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Storm on the Island, Seamus Heaney Poem Analysis/Annotations - GCSE English Analysis

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Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.
The poem is a monologue written in the first person - the personal pronoun 'we' immediately portraying a sense of togetherness within the community as well as serving to include the reader in the narrative, making them feel like they are part of it. Taken literally, the poem explores the conflict between mankind (the community) and nature (the storm) and the way in which the tone shifts throughout the poem is representative of how the community's response changes as the storm endures. Initially in these opening lines the tone is defiant - the villagers are aware of the dangers posed by the storm but they are confident in their preparation, building their houses 'squat' (low to the ground) and with good, strong materials to help with stability in the storm. The strong, punchy sounding monosyllabic words in this second line reflect the strength of their houses.
This wizened earth has never troubled us With hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks Or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees
These lines describe how the barren ground is infertile and fails to provide the community with hay from which 'stacks or stooks' (piles of hay) can be formed. Heaney personifies the ground through the use of the word 'wizened' which is more commonly used to describe an elderly person, drawing a parallel between the infertility of the ground and that of an elderly woman - a rather sombre image that foreshadows the devastating consequences of the storm later in the poem.
Which might prove company when it blows full
The reader also learns that the area is devoid of surrounding trees which, if they existed, may 'prove company' for the villagers. Heaney uses personification here to create a sense of companionship and solidarity between the trees and the villagers and, with it, nature and mankind. This has the effect of showing that mankind is not always at odds with nature like it is with the storm. However, the lack of trees in this area serves to emphasise the community's isolation on this remote island, resultantly heightening their vulnerability and, consequently, the tension and suspense of the narrative.
Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches
The word 'blast' is capitalised to add emphasis and, therefore, increase the power and abruptness of the plosive 'b' sound when spoken. The following caesura adds to its significance as well as mimicking the eery silence following a damaging storm. Metaphorically, the 'blast' of the storm could represent the gunshots or explosions heard during conflict. Although Northern Ireland was relativity stable and peaceful following the end of the IRA campaign in 1962 until the start of the Troubles in 1969, smaller scale politically influenced violence and terrorism persisted at the time of, and prior, to the poem's writing in 1966 which Heaney may be obliquely referencing here.
Can raise a tragic chorus in a gale So that you listen to the thing you fear Forgetting that it pummels your house too. But there are no trees, no natural shelter.
The racket made by trees in a storm is described as a 'tragic chorus'. Here, the further personification of the trees, as well as how the word 'tragic' is an allusion to Greek tragedies, conveys the human-like suffering they experience throughout a storm - again a unity between the trees and mankind is present. However, as Heaney re-emphasises, 'there are no trees, no natural shelter' to protect the villagers.
You might think that the sea is company, Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits The very windows, spits like a tame cat Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives
The imagery of the roaring 'sea' and the 'cliffs' introduced in these lines further emphasises the isolation of the villagers - the high cliffs cutting them off from civilisation. Whereas the trees were presented as potential companions, the opposite is true regarding the sea. The description of the sea as 'exploding comfortably down on the cliffs' is oxymoronic, portraying it as effortlessly powerful and intimidatingly so. The choice of the word 'exploding' is a further allusion to conflict and, taken metaphorically, the sea represents violence or terrorism and the island community its victims. The simile 'spits like a tame cat turned savage' symbolises how mankind has tried but failed to tame nature, in reality an impossible feat. Politically, this could be a metaphor for the various rebellions in Northern Ireland in the 1960s from people the government thought 'tamed' following the end of the IRA campaign.
And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo, We are bombarded with the empty air. Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.
The symbols of military conflict continue in the final three lines - 'strafes' and 'bombarded' referencing dogfights such as those in the Second World War. The poem ends on a rather ambiguous note, with the narrator himself seemingly questioning the rationality of human fear, concluding that 'it is a huge nothing' that they're afraid of. This oxymoron is a metaphor for the invisible yet deadly winds bombarding the island as well as, potentially, the way in which politics has indirectly led to the deaths of so many in Northern Ireland.

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Storm on the Island, Seamus Heaney Poem Analysis/Annotations - GCSE English Analysis

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Storm on the Island, Seamus Heaney I MORE POETRY ANALYSIS FULL POEM - SCROLL DOWN FOR LINE-BY-LINE ANALYSIS​ We are prepared: we build our houses squat, Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate. This wizened earth has never troubled us With hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks Or stooks [...]

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What is it about?
Seamus Heaney's poem has a helpful title: it is a dramatic monologue from the perspective of an villager on a remote island, probably in the Irish Atlantic, about the storms his community face and their effects.

Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,
Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.
This wizened earth has never troubled us
With hay, so, as you see, there are no stacks
Or stooks that can be lost. Nor are there trees
Which might prove company when it blows full
Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches
Can raise a tragic chorus in a gale
So that you listen to the thing you fear
Forgetting that it pummels your house too.
But there are no trees, no natural shelter.
You might think that the sea is company,
Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs
But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits
The very windows, spits like a tame cat
Turned savage. We just sit tight while wind dives
And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo,
We are bombarded with the empty air.
Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Title
The title is simple, but by having no article (no 'a' or 'the' to begin the title), Heaney makes his description even simpler, even generalising so that Storm on the Island could describe any storm on any island. However, we realise that this is a particularly bleak and isolated place: 'no trees, no natural shelter'.

Form
The poem is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter - blank verse. The lines are usually enjambed - the sentences do not stop with the lines - but the occasional line contains a full sentence, like the last, which gives a strong indication of reaching the end of the speaker's pondering. Enjambing a single, monosyllabic word like 'full | Blast' makes the most of this overlapping pattern, adding stress onto the words placed first in the line against the generally rising rhythm of the whole piece.

Sound
Heaney really uses the full range of consonance, assonance, alliteration and other sound patterns in the poem. This helps create a noisy recreation of the wind and rain thrashing the bare island. The 'comfortable' explosions of waves echo on the 'cliffs', with the hard 'c' sound providing the sound of the attacking wave and the final 's' on 'cliffs' echoing the hiss as the wave retreats over the stones. Later when the water is flying, the spray 'hits' the windows and an internal rhyme with 'spits' repeats this harsh contact.

The poem ends with open, empty sounds, including a half-rhyme between 'air' and 'fear'. But read the poem in an Irish accent and you might be rewarded with a final full-rhyme to close off the verse.

Voice
Storm on the Island begins with the resolute determination of someone sure about himself and his people. The very simplicity of the sentence 'We are prepared' speaks of confidence. There is also a self-deprecating humour in the phrase 'This wizened earth has never troubled us | With hay', giving the impression that the speaker is glad not to have the bother of being able to grow anything!

In a way, the pride of the speaker for the earth beneath his feet - his island - is the opposite of the 'huge nothing' that he says they fear. The speaker has a friendly tone, reminiscent of Browning's monologue 'Fra Lippo Lippi', particularly in the phrases 'you know what I mean' and 'You might think'.

Imagery
The speaker compares the sea to a cat (fickle and liable to seem friendly, then scratch!), and the wind to an attacking aircraft ('while the wind dives | And strafes invisibly'). These comparisons have different effects. On the one hand we return to the idea of a community defending itself, as in the first lines, against an invader.

On the other hand, there is a familiar, comfortable undercurrent of knowing the sea like a pet - even an unpredictable one. It seems that life on an island produces people who can think of something in two ways at once without worrying about contradictions.

Attitude
The speaker moves between defiance (at the start of the poem), awe, humour and finally admissions of fear. Yet throughout he maintains a calm tone, sure of the thickness of the stone walls around him. Perhaps that, rather than the storm itself, is what Heaney really wants to feature: the self-confidence of island people when faced with challenges.

consonance Repeated consonant sounds within words (stacks and stooks)
assonance Repeated vowel sounds within words (mean - leaves)

For extra support with poetry analysis, why not book a lesson with one of our experienced GCSE English tutor? With Tutorfair you can browse through a selection of great tutors to find the right one for you.

For More GCSE poem analyses similar to Love's Philosophy: The Farmer's Bride, Love's Philosophy, Neutral Tones, The Yellow Palm, Medusa, and Bayonet Charge.

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GCSE Poem analysis: Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney

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What is it about? Seamus Heaney's poem has a helpful title: it is a dramatic monologue from the perspective of an villager on a remote island, probably in the Irish Atlantic, about the storms his community face and their effects.

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Adam Ferguson, Afghanistan, 2009

I was one of the first on the scene. The Afghan security forces normally shut down a suicide bombing like this pretty quickly. I was able to get to the epicentre of the explosion. It was carnage, there were bodies, flames were coming out of the buildings. I remember feeling very scared because there was still popping and hissing and small explosions, and the building was collapsing. It was still very fresh and there was a risk of another bomb. It was one of those situations where you have to put fear aside and focus on the job at hand: to watch the situation and document it.

This woman was escorted out of the building and round this devastated street corner. It epitomised the whole mood - this older woman caught in the middle of this ridiculous, tragic event. I wish I could have found out how her life unravelled, but as soon as the scene was locked down, I ran back to the office to file.

As a photographer, you feel helpless. Around you are medics, security personnel, people doing good work. It can be agonisingly painful to think that all you're doing is taking pictures.

When I won a World Press award for this photograph, I felt sad. People were congratulating me and there was a celebration over this intense tragedy that I had captured. I reconciled it by deciding that more people see a story when a photographer's work is decorated.

