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TYPES OF POETRY

1. Narrative 2. Lyric 3. Dramatic

1. Narrative type of poetry that describes personal experiences, feelings and thought.

A. Ballad: Ballad –simple narrative poem that tells about EMOTIONAL happenings in song-form.

B. Epic : a long narrative poem that tells about fictional heroic acts (hero of a nation)

C. Metrical tale: – a narrative poem written in verse that tells a story created by imagination

D.Metrical romance : expresses love and admiration of a Knight and his adventures.

Song: A short poem intended to be sung. It was originally composed to be accompanied by a lyre. Lyrical poems seem musical and expresses the poet’s emotions about a person, an object, an event or an idea. These come in a number of formats.

A. ElegyB. HaikuC. OdeD.Sonnet

Elegy– lyric poem that deals with life and death

a. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray

b. Haiku A Japanese poem consisting of 17syllables which is written in 5-7-5syllables in three lines

Line 1: 5 syllables

Line 2: 7 syllables

Line 3: 5 syllables

Most Haikus are about “nature”

Example:

Evening snow falling

Sounds of crunching footsteps near

People walking close

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c. Ode: Serious. Usually praising something or somebody. a lyric poem that can be rhymed or unrhymed which usually addressed to a person, place or thing with high emotions.

d. Sonnet a poem which consists of 14 lines and has rhyme and rhythm

Dramatic Monologue (dramatic lyric) Features of a Dramatic Monologue:

1. A single person delivering a speech on one aspect of his life

2. The audience may or may not be present 3. Speaker reveals his temperament and character only through his speech

3. Dramatic poetry A poem that tells a story intended to be performed

Background Information

Robert Browning wrote 'Meeting At Night' in 1845 while he was courting Elizabeth Barrett. The two exchanged many love letters and secretly eloped in 1846, despite her father's protests. Browning's urgent love for Elizabeth is clearly expressed in this poem, and it is considered the most sensual poem that he had written up to that point. Browning uses the senses of sight, smell, sound and touch to help convey his passion and excitement as he travels by boat during the night to secretly see his beloved.

What is Imagery?

Imagery is language used by poets, novelists and other writers to create images in the mind of the reader. Imagery includes figurative and metaphorical language to improve the reader’s experience through their senses.

II. Examples of Imagery

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Example 1

Imagery using visuals:

The night was black as ever, but bright stars lit up the sky in beautiful and varied constellations which were sprinkled across the astronomical landscape.

In this example, the experience of the night sky is described in depth with color (black as ever, bright), shape (varied constellations), and pattern (sprinkled).

Example 2

Imagery using sounds:

Silence was broken by the peal of piano keys as Shannon began practicing her concerto.

Here, auditory imagery breaks silence with the beautiful sound of piano keys.

Example 3

Imagery using scent:

She smelled the scent of sweet hibiscus wafting through the air, its tropical smell a reminder that she was on vacation in a beautiful place.

The scent of hibiscus helps describe a scene which is relaxing, warm, and welcoming.

Example 4

Imagery using taste:

The candy melted in her mouth and swirls of bittersweet chocolate and slightly sweet but salty caramel blended together on her tongue.

Thanks to an in-depth description of the candy’s various flavors, the reader can almost experience the deliciousness directly.

Example 5

Imagery using touch:

After the long run, he collapsed in the grass with tired and burning muscles. The grass tickled his skin and sweat cooled on his brow.

In this example, imagery is used to describe the feeling of strained muscles, grass’s tickle, and sweat cooling on skin.

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III. Types of Imagery

Here are the five most common types of imagery used in creative writing:

a. Visual Imagery

Visual imagery describes what we see: comic book images, paintings, or images directly experienced through the narrator’s eyes. Visual imagery may include:

Color, such as: burnt red, bright orange, dull yellow, verdant green, and Robin’s egg blue.

Shapes, such as: square, circular, tubular, rectangular, and conical.

Size, such as: miniscule, tiny, small, medium-sized, large, and gigantic.

Pattern, such as: polka-dotted, striped, zig-zagged, jagged, and straight.

b. Auditory Imagery

Auditory imagery describes what we hear, from music to noise to pure silence. Auditory imagery may include:

Enjoyable sounds, such as: beautiful music, birdsong, and the voices of a chorus.

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Noises, such as: the bang of a gun, the sound of a broom moving across the floor, and the sound of broken glass shattering on the hard floor.

The lack of noise, describing a peaceful calm or eerie silence.

c. Olfactory Imagery

Olfactory imagery describes what we smell. Olfactory imagery may include:

Fragrances, such as perfumes, enticing food and drink, and blooming flowers.

Odors, such as rotting trash, body odors, or a stinky wet dog.

d. Gustatory Imagery

Gustatory imagery describes what we taste. Gustatory imagery can include:

Sweetness, such as candies, cookies, and desserts.

Sourness, bitterness, and tartness, such as lemons and limes.

Saltiness, such as pretzels, French fries, and pepperonis.

Spiciness, such as salsas and curries.

Savoriness, such as a steak dinner or thick soup.

e. Tactile Imagery

Lastly, tactile imagery describes what we feel or touch. Tactile imagery includes:

Temperature, such as bitter cold, humidity, mildness, and stifling heat.

Texture, such as rough, ragged, seamless, and smooth.

Touch, such as hand-holding, one’s in the grass, or the feeling of starched fabric on one’s skin.

Kinetic: Movement, such as burning muscles from exertion, swimming in cold water, or kicking a soccer ball. Galloping of a horse…..

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“Meeting at Night”

The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Poem Analysis

In the first stanza, the speaker is in a boat at sea beneath the half-moon noticing the way the little waves move: 'in fiery ringlets from their sleep.' The image of fiery ringlets can be seen in our mind; therefore, this is an example of imagery. The speaker's lantern shines on the little waves, making them seem fiery, and fire is often seen as a symbol or representation of passion and love. Colors also help create imagery, and Browning mentions gray, black and yellow in the first stanza to help create images in the reader's mind. Another example of imagery is when the speaker comes ashore by mentioning the prow or the nose of the boat above the water. He gets closer and closer to the cove until he arrives in the 'slushy sand'. We can imagine the slushy sand, and this uses our sense of touch, since we know what watery sand feels like. Because this detail uses one of our senses, it is called a sensory detail.

In the second stanza, he mentions the 'sea-scented beach,' which ties to our sense of smell, reminding us of the smell of the salty air by the beach. The speaker goes on to describe how he travels on the beach then through fields where he arrives at a farm and taps on the window, mentioning a 'quick sharp scratch,' which we can almost hear by reading those words. A 'blue spurt of a lighted match' is clearly seen by mentioning the color blue, and an excited though startled voice is heard, which is said to be softer than their beating

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hearts. If this poem is indeed about Elizabeth Barrett, which historians assume, the mention of fear could be hinting at the fact that Elizabeth's father, who disliked Robert Browning, could find out about this secretive meeting. The poem conveys their stealthy secrecy through details such as: the poem is set at night, the speaker travels alone, he taps at her window pane and she quietly speaks to him.

Meeting at Night: dramatic lyric or dramatic monologue

BY ROBERT BROWNING [1812-1889]

a Victorian poet

"Meeting at Night" is a poem by Victorian poet Robert Browning, which follows the journey of its speaker to a meeting with a lover.

It was published in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845) with an additional "Morning" section (that section was later separated into a different poem titled "Parting at Morning").

Browning composed the poem during his courtship of Elizabeth Barrett, his future wife, who was already a successful poet at the time.

Barrett's father did not approve of Browning, and perhaps a hint of this can be detected in the hushed and secretive nature of the "meeting."

The poem is unusual for the Victorian era because it is so sensual and sexually suggestive in a time of moral and social conservatism.

"Meeting at Night" opens with a description of the "grey sea," which is

followed shortly thereafter by a description of some waves, a cove, and a beach.

It seems that the sea, and the things associated with it, are always in the way in

this poem; the speaker must negotiate them in order to reach the farm where the

meeting will take place. Line 1: The speaker tells us that the sea is grey.

Lines 3-4: The speaker implies that he is sailing by describing the waves. Waves don't really leap. That's giving something non-human a human ability, and that's called personification. The waves aren't literally on fire either; the speaker is comparing them to something "fiery." This is a metaphor.

