Poetry - Content

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EngelsMiddelbare schoolvwoLeerjaar 4

This lesson contains 10 slides, with interactive quizzes and text slides.

time-iconLesson duration is: 30 min

Items in this lesson

Slide 1 - Slide

What do you remember from last lesson on the form of poetry?

Slide 2 - Mind map

Tools for content
Situation
Theme
Symbolism
Metaphors
Imagery

Slide 3 - Slide

Situation
  • A poem always describes a situation: what is going on?
  • Ask the ‘wh-questions’!
  • Once a reader knows the situation, he tries to discover the deeper meaning.
  • You need to read between the lines. 

Slide 4 - Slide

What is the situation in Funeral Blues?

Slide 5 - Mind map

Theme
  • Like short stories, poems have themes.
  • It is important to find evidence for the theme.
  • This evidence must come from the poem itself.

Slide 6 - Slide

Turn/Volta (twist)

Sometimes the poet gives his poem a twist, where the first stanza is about the shining sun and the second stanza is about the darkness. We call this a turn or a volta. Not all poem have this twist. 
Dusk - Rae Armentrout

Spider on the cold expanse
of glass, three stories high
rests intently
and so purely alone.
I’m not like that!

Slide 7 - Slide

Symbolism

  • Poems can have a symbolic meaning: a deeper, bigger, universal meaning. 

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
  and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

Slide 8 - Slide

Metaphors
  • A metaphor is a different name for something, often in nice poetic language.
    Example: the golden eye => the sun
    Example: eternal sleep => death
  • Poets may use the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ in a metaphor, to compare.
    Example: He was so pale, he looked like a dead man.

Slide 9 - Slide

Personification
  • A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.

  • For example, when we say, “The sky weeps” we are giving the sky the ability to cry, which is a human quality. Thus, we can say that the sky has been personified in the given sentence.


Slide 10 - Slide