Alvaro Ybarra Zavala, Congo, November 2008

The situation was very tense - people were drunk and aggressive. I was with two other photographers most of the time, but at this moment I went back to the road alone. I saw three soldiers smoking, playing with their guns, and felt safe - I don't know why. Then I saw a man with a knife in his mouth, coming out of the bush - he was holding up a hand like a trophy. The soldiers started laughing and firing in the air. I didn't think about it and began shooting. He walked directly at me. People surrounded us, celebrating. I thought, "Don't do anything crazy, just act like you're part of this crazy party."

When I got to the hotel, I showed the other photographers. They said, "Do you realise you could have been killed?" Only then did it hit me how dangerous it had been. Years after I took this picture, every time I see it I feel scared again.

I really hate this shot. It's the worst face of humankind. I always ask myself, "Why do I do this job?' And the answer is: I want to show the best and worst face of humankind. Every time you go to a conflict, you see the worst. We need to see what we do to be able to show future generations the mistakes we make. The guy with the knife in his mouth is a human being like the rest of us. What's important is that we show what human beings are capable of. The day I don't do that with my photography is the day I'll give up and open a restaurant.

Lynsey Addario, Libya, March 2011

I had been in Libya for just over two weeks, shooting the insurgency. Pictures like this, of inexperienced rebels being fired on by machine guns and mortars. On 15 March, myself and three other journalists were captured by Gaddafi's troops. They made us lie in the dirt, put guns to us. We were pleading for our lives. They started groping me very aggressively, touching my breasts and butt. Then we were tied up, blindfolded and moved from place to place for six days.

The first three days were very violent - I was punched in the face several times, groped nonstop. At that point, it was hard to justify why I put myself in that situation. When our captors left us alone, we spoke about what we'd do if we got out. I said I'd probably have to get pregnant because I've put my husband through a lot - I was kidnapped in Fallujah in 2004, and I was in a car that flipped just months before our wedding. Some of us contemplated whether we wanted to continue covering conflicts; whether it was worth the hardships we put our families through.

When we got out, I felt surprisingly OK. We'd survived - when you survive, this job is always worth the risk. Then a few weeks later Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed in Misrata, which sent me into a tailspin. This job takes a lot of skill, but a lot of it is luck. When friends die, you wonder if it's worth the price.

João Silva, Afghanistan, October 2010

I'd been in Afghanistan for a month when I stepped on the landmine. I was the third man in line, and as I put my foot down, I heard a metallic click and I was thrown in the air. I knew exactly what had happened. As the soldiers dragged me away from the kill zone, I took these pictures. When people around me have been hurt or killed, I've recorded it. I had to keep working. The soldiers were yelling for the medics. I knew my legs had gone, so I called my wife on the satellite phone and told her not to worry. The pain came later, back in intensive care, when infections set in and they nearly lost me a couple of times.

I've spent enough time out there for my number to come up. I was one of the few who kept going back to Iraq. People think you do this to chase adrenaline. The reality is hard work and a lot of time alone. Firefights can be exciting, I'm not going to lie, but photographing the aftermath of a bomb, when there's a dead child and the mother wailing over the corpse, isn't fun. I'm intruding on the most intimate moments, but I force myself to do it because the world has to see those images. Politicians need to know what it looks like when you send young boys to war. If it's humanly possible, if the prosthetics allow me, I'll go back to conflict zones. I wish I was in Libya at the moment, without a shadow of a doubt.

Tom Stoddart, Sarajevo, 1992

I'm not really interested in military bang-bang pictures; I'm interested in documenting people living through war. Sniper Alley, where this was taken, paralysed Sarajevo. To get from one side to the other, the residents had to pass through this intersection and Serbian snipers would take shots at them. Bullets pinged past the entire time. Some people would sprint as fast as they could; others would brazenly walk, as if they were giving two fingers. Many were killed. Anyone who says they aren't frightened during war is either lying or a fool. It's about finding a way of dealing with the fear - you have to be very calm. You're not there to get your rocks off; you're there because you feel your pictures can make a difference. Sarajevo was the most dangerous place I have worked on a long-term basis. But I could leave. The occupants of Sarajevo couldn't. That was one of the strange things about covering it - it was so close to London. You could be back at Heathrow in a couple of hours. People would pass carrying skis, or off to the Caribbean, and you'd feel like screaming, "Why don't you understand?" You become a terrible dinner guest.

Greg Marinovich, Soweto, 1990

I was deep in Soweto when I saw a man being attacked by ANC combatants. The month before, I'd seen a guy beaten to death - my first experience of real violence - and hadn't shaken the feeling of guilt that I had done nothing to stop it. "No pictures," someone yelled. I told them I'd stop shooting if they stopped killing him. They didn't. As the man was set on fire, he began to run. I was framing my next shot when a bare-chested man came into view and swung a machete into his blazing skull. I tried not to smell the burning flesh and shot a few more pictures, but I was losing it and aware that the crowd could turn on me at any time. The victim was moaning in a low, dreadful voice as I left. I got in my car and, once I turned the corner, began to scream. You're not just a journalist or a human being, you're a mixture of both, and to try to separate the two is complicated. I've often felt guilty about my pictures. I worked in South Africa for years and was shot three times. The fourth and final injury, in Afghanistan in 1999, wasn't the worst, but I decided enough was enough. I was looking to settle. Nineteen months later, I met my wife.

Gary Knight, Iraq, April 2003

This was at the start of the invasion. We were at the Diyala Bridge, which had to be taken by the marines so they could get into Baghdad. They were the lead battalion, the ones who went on to pull down the statue of Saddam. The opposition were shelling us. It was terrifying - both the actual shelling, and the anticipation of it. It comes in waves so you can see it moving in your direction. One had exploded in the tank. If it had landed on top or a couple of feet over, I would have died. Your instinct is to bury yourself, but you can't. You're there to do a job. The point is to get the news out. If you keep moving, you can manage the fear. And my stress is nothing compared with civilians and soldiers. I remind myself of that all the time. I don't have to be there - they don't have the choice.

My wife and children were very much on my mind because the danger was so extreme. You cannot separate the rest of your life and I've tried not to control how much I think about them. Sometimes they have been constantly in my head, sometimes I have not thought about them at all.

Shaul Schwarz, Haiti, February 2004

Port au Prince was falling. It was riotous, with widespread looting. A group of us had gone to the port. The thugs with guns didn't want us there. We snapped from the waist, trying not to make it obvious. We decided to go over the wall. One thug offered me "protection". As we jumped the wall, I saw this boy, and was like, "This is what it's come to." It was my first digital assignment and I was amazed to be able to look at my shots. I did for a second; when I looked up, everyone had run off. It was just me and the thug. It was like a dog that smells fear. He began pushing and threatening me. Then I was surrounded. One of them hit me. I had a few dollar bills in my trousers, and put my hand there. They began tearing at me, fighting over the bills. I waited 30 seconds, started to walk away, then ran and scaled the fence. On the other side, I tried to breathe.

I began shooting one guy a metre away. He screamed and pulled a shotgun. I saw the barrel, then he shot the man next to me - I had blood on me, brains. I was crying, shaking. I ran to the car horrified; I was a mess. I love Haiti, but every time I pass the port, I carry some of that fear.

Eric Bouvet, Chechnya, May 1995

It was unbearable. Two crazy weeks and the most unbelievable story I ever did. I was with a Russian special commando. They were torturing, killing and raping. I saw them do it, and I couldn't stop them. Someone of a normal constitution can't accept that. I was working on the edge.

This is the morning after a night that left four men dead and 10 wounded. It was heavy fighting, and I was very afraid. I discovered a dead Chechen four metres from me when I got up in the night. You see movies, you read books, you can imagine anything. But when you are in front of something, it's not like the movies. We started out as 60 and came back 30 - one in two people injured or killed. I was lucky.

As soon as it was light, I took pictures. This is the first thing I saw. The guy with the bandage on his head has lost his friends. He has fought all night long. I don't feel pity, but at the same time they took me with them and did everything to protect me. Without them, I couldn't have done the story. I was the only witness. It's very complicated.

Mads Nissen, Libya, February 2011

I got into Ajdabiya shortly after its fall. The rebels had just moved in and the locals were going crazy, shooting in the air. Bodies of pro-Gaddafi soldiers were lying around, beginning to stink as the sun got higher. The fire from the tank was incredibly strong and I was worried it might explode at any moment. Suddenly this guy jumped on to it. I'm not that interested in pictures of tanks burning - I'm interested in people. I had wanted to capture the sense of release that everyone had and suddenly this became the shot. I got as close as possible, within metres, and started shooting, counting to five in my head. Then I got out. I had seen corpses, torn apart, in the morgue and didn't want to end up like that. I took a chance - I had to; that was why I was there, to tell the story - but I made sure I wasn't too greedy.

Adam Dean, Pakistan, December 2007

I was very much a novice when I took this. I'd just finished a master's in photojournalism and thought I'd go to Pakistan to cover the elections. An attempt had been made on Bhutto's life two months earlier, so there was already a certain degree of risk.

I was about 15 metres away, photographing Bhutto, when there was a burst of gunfire followed by an explosion. I had a split-second decision to risk a secondary blast (as had happened in October) or start running with the crowd. I was panicking, trying to fight the urge to leave. I'd never seen a dead body before. It was almost like a test, to see if I had what I needed for this job.

As I approached the aftermath of the bomb, I struggled to compose myself. I was terrified and sickened, but kept telling myself just to concentrate and get it done so I could leave. I knew I had to frame the pictures so they weren't too graphic. The epicentre of the explosion was a pile of maybe a dozen limbless, charred, mangled bodies in pools of blood. This was one of the times I was most in danger, but there have been times in Afghanistan where I have felt more scared. This was over in seconds, but a firefight can go on for hours. The real worry is IEDs, though - when you go on patrol, every step could be your last. I'm 33 and I'm not sure I'd want to put myself in such risky situations when I'm older and perhaps have other people to consider.

John D McHugh, Afghanistan, May 2007

This is the last picture I took before I got shot. I'd been embedded with US troops in Nuristan for five weeks when we went to help a unit that had been ambushed nearby. There were bodies on the road, dead and dying. Taliban started shooting down on us from the mountains. I jumped behind a rock. I could hear bullets hitting it, and thought, "Oh fuck, oh fuck."

We ran behind a Humvee, but now we were being fired on from both sides. By that point I'd accepted that I was going to get shot. There were so many bullets in the air, it sounded like a swarm of bees. They had us pinned down and a sniper was picking people off one by one.

The bullet went through my ribs and out of my lower back. It felt as if I'd been punched. I fell to my knees, but managed to get behind another rock. The entry wound was the size of a penny; the exit bigger than the palm of my hand. The pain was overwhelming. I was convinced I was going to die and felt angry with myself. Then I started worrying that I might live but end up paralysed. Maybe I was better off dead? My mind refocused and I thought, "No, fuck that!"

It was 25 minutes before anybody could get to me. My cameras were on the ground, and as they grabbed me I had to lean down and pick them up. When we got to the local base, a medic said, "Hell, I can see right through you." As soon as I knew that I'd recover, I told my girlfriend I was going to go back out. The work I do is important and also, if I hadn't, it would mean I'd never really understood the risks in the first place.

I love my job but getting shot made me think about life beyond work. I proposed to my girlfriend two months later, and we had a baby last year.

Marco di Lauro, Iraq, November 2004

This photograph was the most dangerous moment in my career. I was with two marines trying to get into this house. The first marine knocked down the door and the guy that you see in the image threw a grenade at him - the dust is from the explosion. Being behind the wall at the side of the front door saved me.The second marine entered the room and shot the Iraqi dead. I was the third person in the room and I took this picture.

I started when I was 28. I'm 40 now, and a lot has changed in the risks I'm prepared to take. When you're younger, you're immortal. Three days into my first assignment, I was photographing between two lines of people shooting at each other in Kosovo. I'm more scared now, more aware of the risks. I've lost a lot of friends and colleagues - two of them very recently. I'll keep doing the job I do but I'll be more careful.

John Stanmeyer, East Timor, August 1999

There were numerous firefights going on between the pro-Timorese Aitarak and the Indonesian militia, so I just ran. A bullet went right by my ear, moving my hair. It was fate that my head was tilted to the right, otherwise I wouldn't be here today.

Within minutes of nearly being killed, I came across pro-East Timorese independence supporter Joaquim Bernardino Guterres. The military turned their guns on him, and as he started to run they grabbed him and kicked him. Moments later he was lying in a 20ft stream of blood. The military were very unhappy with the pictures afterwards.

I don't think about the risk to myself, as I probably should. While I was out in Afghanistan, my wife had a miscarriage and she equated it to my being away. That was pretty dreadful, but she's a writer and understands why I do this. We've been to Sudan together, we've been ambushed, we've been in lots of nutty situations.

Ashley Gilbertson, Iraq, 2004

It was one of the most intense experiences I've ever had. I was with a lead unit of marines, and we received a triple ambush from the insurgents. I'd just run across a street with 40 marines to take shelter in an Islamic cultural centre, with bullets whizzing past my face. I thought, if I'm going to die right now, I might as well be working. I was in so much shock. It was a wake-up call to how violent it was going to be.

The guy in the photo is shouting, "Don't take my fucking picture!" Sometimes, you look at images of war, and they're like a Hollywood producer's vision of what war is supposed to look like. There are very few pictures where you get a feel for how fucking awful it is, how desperate and urgent. I like that it's not a clean picture, that it's not well composed and you can't see everything that's happening. That's part of it. It's so messy. It's the closest I've come to capturing the chaos of combat.

Ron Haviv, Bosnia, 1992

These are the Serbian warlord Arkan's men. They've just executed these Muslim civilians - a butcher, his wife and sister-in-law; the start of what became known as ethnic cleansing.

I had taken a photograph of Arkan with a baby tiger, which he'd liked, and he'd agreed for me to travel with his troops to photograph his "mission". The soliders were yelling at me not to shoot, but I'd promised myself I'd come out of this with an image to prove what was happening.

I was shaking when I took this shot. None of them was looking at me so I lifted my camera, just trying to get them in frame. When I put it down, they looked over. They didn't realise I'd taken photos.

Later, Arkan caught me photographing another execution and said he'd process my film and keep the ones he didn't like. I'd hidden the film from earlier in the day in my pocket and figured that if I fought hard enough for the film in my camera, he wouldn't search me.

When the pictures were published not long after, Arkan said in an interview, "I look forward to the day I can drink his blood." He put me on a death list, and I spent the next eight years trying to avoid him. Eventually, these images were used to indict him at The Hague.

Julie Jacobson, Afghanistan, August 2009

We were hiding from Taliban gunfire, when there was this explosion. Afterwards, I saw [Lance Corporal Joshua M] Bernard - one of his legs was blown off and the other was barely there. He'd suffered a direct hit from an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]. The media ground rule was that you couldn't photograph a military casualty in a way that they could be identified, but I could see Bernard's hand reach out to his weapon, his face turned to me. So I shot nine frames over two and a half minutes.

Making that decision was a public act. I got a lot of flak. Bernard later died, and people said that I didn't give him dignity, that I should have helped him. But I couldn't help him. For me to turn my back, that's disrespectful.

Ami Vitale, Gaza, October 2000

I was photographing a funeral, and having spent most of the day with the women, I went to see the body being taken in. A man in the procession started screaming, "CIA agent" and pointing at me. I was surrounded by hundreds of angry men, screaming in my face, grabbing me. I was terrified, and thought, "This is it. I am going to die." Suddenly I understood a mob. There's no thinking, just passion.

A woman I'd spent the day with managed to pull me away. When I got home, I sat and cried and cried - she had saved my life. I stayed on in Palestine, but was much more cautious after that; have been ever since. That moment changed my perspective. No picture is worth it.

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The shot that nearly killed me: War photographers - a special report

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I was one of the first on the scene. The Afghan security forces normally shut down a suicide bombing like this pretty quickly. I was able to get to the epicentre of the explosion. It was carnage, there were bodies, flames were coming out of the buildings.

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2 Minutes on Structure & Form: 'War Photographer'

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Storm on the Island Video and Text Analysis 

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Storm on the Island Video and Text Analysis 

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The poem highlights the violence of nature, as experienced by Heaney.

There is a great deal of vivid description and use of sounds to create a sense of a violent storm throughout the poem.

The people of the island expect the storm and 'are prepared' by building their houses low down in height so they are not blown over. The houses are also built in a sturdy manner, with walls sunk 'in rock' so they stand up to the power of the wind and rain.

There is personification of the earth on line 3 'the wizened earth' to show the earth is also intelligent enough to know that hay will not grow or be able to stand up to the power of the wind, so it is not to be seen on the island. The idea of it becoming wizened indicates that maybe hay tried to grow, but this was soon put to an end by the brutality of the elements.

Trees are also absent, emphasising how powerful the winds must be. The image of the island is now of a very drab, barren landscape, with little growing, almost like a desert. The absence of trees gives a sense of a loss of 'company' (line 6) during the storms. This seems to be because the wind will cause the trees to make a lot of noise, which at least identifies the power of the storm. Here there is no sound, so the storm appears more eerie and unpleasant, as a result.

The trees are personified in terms of the noise they could make 'raise a tragic chorus in a gale' like a bad choir singing, warning of unhappy or unpleasant events. This could reflect the unhappiness of the people on the island as the storm rages around them.

The tone is almost conversational 'you know what I mean' as if Heaney is talking to the reader, almost confiding in them.

The sea is also seen as violent 'exploding comfortably' an oxymoron which shows it is violent 'exploding' but happy or at home 'comfortably' in this environment. The violence is further exaggerated by the 'flung spray' and the violence of 'hits the very windows' is a powerful force, causing damage to the houses.

The animal imagery 'spits like a tame cat turned savage' shows it is unpleasant and uncontrollable. The image also indicates that the sea can be calm and 'tame' but now has taken on a rough, 'savage' appearance.

All the people, living on the island 'sit tight' waiting for the storm to end and 'while wind dives' uses alliteration on the 'w' sound to emphasise the harsh qualities of the wind still further.

There is war or weaponry imagery with 'space as a salvo' and 'we are bombarded by the empty air' as if they are being attacked by an invisible army with invisible bullets.

The final thought is how strange it is that what we fear is a 'huge nothing'; the storm is invisible, yet it causes so much fear in us. Is this a reference to God as well? This is something that is feared by so many, is powerful, can cause so much harm and makes so many scared. Heaney was an Irish poet and the theme of the power of religion is very prominent in many of his poems as is the power of nature.

