Lesson 6 in the Poetry Unit

1. • The study of poetic sounds and rhythms
• The music of poetry
• Poetry often requires a regular beat
• Poets blend words and ideas together so that
the sound becomes and echo to the sense.
• How poets control their words so that the
sound of a poem complements its expression
of emotions and ideas.
Prosody

2. Pausing and Stopping in Poetry
• Caesura-pauses in poetry
• The placement of caesurae is intentional.
– When a caesura ends a line usually with a comma,
semicolon, or period that line is end-stopped
– if a line has no punctuation at the end and the
thought carries over to the next line it is called
enjambment

3. Sounds
• Assonance is the repetition of identical vowel
sounds in different words
• Alliteration is when words repeat the same
consonant sound
• Euphony-good sounding and smooth words
• Cacophony-bad sounding and harsh words

4. Rhyme-words that contain identical
final syllables
• Exact Rhyme-apple / dapple
• Internal Rhyme- rhyme within a line of poetry
• Cliché Rhyme- cat / hat
• Eye Rhyme-love / dove
• Near Rhyme/Half Rhyme-formed with similar but not
identical rhyme
• Identical Rhyme-the same words are placed into
rhyming positions
• Rhyme Scheme-refers to a poem’s patterns or
rhyming sound abab, cdcd, efef,gg

5. • Annabel Lee
• BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
• It was many and many a year ago,
• In a kingdom by the sea,
• That a maiden there lived whom you may know
• By the name of Annabel Lee;
• And this maiden she lived with no other thought
• Than to love and be loved by me.
•
I was a child and she was a child,
• In this kingdom by the sea,
• But we loved with a love that was more than
love—
• I and my Annabel Lee—
• With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
• Coveted her and me.
•
And this was the reason that, long ago,
• In this kingdom by the sea,
• A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
• My beautiful Annabel Lee;
• So that her highborn kinsmen came
• And bore her away from me,
• To shut her up in a sepulchre
• In this kingdom by the sea.
• The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
• Went envying her and me—
• Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
• In this kingdom by the sea)
• That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
• Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
•
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
• Of those who were older than we—
• Of many far wiser than we—
• And neither the angels in Heaven above
• Nor the demons down under the sea
• Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
• Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
•
For the moon never beams, without bringing me
dreams
• Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
• And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright
eyes
• Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
• And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
• Of my darling—my darling—my life and my
bride,
• In her sepulchre there by the sea—
• In her tomb by the sounding sea.

6. • 1. How does the speaker explain the death of Annabel Lee? What is his attitude
about the cause of her death? How does this judgment explain the actions he
describes at the poem’s end?
• 2. Why do stanzas 3,5, and 6 contain more lines than stanzas 1,2, and 4? Why does
stanza 5 contain seven lines, concluding with a dash.
• 3. Describe the poem’s internal rhymes, repetitions, assonances, and alliterations.
What is their effect? Why did Poe include them?

7. • Miniver Cheevy
• BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSONMiniver
Cheevy, child of scorn,
• Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
• He wept that he was ever born,
• And he had reasons.
•
Miniver loved the days of old
• When swords were bright and steeds
were prancing;
• The vision of a warrior bold
• Would set him dancing.
•
Miniver sighed for what was not,
• And dreamed, and rested from his
labors;
• He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
• And Priam’s neighbors.
•
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
• That made so many a name so fragrant;
• He mourned Romance, now on the town,
• Miniver loved the Medici,
• Albeit he had never seen one;
• He would have sinned incessantly
• Could he have been one.
•
Miniver cursed the commonplace
• And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
• He missed the mediæval grace
• Of iron clothing.
•
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
• But sore annoyed was he without it;
• Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
• And thought about it.
•
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
• Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
• Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
• And kept on drinking.
1. What is the speaker’s attitude toward the
central character? How does rhyme help define
this attitude?
2. How does repetition reinforce the image of the
central character and the speaker’s attitude?
3. What rhyme predominates in lines 2 and 4 of
each stanza?