Poetry Notes

TPCASTT

• Title- What is the Significance? What does it mean?
• Paraphrase- Summary of the action/plot in 2-3 sentences.
• Connotative Language -Sound Devices-rhyme, alliteration, rhythm, assonance, consonance, repetition, onomatopoeia,
  Figurative Language- symbol, personification, paradox, synecdoche, simile, metaphor, alegory allusion, oxymoron, parallelism, irony, imagery, metonymy, enjambment
• Attitude- Tone- how the author/speaker wants you to feel
  Mood- how the author/speaker feels
• Shift/"Turn" in a Sonnet- a change in attitude or tone- Why? Indicated by transitions: ( ), -, and, but
• Title-Rethink its significance
• Theme- Universal truth stated in one or two complete sentences.
  

Scansion-analysis of rhythm in poetry

The Foot- a combination of syllables, the basic building block of poetry

• iamb(iambic)- (unstressed stressed): today, because
• trochee(trachaic)- (stressed unstressed): happy, lightly
• anapest(anapestic)- (unstressed unstressed stressed): obvious, regular
• dactye(dactylic)- (stressed unstressed unstressed): cigarette, interrupt
• spondee(spondaic)- (stressed stressed): downtown, slipshad

The Line- count feet per line

• 1 ft = monometer
• 2 ft = dimeter
• 3 ft = trimeter
• 4 ft = tetrameter
• 5 ft = pentameter
• 6 ft = hexameter
• 7 ft = heptameter
• 8 ft = octometer
• 9 ft = nonometer

The Stanza- lines per stanza

• 1 = line
• 2 = couplet
• 3 = triplet/tercet
• 4 = quatrain
• 5 = cinquain
• 6 = sestet
• 7 = septet
• 8 = octave

Rhyme

• Masculine = end rhyme is stressed
• Feminine = end rhyme is unstressed
• near/slant rhyme-same ending consonant but vowel sound is close (not same)
• internal rhyme- rhyme within the line

Sonnets

Italian/Petrarchan

• Francis Petrarch loved Laura
• 14 lines long
• 1 octave- establishes poem
• 1 sestet- shift/turn, reveals solution
• abbabba cdecde- rhyme scheme
• Organization- general to specific, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, before/after, question and answer

English/Elizabethan/Shakespearean

• 14 lines long
• 3 quatrains
• 1 couplet
• abab cdcd efef gg- rhyme scheme
• Organization-beginning, middle,end; thesis example, example; past, present, future; morning, noon, night; birth, life, death