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Line 5: The speaker reaches a cove, or a sheltered area near a coastline. The cove is a symbol of shelter in the poem, as it allows the speaker to get away from the "fiery" waves and closer to his meeting.

Lines 6: The speaker stops his boat in "slushy sand" (i.e., sand that appears to be kind of watery, you know, like a slushy?). That's because it's near a body of water.

Line 7: The speaker describes a "warm sea-scented beach" that he must cross.

Nighttime

The poem is about a "meeting at night," so it's only natural that we should have

several descriptions of nighttime (like the moon and the "black land"). We tend

to associate darkness and night with secrecy, and the meeting that takes place in

the poem is clearly a "hidden" or "secret" encounter.

Form

2 stanzas

Sestet: (a 6-line stanza)

The structure of the poem, and its symmetrical rhyme scheme [ABCCBA/ DEFFED], contributes to its overarching themes and complements the development in subject matter.

Split into two equal length stanzas, with two couplets in each, the general structure is clear and provides a framework for the poem.

Imagery

"Meeting at night" is a poem about love. It makes a number of statements about love: being in love is a sweet and exciting experience; when one is in love everything seems beautiful to him, and the most trivial things become significant; when one is in love his sweetheart seems the most important object in the world.

But the poet actually tells us none of these things directly. He doesn't even use the word love in his poem. His business is to communicate experience, not information. He does this largely in two ways. First he presents us with a

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specific situation, in which a lover goes to meet his sweetheart. Second, he describes the lover's journey so vividly in terms of sense impressions that the reader not only sees and hears what the lover saw and heard but also shares anticipation and excitement.

Tennyson, in "The Eagle", gives only one detail about the eagle itself, that he clasps the crag with 'crooked hands', but this detail is an effective and memorable one.

Robinson tells us that Richard Cory was clean favored, slim, and quietly arrayed; but the detail that really bring Cory before us is that he "glittered when he walked."

Browning, in "Meeting at Night," calls up a whole scene with "A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch/And blue spurt of a lighted match."

Since imagery is a peculiarly effective way of evoking vivid experience, and since it may be used by the poet in such a way as to convey emotion and suggest ideas as well as to cause a mental reproduction of sensations, it is an invaluable resource of the poet. In general, he will seek concrete or image-bearing words in preference to abstract or non-image-bearing words.

Every line in the poem contains some image, some appeal to the senses: the grey sea, the long black land, the yellow half-moon, the startled little waves with their fiery ringlets, the blue spurt of the lighted match-all appeal to our sense of sight and convey not only shape, but also color and motion. The warm sea-scented beach appeals to the senses of both smell and touch. The pushing prow of the boat on the sand, the tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch of the match, the low speech of the lovers, and the sound of their two hearts beating-all appeal to the sense of hearing.

Sensory details have a significant role in Browning's treatment of the subject matter in this poem, making it more vivid and immediate to the reader. The visual nature of the opening lines sets the backdrop for the poem. The appeal to colours, "grey sea", "black land" and "yellow half-moon", directly invokes the reader to internalise the scene. Browning makes effective use of sounds to intensify the impact of the poem, such as the onomatopoeic "slushy sand" and "sharp scratch". There is also a development in the appeal to selective senses through the poem, reflecting the shifts in tone. The pictorial opening two lines subside to an appeal to sight, and then sound, while the sense of touch is mostly appealed to in the last two lines with the "two hears beating each to each". Browning's use of the senses, and the appeal to colour, makes the poem

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particularly vivid and complements the shifting tones, in addition to the theme and subject matter.

Browning uses striking imagery to intensify the description in the poem, and its development reflects the shifting tones and mood.

Fire imagery is employed throughout, the "fiery ringlets", the "blue spurt" and the "lighted match", augmenting the urgency and passion of the narrator in reaching his lover.

The water imagery stands in contrast, producing tension and conflict with the "grey sea", "little waves", and "quench".

Furthermore, there is the development from the image of the "yellow half-moon" to the "two hearts beating each to each", suggesting the progression from the romantic to the passionate desires.

The focus of attention narrows from the wide expanse of the sea to the specific rural domestic farmhouse image.

Thus the use of imagery reinforces the mood of tension, and suggests the shift in tones that occur through the poem's progression.