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Analysis - Storm on the Island - Seamus Heaney - Revision World

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The poem highlights the violence of nature, as experienced by Heaney. There is a great deal of vivid description and use of sounds to create a sense of a violent storm throughout the poem. The people of the island expect the storm and 'are prepared' by building their houses low down in height so they are not blown over.

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The Guardian Article - Contextual and Poetic Analysis 

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The Guardian Article - Contextual and Poetic Analysis 

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Once enormously popular and much-memorised, this week's poem, Alfred Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, was also vilified, according to JB Steane, as "horrid rubbish". It's a verdict Steane himself tentatively commends ("I think there might be something in it.") Even the poet seems to have found its popularity irritating. So how does it look from 2014? Great poem, good poem, bad poem, good bad poem?

It's certainly the kind of poem people love or hate for anything-but-literary reasons. The subject is an emotive one, centred on the timelessly appealing stereotype of heroic ordinary soldier versus incompetent high command (a theme which continued to grip the imagination of the poets of the first world war). Tennyson's poem is not, of course, a fantasy: it's a largely accurate account of an actual, and very dreadful, historical event which took place during the Battle of Balaclava. To its admirers, the poem's a tribute to the Light Brigade's selfless courage: to its attackers, it's the sentimental glorification of war and empire.

Written in response to a Times editorial, in which the author referred to "a hideous blunder" in the conduct of the battle, The Charge of the Light Brigade may signal a new journalistic genre of poetry, where, if the news can't be got from poems, poets can certainly get their poems from the news. But this is also poetry in the ancient costume of the ballad, re-tailored for new times by the Romantic poets a little earlier. The genre is an oral one, and it's significant that, before he wrote anything down, Tennyson sang the poem aloud as he walked over the chalk ridge near his home on the Isle of Wight. Back in his study he swiftly transcribed it, then sent it to the London Examiner, where it was published a week later, on 9 December 1854.

The Times article seems to have led Tennyson to the phrase, "Someone had blunder'd", and so to his perfectly-chosen metrical scheme - dactylic dimeter. "Blunder'd," though used only once, begets the rhyme with "the six hundred", main component of the poem's trenchant refrain. Tumultuous hoof-beats sound in these repetitions. It's as if one word had acted as an aural shortcut into Tennyson's whole imagination. The line, "Someone had blundered," almost casually inserted in verse two, is an understatement in the context, and all the more effective for it.

Since the poem soon became essential reading for the soldiers in the field, it seems that Tennyson's imagination stood the test of authenticity: at least, he had produced a story which drew assent. The poem is remarkable for the simplicity and dramatic immediacy of its description. The relentless pace of the cavalry as they gallop into "the mouth of Hell" is vividly rendered in the breathlessly short lines and thundering rhythms, whereas the return of the survivors brings a gasp of shocked recognition: "but not/ Not the six hundred".

Tennyson's poem doesn't contribute to the analysis of the "blunder" itself, though he might have found rich material in the psychology of the main players. I don't think it sets out to glorify war, but it's certainly not a protest. It recreates the sabre-flashing excitement of warfare, even in the ironical context of bare sabres against guns. There's a certain theatricality and exaggeration in the twice-repeated line, "All the world wonder'd". Skilful elision and brilliantly descriptive shorthand at times approach cliche. Yet its narrative grip and verve are beyond question. It's not a great poem, perhaps, but it is a great ballad.

Tennyson himself recites the poem on a wax-cylinder recording here. And, yes, the text has even been translated into Russian.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
I
HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

II
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

IV
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

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Poem of the week: The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson

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Once enormously popular and much-memorised, this week's poem, Alfred Tennyson's The Charge of the Light Brigade, was also vilified, according to JB Steane, as "horrid rubbish". It's a verdict Steane himself tentatively commends ("I think there might be something in it.") Even the poet seems to have found its popularity irritating.

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My Last Duchess has been admired for its theme as well as style. Browning's purpose in creating the Duke is to make a statement about the comparative values of sophistication and naturalness. The whole poem is but the visible part of the iceberg, but the submerged invisible part is not a matter of vague suggestiveness; it is both psychologically and historically defined.

Robert Browning (1812-1889)

The real character of the duke is gradually 'unmasked' in the process of his talk. He is a murderer who had killed his innocent young wife out of jealousy. He boasts about his great name and status in a mean manner. He is a Philistine (one who pretends to be a lover or expert of art). The irony lies not only in that he is not what he thinks he is, but more in that he doesn't realize how he is unwittingly telling the truth. He reveals all the truths about his devilish character when he is trying to prove himself a great man. Browning takes up a moment and makes the character speak of something that reveals so much behind what is being said. The duke here pulls the mask off his own face.

The poem is unique for its technique of dramatic revelation of character. The colloquial language, the rough rhythms like that of the ordinary language of conversation, the very ordinary situation and many such features make the poem realistic and memorable. The poem is rather compressed, elliptical (full of gaps) and difficult at first sight, and it needs a critical mind to explore the reality behind the story the Duke tells. The historical background is not essential, but adds to our understanding of the poem.

The features that make the poem a 'dramatic monologue' are: a character who speaks to someone specific (addressee) and in the manner of a dramatic speech, physical setting like that of a drama, the monologue or the speech of one character only, actions (though they are limited to sitting and standing and moving around) that are implied by the speech, and the plot or a set of developing action suggested by the monologue.

The poem opens with the reference, by the Duke of Ferrara to the portrait of his last Duchess. The Duke says that the figure in the portrait has the very look of life. This cannot be mistaken as a hint of lament. Browning's use of irony exposes the Duke to us: the Duke himself could not know the natural liveliness of the Duchess and remained a stranger to his own wife because of his obsession with himself. The aggressive individualism of the Duke and his tyranny of possession already indicated in "my" of the first line are reinforced in his pride of being the only person to draw the curtain away from the portrait. The sense of superiority of aristocratic isolation is also indicated here in the hint that others dare not ask the Duke any questions. The Duke may be a lover of art, but is "essentially a savage, however he may appear superficially" (Ralph Ranald: The Poetry of Robert Browning).

The possessiveness and the jealousy of the Duke as husband is revealed when he tells the listener that the smiles of the Duchess were not reserved only for her husband. How vigilant, he was under the provocation of jealousy, is proved by the example that he gives. The word "per-haps" indicates that he is not even certain about what he says and proves Emilia's statement that the jealous persons are jealous because they are jealous and not due to any other reason. He imagines that probably the monk-painter hinted at the gown excessively covering the wrist of the Duchess or that the artist remarked that his art could never recapture the delicate beauty of the Duchess and the Duchess thought that she must respond with cheerful courtesy. Herein may be read also the implicit hint by Browning that life is greater than art. The generosity and spontaneity of the humanitarian Duchess were quite unacceptable to the Duke, who here becomes the Victorian conventionalist.

From the smiles and courtesy of the Duchess the Duke now passes on to consider, or rather just tells about himself and fails to understand, the "heart" of the Duchess. This is Browning's chance to reveal through the dramatic contrast the heartlessness of the Duke. The Duke says that language fails him to communicate to others the quality of the heart of the Duchess. He then refers to the Duchess as pliant, receptive, generous and alive to the world around her by saying that happiness and the impressions of things came naturally to her. He then proceeds to refer to the sense of equanimity in the acutely sensitive Duchess. He notes with the sense of conventional Victorian shock that she, through the blush or through the words, weighed the trifles (for the Duke) like the sunset scene on the Western horizon, the cherries brought to her by some intruder (in the Duke's sole property rights over the Duchess), or the mule that she rode on equally with his 'significant' embracement-it must be noted here that the Duke embraces only the body but the Duchess embraces natural and universal humanity.

The excellence of the poem lies in the dramatic irony of the Duke's witlessness. The Duke is, in fact, neither dull nor shrewd to perfection. Browning's important point is to show the false pride and personal vanity of the Duke. The words "such a one" indicate how insignificant the Duchess is to the conventional and obstinately ego-centered Duke. The Duke, like the stale Victorian husband, thinks that by bringing the Duchess into his establishment like any other commodity, he had secured a monopoly over her into the bargain. He liked her smiles only for himself, but would stifle her humanity if directed towards others. The Narcissus complex of the Duke and the resultant jealously could not go hand in hand with the humanitarian values of the Duchess and the conflict raised to the climax must bring the tragedy.

The bronze statue of Neptune provides the final symbolic statement of the meaning of the poem; Neptune tames the sea-horse, just as the Duke had "tamed" his wife. It may be suggested that the Duke failed to "tame" the last Duchess unless murder be called taming. Undoubtedly the Duke sees himself in the image of Neptune and the last word "me" in the context indicates his tyranny of possession. It is not just being Machiavellian; rather the Duke emerges ultimately as the symbol of Victorian husband, who in a man-oriented society thinks of himself as master and of woman as dehumanized creature, a domesticated animal. Hence the whole social background of Browning's contemporary world lurks through the poem and it does not remain just a study of the Italian Renaissance which is traditionally associated with the poem.

The Duke is simultaneously the Renaissance Machiavellian figure and the Victorian man with his vanity; materialism, lack of spirituality, and lack of awareness of human values. The Duchess is also a symbol, that of natural humanity. The murder of the Duchess under the commands of the Duke shows the ultimate human depravity resulting from suppression of human values in the Renaissance world and the Victorian world.

Cite this Page!

Shrestha, Roma. "My Last Duchess by Robert Browning: Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 18 Feb. 2015, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/my-last-duchess-analysis.html.

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My Last Duchess by Robert Browning: Analysis

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My Last Duchess has been admired for its theme as well as style. Browning's purpose in creating the Duke is to make a statement about the comparative values of sophistication and naturalness. The whole poem is but the visible part of the iceberg, but the submerged invisible part is not a matter of vague suggestiveness; it is both psychologically and historically defined.

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The Prelude begun in 1799 and was completed in 1805, but was published a year after the poet's death in 1850. In this work the poet describes his experiences of growing up as a man and a poet with fullness, closeness and laborious anxiety that is unique in English literature. The Prelude is the finest work of Wordsworth's great creative period. Wordsworth conceived the idea of writing a history of the growth of his own mind, and the various texts of the poem cover a very long period in the poet's life during which his style and opinion both changed considerably.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

The Prelude is in fact the first long autobiographical poem written in a drawn out process of self- exploration. Wordsworth worked his way towards modern psychological understanding of his own nature and more broadly of human nature. There, he places poetry at the center of human experience. This introspective account of his own development was completed in 1805 and, after substantial revision, published posthumously in 1850. Many critics rank it as Wordsworth's greatest work. The Prelude begins with an account of the poet's childhood in the English Lake Country.

He first gives a record of that innocent life out of which his poetry grew; then he goes on to explore how the mind develops. He reveals a strange world, and the deeper we dive into it, the stronger it becomes. Like the short poem, besides touching upon many other things, this long poem traces the development of the poet's attitudes to nature, his poetic genius, and his understanding of fellow-beings and the spirit of the universe; he moves from the typical childhood animal pleasures, through adolescent, sensual passion for the wild and gloomy, to the adult awareness of the relation of our perception of the natural world, and finally to our sense of the human and moral world. Wordsworth basically tries to recapture and record the full and intense life lived through the senses as a child and as a youth. The child or the first stage is characterized by a vague understanding of the influence of the nature's moral influence because the child is indulged in mere bodily pleasures; the adolescent phase is marked with dizzy raptures; he speaks of youthful love of freedom and liberty, which he enjoyed in rambles through the woods and on the mountain paths where he did not feel fettered by the claims of the society and schoolwork. But those pleasures soon ended naturally after the youth began to understand human suffering so that, back in the nature, he began to make 'spiritual interpretation of Nature as a living entity, by following whose ways he could get rid of the eternal problems of human misery. At one phase of his youth, Wordsworth became strongly attracted to the cause of the French Revolution, feeling that he was tied emotionally and spiritually to the popular struggle against the monarchy. But the destructiveness of the revolution and the popular indifference to the real causes and the real heroes, and the corrupted nature of the leading revolutionaries, disillusioned him, and he returned home spiritually broken, feeling that the innocent blood has poisoned the real causes of liberty. At that phase of life, he turned to the nature, finding there not only the solace but also the law and order lacking in the human society. Wordsworth opposed the mechanical reasoning of the materialistic sciences and the logical philosophy as too superficial to probe into the sciences and the logical philosophy as too superficial to probe into the meaning and experience of life and nature. Wordsworth has said, "To every natural form.... I gave a moral life". His theory has been called one of natural pantheism for this reason.

The Prelude is an autobiographical poem but it is not only the poet's personal confessions; it is an account of the growth of a poet's mind. In it he tells the story of his inner life from the earliest childhood up to 1798. But the events do not always follow each of the chronological or even logical order, for the poem is shaped by a kind of internal logic of the growth of mind rather than by the sequence of eternal events. The development is roughly chronological but even as the poem has progressed well into adulthood, at significant points, reference is made back to his childhood contrasting later attitudes, or illustrating important aspects of his theme. The poet's faith is however based on intuition, and not on reasoning, to understand or analyze life or nature. But his mysticism is not an escape from common experience, with the help of some kind of fancy, but a probing deep into common things and experience. His poetry has in fact been called 'the highest poetry of the lowest and prosaic things". According to Wordsworth's The Prelude, nature had two basic formative influences on the poet's mind: one was of inspiration with its beauty and joy, and the other one was that of fear and awe-inspiring influences that disciplined his mind since early in life.

The Prelude presents a unique and original understanding of min, life, creativity and such other things in its examination and linking of the factors both important and trivial, which go to make up a complex human personality. The poet indeed has an amazing gift for grasping the significance of the apparently insignificant, and seeing all things as part of a meaningful whole. He tries to show us what he and his poetry are made of, and they are made not only of great events and emotions of marriage and passion, and the French revolution, but of small things that a less observant or creative mind would have forgotten: of boating expeditions, of a chance meeting with old sailors, or dreams, of the noise of the wind in the mountains, of the sight of the ash trees outside his bedroom window.

It is interesting to note that while The Prelude is a poem rooted in the past, a culmination of many traditions of thought and culture, it is at the same time that the first great modern poem. In it Wordsworth is essentially concerned with human nature, with aspects of consciousness and being that are still relevant to our modern interest and predicaments. The Prelude presents the poet in the quest for his identity. It shows that Wordsworth is trying to seek a point of stability within himself. It is an attempt to establish a principle of continuity and equilibrium within change. He said, "The vacancy between me (present) and those days which yet have such self presence in my mind is so great that sometimes when I think of them I see two consciousnesses, the consciousness of myself and that of some other being in me". This theme has indeed obsessed the modern imagination, replacing the quest of Everyman or Bunyan's Pilgrim. In so far as The Prelude is concerned with the growth of a poet's mind, it anticipates all these modern works, which might be lumped together under the common title of "A Portrait of an Artist t as a Young man."

The Prelude is a modern poem in another sense; it is a self-reflective poem. By this we mean a poem that has a part of its subject the writing of the poem itself. The Prelude is a poem that incorporates the discovery of its 'ars poetica'. It's surely the true ancestor of all those subsequent works of art that coil back upon themselves. Both the beginning and the end of the double, quest, the voyage of self-exploration and the effort to articulate the experience are perhaps those spots of time included the earliest moments of moral and spiritual awareness and they are usually associated with intensely felt responses to the nature even when he was a child.

Cite this Page!

Sharma, K.N. "The Prelude by William Wordsworth: Summary and Critical Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 20 Nov. 2013, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/the-prelude.html.

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The Prelude by William Wordsworth: Summary and Critical Analysis

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The Prelude begun in 1799 and was completed in 1805, but was published a year after the poet's death in 1850. In this work the poet describes his experiences of growing up as a man and a poet with fullness, closeness and laborious anxiety that is unique in English literature.

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Poetry - GCSE English Literature Revision - AQA - BBC Bitesize

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GCSE English Literature Poetry learning resources for adults, children, parents and teachers.

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William Blake: Biography of a Great Thinker

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William Blake: Biography of a Great Thinker

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William Blake: Biography of a Great Thinker

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Neville Goddard: Blake on Religion Documentary

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Neville Goddard: Blake on Religion Documentary

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Causes and Consequences of Industrialisation

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Causes and Consequences of Industrialisation

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William Blake Meets Thomas Paine - Drama

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William Blake Meets Thomas Paine - Drama

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A Ted Talk aimed at discussing humanity and its evolution/industrialization.

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A Ted Talk aimed at discussing humanity and its evolution/industrialization.

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Seventy thousand years ago, our human ancestors were insignificant animals, just minding their own business in a corner of Africa with all the other animals. But now, few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we’ve spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself). How did we get from there to here? Historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests a surprising reason for the rise of humanity.

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Fantastic website

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Print and Read

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Blake Society 2016 Annual Lecture - Iain McGilchrist

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Dr David Higgins

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Studying William Blake in Context Dr. David Higgins

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Paul Foot Speaks! The Revolutionary Percy Shelley

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Description

Detailed analysis of 12 of the poems from the 'Power and Conflict' poetry cluster:

CONTENTS:

Robert Browning: 'My Last Duchess'

Percy Shelley: 'Ozymandias'

William Wordsworth: 'Extract from the Prelude'

Alfred Lord Tennyson: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'

Wilfred Owen: 'Exposure'

William Blake: 'London'

Ted Hughes: 'Bayonet Charge'

Seamus Heaney: 'Storm on the Island'

Simon Armitage: 'Remains'

Imtiaz Dharker: 'Tissue'

John Agard: 'Checking Out Me History'

Carol Rumens: 'The Emigree'

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Mr Bruff's Guide to 'Power and Conflict' Poetry - eBook - MrBruff.com

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Detailed analysis of 12 of the poems from the 'Power and Conflict' poetry cluster: CONTENTS: Robert Browning: 'My Last Duchess' Percy Shelley: 'Ozymandias' William Wordsworth: 'Extract from the Prelude' Alfred Lord Tennyson: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' Wilfred Owen: 'Exposure' William Blake: 'London' Ted Hughes: 'Bayonet Charge' Seamus Heaney: 'Storm on the Island' Simon Armitage: 'Remains' Imtiaz Dharker: 'Tissue' John Agard: 'Checking Out Me History' Carol Rumens: 'The Emigree'

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Terms for analysis of verse

Accentual Verse: Verse in which the metre depends upon counting a fixed number of stresses (which are also known as 'accents') in a line, but which does not take account of unstressed syllables. The majority of Germanic poetry (including Old English) is of this type.

