Many People Have Tried to Define Poetry. Here Are a Few Examples

.Romanticism.

What is Poetry?

Many people have tried to define poetry. Here are a few examples:

“an idea caught in the act of dawning.” ~Robert Frost
“the best words in the best order.” ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“musical thought.” ~Thomas Carlyle
“hundreds of things coming together at the right moment.” ~Elizabeth Bishop
“the clear expression of mixed feelings.” W.H. Auden
“things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful.” ~Dante

With what you already know about poetry, how would you define it?

Why do people read and write poetry?

Do you read or write poetry regularly?

Why or why not?

What is the best poem you have ever read (you can just describe it if you don’t know the title)?

.Romanticism Notes.

Poems by Longfellow

Please annotate the following poems.

Psalm of Life

What the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

T – Title

P – Paraphrase

C – Connotation

A – Attitude

S – Shifts

T – Title

T – Theme

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

The Children’s Hour

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is know as the children's hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes,
They are plotting and planning together,
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me,
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?
I have you fast in my fortress
And will not let you depart,
But put you down in the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

S – Speaker

O – Occasion

A – Audience

P – Purpose

S – Subject

T – Tone

O – Organization

N – Narrative Style

E – Evidence

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawney arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns what'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear the bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his mighty sledge,
With measure beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar.
And catch the flaming sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hands he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, -- rejoicing, -- sorrowing,
Onward in life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned his night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou has taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

Romantic Characteristic / Quotation or Example from the Work / How does the quotation or example reflect the Romantic characteristic?
Interest in the common man and childhood
Strong senses, emotions, and feelings
Awe of nature
Celebration of the individual
Importance of imagination

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

Maidenhood

Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!
Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!
Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!
Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.
Then why pause with indecision,
Age, that bough with snows encumbered.

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows,
To embalm that tent of snows.
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth!
O, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal;

When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?
Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?
Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That our ears perceive no more,
Deafened by the cataract's roar?
O, thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands,--Life hath snares
Care and age come unawares!
Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Childhood is the bough, where slumbered
Birds and blossoms many-numbered;--

And that smile, like sunshine, dart
Into many a sunless heart,
For a smile of God thou art.

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

T – Title

P – Paraphrase

C – Connotation

A – Attitude

S – Shifts

T – Title

T – Theme

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

Poem by Lowell

Please annotate the following poems.

She Came and Went

As a twig trembles, which a bird

Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,

So is my memory thrilled and stirred;--

I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,

The blue dome's measureless content,

So my soul held that moment's heaven;--

I only know she came and went.

As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps

The orchards full of bloom and scent,

So clove her May my wintry sleeps;--

I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,

Through the low doorway of my tent;

The tent is struck, the vision stays;--

I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,

And life's last oil is nearly spent,

One gush of light these eyes will brim,

Only to think she came and went.

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

S – Speaker

O – Occasion

A – Audience

P – Purpose

S – Subject

T – Tone

O – Organization

N – Narrative Style

E – Evidence

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

Poem by Holmes

Our Indian Summer

You’ll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise,

With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes;

To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone

Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown.

Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall,

My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all;

If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand,

It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand.

There are noontides of autumn when summer returns.

Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns,

And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long,

Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song.

We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June;

Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune;

One moment of sunshine from faces like these

And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees.

The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill

When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still!

The text of our lives may get wiser with age,

But the print was so fair on its twentieth page!

Look off from your goblet and up from your plate,

Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date:

Then think what we fellows should say and should do,

If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2.

Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with us here,

From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear!

Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms,

We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms.

A health to our future -- a sigh for our past,

We love, we remember, we hope to the last;

And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold,

While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old!

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

Poem by Whittier

Please annotate the following poems.

The Barefoot Boy

John Greenleaf Whittier

Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy, -
I was once a barefoot boy!
Prince thou art, - the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye, -
Outward sunshine, inward joy:
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild-flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy, -
Blessings on the barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

Sunshine and Shadow Effect:

Good within the Bad:

T – Title

P – Paraphrase

C – Connotation

A – Attitude

S – Shifts

T – Title

T – Theme

3 Rhetorical Devices and Examples

Poem by Bryant

Please annotate the following poem.

The Future Life

OW shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps

The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps

And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain

If there I meet thy gentle presence not;

Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?

That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given --

My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,

In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,

And larger movements of the unfettered mind,

Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?

The love that lived through all the stormy past,

And meekly with my harsher nature bore,

And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,

Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light,

Await thee there, for thou hast bowed thy will

In cheerful homage to the rule of right,

And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell