MUSIC AND POETRY

1. CLASS III C L
Prof.ssa PATRIZIA DE CATERINA

3. POETRY AND MUSIC :
FROMCHAUCER’SCANTERBURYTALESTO
SHAKESPEARE’SSONNETS
Classe IIICL
PROF PATRIZIA DE CATERINA

4. SUMMARY
I PART
1. Literary genres: poetry, drama, fiction
2. Poetry : introduction
3. How to read a poetic text:
• Comprehension (Who, Where, When, What)
• Sound devices
• Language and meaning
• Contextualization
4. Analysis of a song

5. II Part
1. THE PROLOGUE TO CANTERBURY TALES
Text analysis
MUSIC AND POETRY 1
CANTERBURY TALES
2.SONNETS BY W. SHAKESPEARE
Text analysis
MUSIC AND POETRY 2 SOME SONNETS

6. I PART
LITERARY
GENRES
Poetry
Fiction
Drama

7. POETRY:INTRODUCTION
POETRY is a style of
writing that uses a formal
organization and that is often
divided up into lines or
stanzas.

8. POETRY:INTRODUCTION
A stanza is a group of lines
forming a metrical unit in a
poem.
A line is a row of
words.
A poem is a literary
composition in which
the words are chosen
for their sound and
imagery and are
arranged in separate
lines.
The types of stanzas are:
•The couplet (two lines)
•The tercet (three lines)
•The quatrains (four lines)
•The sestet (six lines)
•The octave (eight lines)

9. COMPREHENSION
of a poetic text or a song
Who is narrating the poem?
What is the setting in time and place?
What is the poem/song about?
How is the reader supposed to react?
Does the poem seem to have a moral
message?

10. Rhythm
• Rhythm generally refers to the pace or speed
of a poem.
• While the Italian language is syllable-timed, English is
stress-timed.
• Stress is much more important to rhythm
than syllables.

11. Metre
• An important part of the rhythm is metre, which is
the ‘beat’ of a poem, that is the distribution within
the line of stressed and unstressed syllables.
• It is measured in feet, with different names
according to the arrangement of syllables. A foot is
a group of two syllables.

12. Words
Articles, auxiliaries,
conjunctions, prepositions
and pronouns are usually
unstressed words.
Grammatical
words
unstressed
Content
words
stressed
Adjectives, nouns,
verbs and adverbs
are usually stressed
words.

13. Types of feet
• Two types of feet
• Stressed and unstressed syllables inside a word or a line
can combine into different patterns
unstress-stress
stress-unstress
the unstress-stress pattern
(˘/¯) is called iamb and it is the
most common foot in English
poetry.
the stress-unstress pattern
(¯/˘) is called trochee.

14. Types of feet
• For many centuries the iambic foot, particularly the
iambic pentameter (generally corresponding to ten
syllables), has been the most common metre in
English poetry.

15. • Poems are said to rhyme when the last word of two
or more lines has the same ending sound:
When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
• Conventionally, rhyme has often been used to mark the end of the line
(which also makes the poem easier to memorise). When rhyme is used
within the line, it is called internal rhyme:
• Rhymes are identified by the letters of the alphabet.
The pattern they create is called a rhyme scheme.
Sound devices: rhyme

16. • The repetition of the same vowel sound can
‘colour’ part of a poem with that vowel quality.
This device is called assonance.
Sound devices: assonance

17. • The repetition of the same initial consonant
sound
in consecutive words or words which are close
together, is called alliteration.
• Sometimes the alliteration can come in the middle
or at the end of words too. It can help create the
tone of the poem or affect the regularity of rhythm.
Sound devices: alliteration

18. Onomatopoeia
refers
to a word whose sound illustrates its meaning.
crack
screech
bang
snuffle
Sound devices: onomatopoeia

19. • Phrases or lines may be repeated in the course of a
poem to create a musical effect. This device is called
repetition and sometimes refrain. Refrains often
come in ballads as in the question repeated at the
beginning of every stanza.
Sound devices: repetition

20. LANGUAGE DEVICES
Figure of speech an author can use to communicate
abstract concepts in terms of concrete images
SYMBOL
Is any thing, person, place,
action that has a litteral
meaning and also stands for
something else.
ALLEGORY
Combines number of dofferent
symbols in a totality, often a
story
SIMILE
Is a comparison between two
things, which is made explicit
through the use of a specific
word
METAPHOR
Is a means of comparison
between two things that are
basically dissimilar without
connective words

21. OXYMORON
Is the combination of
two usually
contradictory things
HYPERBOLE
Means exaggeration of a quantity, a
quality or a concept
LITOTES
is the contrary to hyperbole, a
rhetorical understatement in
whitch the negative of the
opposite meaning is used
PERSONIFICATION
Is a form of imagery which
attributes the charatteristics of a
human being to abstract things,
animals or objects

22. Linguistic images
• A poem conveys its meaning through words
chosen and arranged in images.
the denotation
(dictionary definition)
• Three elements characterise each word:
the connotation
(the associations and feelings
evoked in the reader’s mind)
the sound

23. Comparisons
• Poets use comparisons to make their
descriptions more vivid or precise.
• When you analyse a poem, you should ask yourself:
- What things are being compared?
- How are they similar?
- How is the comparison achieved?
- What does the comparison convey?
- How does the comparison relate to the whole poem?

24. • A simile is a comparison between two things, which
is made explicit through the use of the following words:
Simile
• A simile is usually more striking if it compares
two essentially unlike things.
‘than’ or‘like’ ‘as’ ‘resembles’

25. Metaphor
• While a simile establishes a comparison between two
separate things, a metaphor describes something as
if it were something else.
• It is a means of comparison between two things that
are basically dissimilar without connective words
such as ‘like’ or ‘as’.

26. Metaphor
• The elements of a metaphor are:
the tenor
(the subject of the metaphor)
the vehicle
(what the subject is compared to)
• The analogy between them, the ideas they share,
are called:
common ground

27. Metaphor
• Example:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
(W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5)
• This scheme can also be applied to the simile. Simile
and metaphor have more or less the same functions
even if the latter has a stronger emotional impact.
tenor
Life
vehicle
walking shadow
common ground
impalpability

28. Personification
• Personification is another form of imagery which
attributes the characteristics of a living being
to abstract things or to inanimate objects.
• Personification can be recognised by the use of the
capital letter (Zephyrus), of possessive adjective (his)
and verbs referring to human actions (exhales).
• In the following lines the poet Chaucer speaks about
the spring wind:
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
(G. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales)

29. Symbol
A symbol is any thing, person, place or action that
• has a literal meaning;
• stands for something else, such as a quality,
an attitude, a belief or a value.

30. Symbol
• Most symbols are shared by the members of the same
cultural community and are therefore easy to
understand.
• Examples:
• There are symbols, however, which are the individual
creation of a poet. In order to understand them, it will be
necessary to study and analyse not only the context of the
poem, but also the writer’s work and background.
symbol of love and beauty;
symbol of death;
symbols of youth and old
age.
a rose
a skull
spring and winter

31. Allegory
• Allegory combines a number of different symbols into a
totality, often a story.
• For example, in The Canterbury Tales:
the pilgrimage to
Canterbury = allegory of the journey
towards the celestial city

32. • Examples:
8. Oxymoron
• Oxymoron is the combination of two usually
contradictory things which is sometimes used
to express extreme feelings.
Dear enemy
Sweet sorrow

33. 9. Hyperbole
• Hyperbole means exaggeration of a quantity,
a quality or a concept.
• It is often used in everyday language:
I have told you a thousand
times.

34. https://www.tes.com/lessons/RyPiEypEpcvcUA/music-and-poetry-iii-cl-p-de-caterina

36. ANALYSIS OF A SONG: Thinking out loud by Ed Sheeran
When your legs don't work like they used to before yellow: personification
And I can't sweep you off of your feet green: simile
Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love light blue: metaphor
Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks pink: hyperbole
And darling I will be loving you 'til we're 70
And baby my heart could still fall as hard at 23
And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe just the touch of a hand
Oh me I fall in love with you every single day
And I just wanna tell you I am
So honey now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
I'm thinking out loud
Maybe we found love right where we are
When my hair's all but gone and my memory fades
And the crowds don't remember my name
When my hands don't play the strings the same way
I know you will still love me the same
'Cause honey your soul can never grow old, it's evergreen
Baby your smile's forever in my mind and memory

37. I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe it's all part of a plan
I'll just keep on making the same mistakes
Hoping that you'll understand
But baby now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
I'm thinking out loud
That maybe we found love right where we are
So baby now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Oh darling, place your head on my beating heart
I'm thinking out loud
That maybe we found love right where we are
Oh maybe we found love right where we are
And we found love right where we are

38. Thinking out loud” is a song by Ed Sheeran, an English singer and
songwriter. It is set in the present but there are frequent
flashward about how he images his future life with the girl he
loves. The singer describes a beautiful love story in which these
two people seem deeply in love with each other and he says that
he is going to love her until old age not because of her body but
for her inner beauty. In the chorus Ed explains how people fall in
love in mysterious ways, as fast as the “touch of a hand”. Who
reads the lyrics is supposed to feel surrounded by a romantic
atmosphere and touched by this passionate love story. Besides
the moral message hidden in the words of this song is that we
have to love someone for his soul instead of his physical
appearance because it will never grow old.

40. THE CANTERBURY TALES
The Canterbury Tales is set in spring and tells the
story of 30 pilgrims who go on pilgrimage to London.
The pilgrims are at a tavern just outside London and
they will go to Canterbury to visit the shrine of
Thomas Becket, The owner of the tavern proposes to
the group to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury
and two tales on the way back, the pilgrim who will
tell the best tale will win a prize.
.

41. THE PROLOGUE
The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of
the return of spring. He describes the April rains, the
burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds. Around
this time of year, the narrator says, people begin to feel the
desire to go on a pilgrimage.
Many devout English pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant
holy lands, but even more choose to travel to Canterbury to
visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral,
where they thank the martyr for having helped them when they
were in need.

42. The narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a
pilgrimage, staying at a tavern in Southwark called the
Tabard Inn, a great company of twenty-nine travelers
entered. The travelers were a diverse group who, like the
narrator, were on their way to Canterbury.
They happily agreed to let him join them. That night, the
group slept at the Tabard, and woke up early the next
morning to set off on their journey. Before continuing
the tale, the narrator declares his intent to list and
describe each of the members of the group.

43. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBa5nN_JyPk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-0PaK4RtI
SONGS

44. THE ENGLISH SONNET
The sonnet was
introduced into
England by Sir
Thomas Wyatt
and Henry
Howard
The best
writer was
Shakespeare
He adopted the 3 indipendent
quatrains to present a theme or 3
different arguments and draw a
conclusion in the final couplet
The traditional theme
are: love and desire
for a lady who cannot
return the poet’s love
Shakespeare
introduced other
themes like
beauty, decay
and art

45. https://www.slideshare.net/thalialongoria/shakespeare-sonnets-30506335

46. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18detail.html

47. http://ed.ted.com/on/URm5eiNt

48. http://ed.ted.com/on/YlxMGuLA
SONG

49. References:
SpiazziTavellaLayton:PERFORMERHERITAGE.ZANCHELLI
https://www.tes.com/lessons/RyPiEypEpcvcUA/music-and-
poetry-iii-cl-p-de-caterina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBa5nN_JyPk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-0PaK4RtI

50. THANK YOU
https://www.slideshare.net/patriziadecaterina/music-and-poetry-ppt-77311661