Accentual-Syllabic Verse: The normal system of verse composition in England since the fourteen century, in which the metre depends upon counting both the number of stresses and the total number of syllables in any give line. An iambic pentameter for example contains five stressed syllables and a total of ten syllables.

Alexandrine : a line of six iambic feet, often used to mark a conclusion in a work which is in heroic couplets: Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism (1709) satirised this technique (which he was not above using himself): ' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught | With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, | A needless Alexandrine ends the song, | That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.' The final line of that extract is of course itself an alexandrine. Spenser used an alexandrine to end his modified form of ottava rima. The same word is used to describe a line of twelve syllables which is the dominant form of French verse. See syllabic verse.

Allegory: the saying of one thing and meaning another. Sometimes this trope works by an extended metaphor ('the ship of state foundered on the rocks of inflation, only to be salvaged by the tugs of monetarist policy'). More usually it is used of a story or fable that has a clear secondary meaning beneath its literal sense. Orwell's Animal Farm, for example, is assumed to have an allegorical sense.

Alliteration: The repetition of the same consonants (usually the initial sounds of words or of stressed syllables) at the start of several words or syllables in sequence or in close proximity to each other. In Anglo-Saxon poetry and in some fourteenth century texts such as Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight rigid patterns of alliteration were an essential part of poetic form. More recently it is used for expressive or occasionally onomatopoeic effect.

Anaphora: Repitition of the same word or words at the beginning of consecutive syntactic units.

Apostrophe: In rhetoric the word is used to describe a sudden address to a person or personification. In punctuation the same word is used to describe the mark ' which can be used to indicate the beginning and end of direct speech, a quotation, or an elision. From the late sixteenth century an apostrophe was used, very irregularly, to indicate a possessive form of a noun: by the mid-nineteenth century it was established by convention that singular possessive forms should be indicated by "'s" ('the cat's pajamas') and that regular plural possessive forms should be indicated by "s'" ('my parents' house'). If a plural does not normally end in 's' then the form "'s" is used for the plural possessive form ('the children's tea was delicious'). The main exception to this rule is 'it's', which is used as the contracted form of 'it is' or 'it has'. The form 'its' is reserved for the possessive use ('the door has lost its paint').

: The word is usually used to describe the repetition of vowel sounds in nieghbouring syllables (compare Alliteration. The consonants can differ: so 'd eep s ea' is an example of assonance, whereas 'The queen will sw eep past the d eep crowds' is an example of internal rhyme. More technically it is used to describe the 'rhyming of one word with another in the accented vowel and those which follow, but not in the consonants, as used in the versification of Old French, Spanish, Celtic, and other languages' (OED).

Blank verse : is the metre most frequently used by Shakespeare. It consists of an unrhymed iambic pentameter. It was first used in Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's, translation of Books 2 and 4 of Virgil's Aeneid, composed some time in the 1530s or 40s. It was adopted as the chief verse form in Elizabethan verse drama, and was subsequently used by Milton in Paradise Lost and in a wide range of subsequent meditative and narrative poems.

: a rhymed pair of lines, which are usually of the same length. If these are iambic pentameters it is termed a heroic couplet. This form was made popular by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and became the dominant poetic form in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In the work of Alexander Pope it becomes a flexible medium for pointed expression. Couplets of four iambic feet (i.e. eight syllables in all) are called octosyllabic couplets. These were favoured by John Gower, Chaucer's near contemporary, and became a vehicle for a comically brisk style in Samuel Butler's satirical poem Hudibras (1663-78).

Decorum : In literary parlance, the appropriateness of a work to its subject, its genre and its audience.

Elision : The omission of one or more letters or syllables from a word. This is usually marked by an apostrophe: as in 'he's going to the shops'. In early printed texts the elided syllable is sometimes printed as well as the mark of elision, as in Donne's 'She 'is all States, all Princes I'.

(plural fabliaux): A short, pithy story, usually of a bawdy kind.

: the basic unit for describing metre, usually consisting of a certain number and combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. Stressed and unstressed syllables form one or other of the recognised metrical forms: an iamb is 'di dúm'; a trochee is 'dúm di', a spondee is 'dúm dúm' (as in 'home-made'), an anapaest is 'di di dúm', and a dactyl is 'dúm di di'.

Feminine Rhyme : a rhyme of two syllables in which the final syllable is unstressed ('mother | brother'). If an iambic pentameter ends in a feminine rhyme the last, unstressed, syllable is usually not counted as one of the ten syllables in the line ('To be or not to be, that is the question' - the 'ion' is unstressed and takes the line into an eleventh syllable). Feminine rhyme can be used for comic effect, as it is frequently in the works of Byron: 'I've spent my life, both interest and principle, | And think not what I thought, my soul invincible.' It can also be sometimes used to suggest a feminine subject-matter, as in Shakespeare's Sonnet 20, which is addressed to the 'master mistress of my passion' and which makes extensive use of 'feminine' rhymes.

Free Verse : verse in which the metre and line length vary, and in which there is no discernible pattern in the use of rhyme.

(from Latin genus, type, kind): works of literature tend to conform to certain types, or kinds. Thus we will describe a work as belonging to, for example, one of the following genres: epic, pastoral, satire, elegy. All the resources of linguistic patterning, both stylistic and structural, contribute to a sense of a work's genre. Generic boundaries are often fluid; literary meaning will often be produced by transgressing the normal expectations of genre.

Homophones : Words which sound exactly the same but which have different meanings ('maid' and 'made').

Iambic pentameter : an unrhymed line of five feet in which the dominant accent usually falls on the second syllable of each foot (di dúm), a pattern known as an iamb. The form is very flexible: it is possible to have one or more feet in which the expected order of accent is reversed (dúm di). These are called trochees.

: strictly a sub-set of allegory: irony not only says one thing and means another, but says one thing and means its opposite. The word is used often of consciously inappropriate or understated utterances (so two walkers in the pouring rain greet each other with 'lovely day!', 'yes, isn't it'). Irony depends upon the audience's being able to recognise that a comment is deliberately at odds with its occasion, and may often discriminate between two kinds of audience: one which recognises the irony, and the other which fails to do so. Dramatic irony occurs when an audience of a play know some crucial piece of information that the characters onstage do not know (such as the fact that Oedipus has unwittingly killed his father).

Lexical set : words that are habitually used within a given environment constitute a lexical set. Thus 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...' form a lexical set.

: the transfer of a quality or attribute from one thing or idea to another in such a way as to imply some resemblance between the two things or ideas: 'his eyes blazed' implies that his eyes become like a fire. Many metaphors have been absorbed into the structure of ordinary language to such an extent that they are all but invisible, and it is sometimes hard to be sure what is or is not dead metaphor: 'the fat book' may imply a metaphor, as may also be the case when we talk of a note of music as 'high' or 'low'. Mixed metaphors often occur when a speaker combines two metaphors from very diverse areas in such a way as to create something which is physically impossible or absurd ('the report of the select committee was a bombshell which got right up my nose'). These often result from the tendency of metaphors to become received idioms in which the original force of the implied comparison is lost. See also Simile.

Metre: A regular patterned recurrence of light and heavy stresses in a line of verse. These patterns are given names. Almost all poems deliberately depart from the template established by a metrical pattern for specific effect. Assessing a poem's metre requires more than just spotting an iambic pentameter or other metrical pattern: it requires you to think about the ways in which a poem departs from its underlying pattern and why. Emotion might force a reverse foot or trochee, or the normal patterns of speech might occasionally cut across an underlying rhythm. See Iambic Pentameter.

Monorhyme : A rhymescheme in which all lines rhyme (aaaa etc.)

Onomatopoeia : The use of words or sounds which appear to resemble the sounds which they describe. Some words are themselves onomatopoeic, such as 'snap, crackle, pop.'

Ottava rima : an eight line verse stanza rhyming abababcc. In English it is usually in iambic pentameter. It was introduced into English by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the 1530s, and was widely used for long verse narratives. Sir John Harington translated Ariosto's Orlando furioso into ottava rima in 1591; Byron used the form in Don Juan (1819-24). Edmund Spenser produced a nine line modification of the form which ends with an alexandrine and rhymes ababbcbcc. for his Faerie Queene (1590-6). This is known as the Spenserian stanza, and was quite widely used by Wordsworth, Byron and Keats.

Personification : the attribution to a non-animate thing of human attributes. The thing personified is often an abstract concept (e.g. 'Lust'). Personification is related to allegory, insofar as personification says one thing ('Lust possessed him') and really means another. But it is opposed to allegory insofar as it aims for the maximum degree of explicitness, whereas allegory necessarily involves greater degrees of obliquity.

Plosive: A consonantal sound in the formation of which the passage of air is completely blocked, such as 'p', 'b', 't'. The blockage can be made in a variety of places (between the lips, between the tongue and teeth, between the tongue and palate). A 'bi-labial plosive' is made with the lips (Latin labia): examples are 'p' and 'b'; a 'dental plosive' is made by blocking the passage of air with the tongue and the teeth ('d', 't'); an 'uvular' plosive is made right at the back of the throat ('q', 'g'). Phoneticists (people who study the science of pronunciation) distinguish between 'voiced' and 'unvoiced' plosives. This is the distinction between 'b' (in saying which you have to make a sound as well as simply letting the air escape between your lips; hence it is 'voiced') and 'p' (in saying which you do not have to make a sound; hence it is termed 'unvoiced'). Similarly 't' is an unvoiced dental plosive; 'd' is a voiced dental plosive. The International Phonetic Association provides more information about how words are pronounced and the specialised alphabet with which such sounds are transcribed.

