2. Lyric Poetry
ï Expresses the personal thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker
ï Earliest lyric poems = sung by ancient
Greeks to the accompaniment of a
lyre
ï No longer sung, but still often have a
musical feeling and songlike structure
3. Types of Lyric Poems
ï Ode: serious, emotional poem paying
respect to a person or thing; speaker
directly addresses subject
ï Elegy: solemn, formal poem about
death; mourns a person or the passing
of a better time
ï Sonnet: 14 line poem with a specific
meter and rhyme scheme
4. Elements of Lyric Poetry
ï Figurative language
ï Sound devices
ï Imagery
5. Figurative Language: language
used imaginatively rather than literally
Figures of Speech:
ï Simile: comparing 2 unlike things
using like or as
ï Metaphor: comparing 2 unlike things
without using like or as
ï Personification: giving human traits
to something nonhuman
ï Oxymoron: juxtaposing 2 opposite
words that reveal an interesting truth
6. Sound devices: use the sounds of
language to add a musical quality to poetry
ï Repetition: repeated use of sounds,
words, sentences, etc. for emphasis and
a musical effect
⊠Alliteration: initial consonant sounds
⊠Consonance: final consonant sounds
⊠Assonance: similar vowel sounds
ï Rhyme: repetition of sounds at the ends
of words (eg.: end rhyme)
ï Onomatopoeia: use words that imitate
sounds (eg.: ring, boom, growl, etc.)
7. Imagery
ï Descriptive language that appeals to
the senses
⊠Sight
⊠Hearing
⊠Touch
⊠Taste
⊠Smell
ï Examples: green, humming, cold,
peppery, musty, etc.
8. William Wordsworth
ï 1770-1850
ï Spent childhood in countryside
ï 13 ï Parents had died by this time
ï 17 ï Cambridge University
ï Traveled Europe, mainly France
ï Believed in social justice, individual rights
ï Considered to be âthe father of English
Romanticismâ
10. âThe World is Too Much With Usâ
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our
powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less
forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Sordid = dirty
Boon = favor