

Dramatic irony: An incongruity or discrepancy between what a character says or thinks and what the reader knows to be true.
Irony of situation: A situation in which there is an incongruity between appearance and reality.

Why are dramatic irony and irony of situation powerful devices for poetry?

They enable a poem to suggest meanings without stating them (to communicate a great deal more than is said).

Define allusion, and explain how it is similar to a richly connotative word or a symbol.

Allusion: A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history. It is like a rich a richly connotative word or a symbol, a means of suggest far more than it says.

What is the purpose of using allusions in a poem?

Allusions are a means of reinforcing the emotion or the ideas of one's own work with the emotion or ideas of another work or occasion.

What sources are included in what the text considers "a certain fund of common experience in readers"?

The sources are most frequently of classical mythology, Shakespeare, or the Bible-- particularly the King James Version.

Define, fully, tone.

Tone, in literature, may be defined as the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the reader, or herself or himself. It is the emotional coloring, or the emotional meaning, of the work and is an extremely important part of the full meaning. In spoken language, it is indicated by the inflections of the speaker's voice. A correct interpretation of the tone will be an important part of understanding the full meaning.
In poetry tone, we have not really understood a poem unless we have accurately sensed whether the attitude it manifests is playful or solemn, mocking or reverent, calm or excited. But the correct determination of tone in literature is a much more delicate matter than it is in spoken language, for we do not have the speaker's voice to guide us. We must learn to recognize tone through the use of elements of poetry.

Why is it important to identify the tone of a poem, why is it more challenging to identify tone in a poem than in everyday speech, and how can we identify tone in a poem?

It is important to identify the tone of a poem because we have not really understood a poem unless we have sense whether the attitude it manifests is playful or solemn, mocking or reverent, calm or excited.
It is more challenging to identify tone in a poem than in everyday speech because we do not have the speaker's voice to guide us.
We can identify tone in a poem by using the elements of poetry: connotation, imagery, and metaphor; irony and understatement; rhythm, sentence construction, and formal pattern.