Features of Poetry (VCE SSCE English): Revision Notes
Features of poetry
Poetry differs from narrative texts in several important ways. While novels focus on plot, characters and settings, poems rely on specialised techniques and structural elements to convey meaning. Understanding these poetic features will help you analyse and appreciate poetry more effectively.
Poetic language and techniques
Poets craft their work using concentrated language that packs multiple layers of meaning into relatively few words. When you analyse poetry, identifying techniques is only the first step. The real skill lies in explaining how these techniques affect readers and contribute to the poem's overall meaning.
When analysing poetry, don't just identify techniques - always explain how these techniques affect readers and contribute to the poem's overall meaning. This is where true literary analysis happens.
Speaker or persona
The speaker or persona is the voice you hear when reading a poem. This is similar to the narrator in a novel, but with some important differences. The persona might speak in first person (using 'I' and 'me') or might take a more distant third-person perspective (using 'they', 'he' or 'she').
You can learn about the persona through several clues:
- The language they use
- The thoughts and feelings they express
- Their way of looking at the world
- Their attitudes and values
Critical distinction: The persona isn't necessarily the poet themselves. Poets often create personas deliberately, perhaps to challenge certain attitudes or to imagine perspectives different from their own. A male poet might create a female persona, or a poet might construct a speaker whose views they actually disagree with, in order to expose flawed thinking.
Rhythm and rhyme
These sound patterns give poems structure and forward momentum, making them more memorable and impactful, especially when read aloud.
Rhythm emerges from the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. When this pattern remains consistent, it creates a regular beat or pulse. For example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 uses alternating unstressed and stressed syllables:
Rhythm in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Notice the alternating pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables that creates a steady rhythm.
In contrast, when there's no steady pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, the poem has an irregular rhythm. This often occurs in free verse poetry.
Rhyme happens when the same sound appears at the end of two or more lines. When two consecutive lines rhyme, they form a rhyming couplet. Shakespeare often ended his sonnets with rhyming couplets, such as these lines from Sonnet 18:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sometimes poets separate rhyming lines with other lines between them. For instance, Wordsworth's poem 'To My Sister' uses an abab rhyme scheme, where the first and third lines rhyme, and the second and fourth lines rhyme:
Rhyme Scheme in 'To My Sister':
It is the first mild day of March,
Each minute sweeter than before,
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
The rhyme pattern is: March (a), before (b), larch (a), door (b)
Not every poem follows strict rhyme or rhythm patterns. When analysing poetry, pay attention to where regular patterns appear, where variations occur, and how these choices shape your reading experience.
Figurative language
While literal language uses the dictionary meaning of words, figurative language creates comparisons and connections that go beyond the literal. These techniques help poets craft vivid images, engage readers' senses, and forge unexpected links between ideas.
Key figurative techniques:
Alliteration involves repeating consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words in the same line. Wordsworth uses this in 'A slumber did my spirit seal', where the 's' sound repeats. This repetition can draw attention to important words, create a particular tone, or emphasise rhythm.
Assonance repeats vowel sounds within words. Wilfred Owen's line 'And watch the white eyes writhing in his face' uses repeated 'i' sounds to create a disturbing effect that matches the poem's dark subject matter.
Connotation refers to the suggested or implied meanings that words carry beyond their literal definitions. In Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, words like 'sun', 'coral' and 'red' bring associations that add depth to the poem's exploration of beauty and comparison.
Metaphor in Emily Dickinson:
Metaphor describes one thing as if it were another, creating a direct comparison. Emily Dickinson writes:
Fame is a bee. / It has a song - It has a sting
This equates fame with a bee to suggest both its appeal and its potential danger.
Onomatopoeia uses words whose sounds mirror what they describe. In John Kinsella's 'Mapping and Companionship', the phrase 'salt crackle' recreates the sound being described.
Personification in John Donne:
Personification gives human characteristics to non-human things or abstract concepts. John Donne addresses Death directly:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful
By personifying death, Donne can challenge and confront it as if speaking to a person.
Simile compares two things using 'like' or 'as'. In 'Simply Yarning', Charmaine Papertalk Green writes that yarning 'could be fast and furious / Like a cascading waterfall', helping readers visualise the speed and energy of conversation.
Symbol occurs when an object represents something larger or more abstract. In Christina Rossetti's 'Up-Hill', the road symbolises life's journey:
Does the road wind up-hill all the way? / Yes, to the very end.
The physical road stands for the challenges we face throughout life.
Form and structure
The structural choices a poet makes are fundamental to how a poem creates meaning and affects readers. Structure includes line lengths (whether they're consistent or varied), the number of lines in each stanza, how ideas and images are sequenced, and how the poem begins and ends.
Some poets write in established forms like sonnets, odes or elegies. Traditional forms often include specific patterns of rhyme and rhythm. Other poetic forms are defined more by their content and purpose than by strict structural rules.
Blank verse
Blank verse is particularly significant because it's been widely used and offers great flexibility. It works equally well for short poems or extended narratives. Blank verse follows two main rules:
- Each line contains ten syllables with alternating weak and strong beats
- The lines don't rhyme
Blank Verse in Wordsworth's 'The Ruined Cottage':
'Twas summer and the sun was mounted high:
Along the south the uplands feebly glared
Notice how each line contains ten syllables with alternating beats, but the lines don't rhyme. The rhythm resembles natural speech, giving the poem fluency and making it easy to read or hear.
This speech-like quality makes blank verse especially suitable for longer narrative poems.
Free verse
Free verse describes poetry without regular patterns of rhythm or rhyme. Without these structural rules, poets can vary line and stanza lengths dramatically. This freedom allows poets to make creative choices about both sound and visual appearance on the page.
Free Verse in John Kinsella's 'Night Parrots Affront':
Rain falls lightly
And holding off
absence
is the night parrot
affronting accomplices
This stanza has no rhyming lines and no regular rhythm. The lines flow smoothly without pauses at their ends. The indentation of 'absence' creates actual absence on the page, demonstrating how free verse poets can use layout creatively.
Analysing structure
When you examine a poem's structure, consider several aspects. If the poem follows a defined form like a sonnet, research that form's typical features and look for how the poem uses or deviates from these conventions.
Questions to guide structural analysis:
For free verse, think about what the lack of regular structure achieves. Does it create playfulness? Do short lines emphasise particular words? Do smoothly running lines suggest storytelling or stream of consciousness?
Consider whether all stanzas contain the same number of lines. Regular stanzas might create a sense of calm or order, while irregular stanzas could represent scattered thoughts or disorder.
Examine the opening lines carefully. Do they present a striking image? Establish a setting? Raise intriguing questions? Begin telling a story? Strong openings draw readers into the poem's world.
Finally, look at how the poem concludes. Does it reach a convincing resolution? Or does it deliberately end with mystery or wonder, leaving questions unanswered?
Key Points to Remember:
- The speaker or persona of a poem isn't necessarily the poet - it may be a constructed voice used to explore different perspectives or challenge certain attitudes.
- Rhythm and rhyme create patterns that structure poems and make them memorable, but not all poems use regular patterns.
- Figurative language (metaphor, simile, personification, etc.) helps poets create vivid imagery and complex meanings in compressed form.
- When analysing techniques, always explain their effects and how they contribute to meaning - don't just identify them.
- Form and structure (including blank verse and free verse) are crucial to how poems create meaning, with choices about line length, stanza structure and layout all contributing to the overall impact.