: a verse stanza of four lines, often rhyming abab. Tennyson's In Memoriam rhymes abba, however.

Register : a term designating the appropriateness of a given style to a given situation. Speakers and writers in specific situations deploy, for example, a technical vocabulary (e.g. scientific, commercial, medical, legal, theological, psychological), as well as other aspects of style customarily used in that situation. Literary effect is often created by switching register.

Rhetorical Figures : Linguistic effect can be perceptible to the mind and/or the eye. Figures of thought appeal to the mind by twisting language in a way that is strictly improper, but licensed by usage. Thus the word 'is' is used improperly in the sentence 'John is a lion', but the metaphorical usage is permissible. Or when we hear the sentence 'All hands on deck', we understand that the word 'hands' is being used as a synecdoche for sailors. Figures of thought are sometime called tropes (from a Greek word meaning 'turn', 'twist') or conceits (from a Latin word meaning 'concept', because the conceit appeals to the mind). Figures of speech are perceptible to the eye and the ear. Thus rhyme is a figure of speech, as is alliteration and anaphora. Figures of speech are sometimes called schemes (Greek 'forms').

: When two or more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, and the consonant-sounds that follow are identical or similar (red and dead). Feminine rhyme occurs when two syllables are rhymed ('mother | brother'). Half-rhyme occurs when the final consonants are the same but the preceding vowels are not. ('lo ve | ha ve'). Eye rhyme occurs when two syllables look the same but are pronounced differently ('kind | wind' - although sometimes changes in pronunciation have made what were formerly perfect rhymes become eye rhymes). Rime riche occurs when the same combination of sounds is used in each element of the rhyme, but where the two identical sounding words have different senses ('maid | made'). This was in the medieval period regarded as a particularly perfect form of rhyme. Leonine rhyme occurs when the syllable immediately preceding the caesura rhymes with the syllable at the end of the line. The Rhyme Scheme, or regularly recurring patterns of rhyme within a poem or stanza, is recorded by using a letter of the alphabet to denote each rhyme, and noting the order in which the rhymes recur (aabbcc... is the most simply rhyme scheme of all, that of the couplet).

Rhythm: a term designating the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse or prose. Different lines of verse can have the same metre but a different rhythm. Thus two lines of alliterative verse in Middle English poetry might have the same metrical pattern of four stressed syllables, but their rhythm might differ by having a greater or lesser number of unstressed syllables intervening between the stressed syllables.

Rhyme Royal: A form of verse which consists of stanzas of seven ten-syllable lines, riming a b a b b c c. It was first used by Chaucer, and was also the form chosen by Shakespeare for the tragic gravity of his narrative poem Lucrece (1594).

: a comparison between two objects or ideas which is introduced by 'like' or 'as'. The literal object which evokes the comparison is called the and the object which describes it is called the . So in the simile 'the car wheezed like an asthmatic donkey' the car is the tenor and the 'asthmatic donkey' is the vehicle. Negative similes are also possible (as in Shakespeare's Sonnet 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'). Epic similes are more extended similes, which might involve multiple points of correspondence between tenor and vehicle. The frequently occur in long heroic narrative poems in the classical tradition, such as Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), as when Milton describes the combat of Satan and Death:

'Incenst with indignation Satan stood
Unterrifi'd, and like a Comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes Pestilence and Warr. Each at the Head
Level'd his deadly aime; thir fatall hands
No second stroke intend, and such a frown
Each cast at th' other, as when two black Clouds
With Heav'ns Artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hov'ring a space, till Winds the signal blow
To joyn thir dark Encounter in mid air:
So frownd the mighty Combatants, that Hell
Grew darker at thir frown, so matcht they stood...'

This double simile (first Satan is compared to a comet, then to a cloud) reflects back on the literal action: the violent energy of the comet is damped down by the immobile clouds. This change of vehicle reflects back on the fight which is the simile's tenor: it suggests that Satan starts off blazing with eagerness to fight Death, and then pauses, perhaps nervously.

Sonnet: In its earliest usages this can mean just 'a short poem, often on the subject of love.' Now it is almost always used to denote a fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter. There are two main forms of Sonnet: the 'Shakespearean Sonnet' rhymes abab cdcd efef gg. It was the form favoured by Shakespeare, in his Sonnets (1609), although it is first found in the work of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. The three quatrains can be linked together in argument in a variety of ways, but often there is a 'volta' or turn in the course of the argument after the second quatrain. The final couplet often provides an opportunity to sum up the argument of the poem with an epigram. Edmund Spenser's Amoretti (1595) introduced a variant form in which the quatrains are connected by rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee. The 'Petrarchan Sonnet', which is the earliest appearance of the form, falls into an octet, or eight line unit, and a sestet, or six line unit. The Petrarchan sonnet form rhymes abbaabba cdecde (although the sestet can follow other rhyme-schemes, such as cdcdcd). Often there is a marked shift in the progression of the argument after the octet in the Petrarchan sonnet, which is sometimes vestigially registered in the Shakespearean form by a change of argument or mood at the start of the third quatrain. Sonnets may be free-standing poems, or they may form part of an extended sequence of poems which might relate in a loose narrative form the progress of a love affair (as is the case in Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Spenser's Amoretti and Petrarch's Canzoniere).

: 'A group of lines of verse (usually not less than four), arranged according to a definite scheme which regulates the number of lines, the metre, and (in rhymed poetry) the sequence of rhymes; normally forming a division of a song or poem consisting of a series of such groups constructed according to the same scheme' (OED). See also ottava rima, quatrain. This term is preferable to the less technical 'verse', since that word can also refer to a single line of a poem. In printed poems divisions between stanzas are frequently indicated by an area of blank space.

: Emphasis given to a syllable in pitch, volume or duration (or several of these). In normal spoken English some syllables are given greater stress than others. In metrical writing these natural variations in stress are formed into recurrent patterns, such as iambs, anapaests or trochees.

: A stanza or other grouping of lines within a poem. In classical odes the term is used of the first group of lines which might be followed by an antistrophe which exactly replicates the form of the strophe.

: The smallest unit of speech that normally occurs in isolation, or a distinct sound element within a word. This can consist of a vowel alone ('O') or a combination of a vowel and one or more consonants ('no', 'not'). Monosyllables contain only one syllable ('dog', 'big', 'shoe'); polysyllables contain more than one syllable. The word 'syllable' contains three syllables.

Synecdoche: the rhetorical figure whereby a part is substituted for a whole ('a suit entered the room'), or, less usually, in which a whole is substituted for a part (as when a policeman is called 'the law' or a manager is called 'the management'). See metonymy.

Topos: from a Greek word meaning 'place', a 'topos' in poetry is a 'commonplace', a standard way of describing a particular subject. Describing a person's physical features from head to toe (or somewhere in between) is, for example, a standard topos of medieval and Renaissance poetry.

: a foot of two syllables, in which the accent falls on the first syllable (dúm di). Some words which are trochaic include 'broken', 'taken', 'Shakespeare'.

: a general term for any figure of speech which alters the literal sense of a word or phrase: so metaphor, simile and allegory are all tropes, since they affect the meaning of words. In the rhetorical tradition tropes are contrasted with , which are rhetorical devices which affect the order or placing of words (so the repetition of a particular word at the start of each line is a figure).

Basic Grammatical Terms

: A word which qualifies or modifies the meaning of a noun; as in a ' red hat' or a ' quick fox'. They can be used to complement the verbs 'to be' or 'to seem' ('Sue seems happy today'). Adjectives are sometimes formed from nouns or verbs by the addition of a suffix such as '-able' (lovable), '-ful' (heedful), '-ic' (heroic), '-ish' (foolish), '-ive' (combative), '-ous' (famous), or '-y' (needy).

: A word which qualifies or adds to the action of a verb: as in 'he ran quickly', or 'he ran fast'. Adverbs can also qualify adjectives, as in 'the grass is intensely green'. They are usually formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective: 'playfully', 'combatively', 'foolishly'. They can also sometimes be formed by the addition of '-wise' to a noun ('the hands went round clockwise).

: The word is often used but very hard to define. It is a sentence or sentence-like construction included within another sentence. A main clause might be a simple noun plus verb ('I did it'). A co-ordinate clause is of equal status with the main clause: 'I did it and she did it at the same time.' A subordinate clause might be nested within a sentence using the conjunction 'that': 'he said that the world was flat.' Here 'he said' is the main clause and the subordinate clause is 'the world was flat'. Relative clauses are usually introduced by a relative pronoun: 'I read the book which was falling to pieces'; 'She spoke to the man who was standing at the bar.'

Conjunction : A word used to connect words or constructions. Co-ordinating conjunctions such as 'and', and 'but' link together elements of equal importance in a sentence ('Fish and chips' are of equal importance). Subordinating conjunctions such as 'because', 'if', 'although', connect a subordinate clause to its superordinate clause ('We will do it if you insist'; 'We did it because he insisted).

: A word used as the name or designation of a person or thing, such as 'duck' or 'river'. Abstract nouns denote abstract properties, such as 'invisibility', 'gentleness'. Proper nouns are nouns that designate one thing, as, for example, personal names.

