V4 - Poetry week 48

• Middelbare school

Today's objectives

1) Understanding & analysis of 

• This Poem - Elma Mitchell
  
• Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden
  

2) Understanding of literary devices (metaphor/symbolism/setting/irony/hyperbole/imagery)

Literary Devices

Last time:

"A Good Poem" - Robert McGough

Literary devices:

• Alliteration
  
• Onomatopoeia
  
• Personification
  

This Poem - Elma Mitchell 

We'll discuss the following literary devices in the poem: 

a) metaphor 

b) extended metaphor 

c) irony 

d) repetition

First: What do think this poem means?

Metaphor

A literary device/figure of speech that makes an implicit (implied/hidden) comparison between two things that are unrelated, but which share some common characteristics.

COMMON METAPHORS

•  My brother is the black sheep of the family -> he is neither a sheep nor is he black BUT a black sheep stands out from a herd of sheep/could be separate from the herd and not included.
  

• My sister was boiling mad -> she's not actually boiling, but her reaction is quite heated/at its peak/"burns" people
  

• She's a breath of fresh air -> she's not really fresh air, but she is a refreshing change that does good/inspires
  

Extended metaphor

An “extended metaphor”  is an implicit comparison between two unrelated things that continues throughout sentences in a paragraph, a complete paragraph, or lines in a poem.

Q 1) "This Poem" (Elma Mitchell) contains an extended metaphor. The poet makes an implicit comparison between a poem and what? Why does he do this?

Q 2) Can you mention some of the lines that are part of this metaphor?

Irony 

1) Situational irony: when the opposite happens of what you expected

2) Verbal irony: when the narrator means the opposite of what he says

Q. Can you find an example of verbal irony in "This Poem" by Elma Mitchell?

Repetition

Q. 1) Why does the narrator repete the words starting with "un-"? What kind of feeling does this give you?

Other literary devices 

Q. Can you find any other literary devices in the poem?

Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden

• Well-known poem 
  

• Elegy
  

      poem in the form of elegiac couplets,

     written in honor of someone deceased. 

     4 stanzas (=group of lines formin a unit in a poem), 4 lines per stanza, 

     fixed rhyme scheme AABB

We'll discuss the following literary devices in the poem:

a) setting

b) symbolism 

c) imagery 

d) hyperbole

e) assonance

Setting

Time and place where the action of the poem happens

What is the setting of "Funeral Blues"?

Symbolism

 An object representing another, to give an entirely different meaning that is 

much deeper/ more significant.

Symbolism in Funeral Blues

Q 1) What does it mean to "Stop the Clock", "Cut off the phone", "Silence the piano" ?

Q 2) What do "black cotton gloves" symbolize?

Q 3) "He was my North, my South, my East and West" - what do these words symbolize?

Imagery

The use of particular words that create a visual representation of ideas in our minds (symbols, metaphors, simile)

Q: What comes to mind when you hear the words "blues", "moaning", and "muffled drum"?

Hyperbole 

A hyperbole is an unreal exaggeration to emphasize a real situation.

Common hyperboles (every-day use):

1. She's so heavy, she weighs a ton!
   
2. I'm dying of shame!
   
3. What a dumb action: you must have a pea-sized brain!
   
4. It took him ages to solve the problem
   

Hyperbole in Funeral Blues

A hyperbole is an unreal exaggeration to emphasize a real situation.

Q 1) What are examples of hyperboles in the poem "Funeral Blues"?

Q 2) Can you find a stanza (= unified group of lines in a poem)  with only hyperboles? 

Q 3) What kind of feeling does exaggeration create? Which grammatical form does the narrator use in the first two stanzas to help create this kind of feeling?

Assonance

The repetition of a vowel sound or diphthong in non-rhyming words

Q. Can you find an example of a vowel sound that is repeated in the stanzas of "Funeral Blues"?

Other literary devices 

Q. Can you find any other literary devices in the poem?

Discuss 

Discuss in groups:

Which one of the three poems is most cleverly written?

(think of literary devices)