Object: Usually the thing to which the action of a verb is done. More technically a substantive word, phrase, or clause, immediately dependent on, or 'governed by', a verb, as expressing, in the case of a verb of action, the person or thing to which the action is directed, or on which it is exerted; that which receives the action of the verb. So 'the man patted the dog', 'the woman was reading the book'. An indirect object of a verb denotes that which is indirectly affected by an action, but wihch is not the immediate product of it, as 'Give him the book', 'Make me a coat'.

Participle : a word derived from a verb which functions like an adjective, as in 'let sleeping dogs lie'. More technically 'A word that partakes of the nature of a verb and an adjective; a derivative of a verb which has the function and construction of an adjective (qualifying a noun), while retaining some of those of the verb'. Present participles usually end in '-ing' and usually describe an action which is going on at the same time as the verb: so in the sentence '"Go and play on your own street," she said, kicking the ball', the saying and the kicking are simultaneous. Past participles usually end in '-ed' or '-en' ('the door was kicked in'; 'the door was broken'). They are used in two main ways: combined with the verb 'have' they form a past or 'perfect' tense (so called because it describes an action which has been completed or 'perfected'), as in 'I have smashed the plate'. Past participles can also be used in passive constructions (which describe what was done to something rather than what something did), as in 'the plate was smashed'.

Preposition : A part of speech which indicates a connection, between two other parts of speech, such as 'to', 'with', 'by' or 'from'. 'She came from China', 'He gave the chocolates to me'.

Pronoun: A part of speech which stands for a noun: 'he', 'she', 'him', 'her', 'them'. Possessive pronouns express ownership ('his', 'hers'). Reflexive pronouns are 'herself', 'himself', 'myself' and are used either for emphasis (he did it all himself'), or when an action reflects back on the agent who performs it ('he shot himself in the foot'). Relative pronouns include 'who', 'which', 'that' and are usually used in the form 'he rebuked the reader who had sung in the library'. Interrogative pronouns ask questions (' Who stole the pie?'; ' Which pie?'). Indefinite pronouns do not specify a particular person or thing: ' Anyone who studies grammar must be mad.' ' Somebody has to know about this stuff.'

: This is a term which professional linguists still find impossible to define adequately. It is usually supposed to be 'A sequence of words which makes complete sense, containing subject, object and main verb, and concluded by a full-stop'.

: Usually the person or thing who is performing the action of a verb. More technically the grammatical subject is the part of a sentence of which an action is predicated: 'the man patted the dog'. It can be a single noun, or it can been a complex clause: 'the bald man who had just picked up the ball gave it to the dog.'

(Greek 'together arrangement'): a term designating the way in which words can be arranged and modified to construct sentences. Writers characteristically use syntactic sub-ordination when they aim for a highly formal effect, and syntactic co-ordination when they aim for a simpler, more straight-forward effect.

: Usually a word which describes an action (such as 'he reads poems', 'she excels at cricket'). More technically 'That part of speech by which an assertion is made, or which serves to connect a subject with a predicate.' This technical definition includes the most frequent verb in the language: the verb 'to be' which can be used to connect a 'subject', such as 'he', with a 'predicate', such as 'good at hockey'. There are verbs which take an object ('he raps the desk'), which are called transitive verbs. Other verbs do not, and are termed intransitive verbs ('I sit, he lives'). Some verbs can be used either transitively or intransitively: 'I sing' is an intransitive usage; 'Paul McCartney sings "God save the Queen"' is a transitive usage. The main verb is the verb on which the structure of the sentence depends, and without which the sentence would not make any sense. In the following sentence the verb 'fell' is the main verb: 'The boy, who had run too quickly, fell'.

Further Reading

There are many dictionaries of literary terms available. One of the most user-friendly is The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, ed. Chris Baldick (Oxford, 1990). More substantial (and also slightly more expensive) The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th edition, ed. J.A. Cuddon, revised C. E. Preston (Harmondsworth, 1998). John Lennard, The Poetry Handbook (Oxford, 1996) is a very helpful guide to ways of using this technical vocabulary in practical criticism.

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Accentual Verse: Verse in which the metre depends upon counting a fixed number of stresses (which are also known as 'accents') in a line, but which does not take account of unstressed syllables. The majority of Germanic poetry (including Old English) is of this type.

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Prosody is a technical term used in linguistics and poetry to describe the patterns, rhythms or meters of a language.

Prosody can refer to the rules for the pronunciation of a language as well as its versification. The correct pronunciation of words includes:

1. enunciation,

2. proper accenting

3. making sure each syllable has its required length

Syllable Length

Syllable length doesn't seem terribly important for pronunciation in English. Take a word like "laboratory." It looks as though it should be divided syllabically into:

la-bo-ra-to-ry

So it appears to have 5 syllables, but when someone from the U.S. or U.K. pronounces it, there are only 4. Oddly, the 4 syllables aren't the same.

Americans heavily stress the first syllable.

'lab-ra-,to-ry

In the U.K. you probably hear:

la-'bor-a-,try

When we stress a syllable, we hold it an extra "time".

The Latin for time is " tempus" and the word for the duration of time, especially in linguistics, is " mora." Two short syllables or " morae" count for one long syllable.

Latin and Greek have rules about whether a given syllable is long or short. More than in English, length is very important.

Why You Need to Know About Prosody

Whenever you read ancient Greek or Latin poetry you are reading the writing of a man or woman who has replaced the mundane with the loftier speech of poetry. Part of the flavor of the poetry is conveyed by the tempo of the words. To read the poetry woodenly without trying to grasp the tempo would be like reading sheet music without playing it even mentally. If such an artistic rationale doesn't motivate you to try to learn about Greek and Roman meter, how's this? Understanding the meter will help you to translate.

A foot is a unit of a meter in poetry. A foot will usually have 2, 3 or 4 syllables in Greek and Latin poetry.

( Remember: one short syllable has one "time" or "mora".)

A foot composed of two short syllables is called pyrrhic.

A pyrrhic foot would have two times or morae.

A trochee is a long syllable followed by a short and an iam(b) is a short syllable followed by a long. Both of these have 3 morae.

A foot with 2 long syllables is called a spondee.

A spondee would have 4 morae.

Uncommon feet, like the dispondee, can have 8 morae, and there are special, long patterned ones, like the Sapphic, named after the famous woman poet Sappho of Lesbos.

Trisyllabic Feet

There are eight possible feet based on three syllables. The two most common are:

1. the dactyl, which is named visually for the finger, (long, short, short)

2. the anapest (short, short, long).

Feet of four or more syllables are compound feet.

A verse is a line of poetry using feet according to a specified pattern or meter. A meter can refer to a single foot in a verse. If you have a verse made up of dactyls, each dactyl is a meter. A meter is not always a single foot. For instance, in a line of iambic trimeter, each meter or metron (pl. metra or metrons) consists of two feet.

Dactylic Hexameter

If the meter is dactyl, with 6 meters in the verse, you have a line of dactylic hexameter. If there are only five meters, it is pent ameter. Dactylic hexameter is the meter that was used in epic poetry or heroic poetry.

There is one additional important bit of confusing information: the meter used in dactylic hexameter can be either dactyl (long, short, short) or a spondee (long, long).

Meter for the AP Exam

For the AP Latin - Vergil Exam, students need to know dactylic hexameters and be able to determine the length of each syllable.

-UU|-UU|-UU|-UU|-UU|-X.

The last syllable may be taken to be long since the sixth foot is treated as a spondee. Except in the fifth syllable, a long syllable can replace the two shorts (UU).

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Prosody is a technical term used in linguistics and poetry to describe the patterns, rhythms or meters of a language. Prosody can refer to the rules for the pronunciation of a language as well as its versification.

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Reading poetry is enlightening and enjoyable. Every now and then, a poem catches you, captivates you, and you just have to set it to memory because you want to live with it and share its wondrous phrases with others. Yet, how do you begin to memorize the verse?

It's quite simple: start at the beginning and memorize the poem line by line. Some poems will be more of a challenge than others, and the longer the poem, the longer it will take to memorize. Don't worry about that and take your time to really enjoy the memorization process and understand every hidden meaning within the poem.

The reward of being able to cite a poem with deep personal meaning is worth the effort. Let's look at the process of memorizing a poem (in poetic verse, of course).

How to Memorize a Poem

1. Read the poem over, slowly. Read it to yourself, aloud.

2. Try to understand the mystery of why it works for you using the same words that pass by unremarkably every day.

3. Try to understand the poem by understanding the poem inside the poem; to understand the mystery by letting the mystery retain its mystery.

4. Read and say the poem over, slowly and aloud.

5. Understand the poem by knowing every word's meaning: etymological investigation.

6. Dive off the line breaks themselves, into the abyss, cutting the shape of the page around the poem. The poem contains its opposite.

7. Read and say the poem over, slowly, aloud. Feel its shape in your lungs, your heart, your throat.

8. With an index card, cover everything but the first line of the poem. Read it. Look away, see the line in the air, and say it. Look back. Repeat until you've got it.

9. Uncover the second line. Learn it as you did the first line, but also add the second line to first, until you've got the two.

10. Then it's on to three. Always repeat the first line on down, till the whole poem sings.

11. With the poem now internalized, you are free to perform it.

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Reading poetry is enlightening and enjoyable. Every now and then, a poem catches you, captivates you, and you just have to set it to memory because you want to live with it and share its wondrous phrases with others. Yet, how do you begin to memorize the verse?

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