What is Poetry 英国文学简介.doc

What is Poetry? A condensed piece of writing about a specific theme, topic or scenario Often creates strong emotion or feeling Often uses sound and rhythm RHYTHM(韵律) The beat created by the sounds of the words in a poem Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, and refrain METER（格律） A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Meter occurs when the stressed and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern. When poets write in meter, they count out the number of stressed (strong) syllables and unstressed (weak) syllables for each line. They repeat the pattern throughout the poem. iambus (iambic) – a unit of rhythm in poetry, that is composed by unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable light heavy e.g. delay, before, against trochee (trochaic)--- a unit of rhythm in poetry, that is composed by stressed syllable followed by unstressed syllable heavy light e.g. midnight dreary anapest (anapestic)--- a unit of rhythm in poetry, that is composed by two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one light light heavy e.g. understand dactyl (dactylic)—a unit of rhythm in poetry, that is composed by one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables heavy light light e.g. wonderful To “scan” a poem, we mark each stressed and each unstressed syllable with a mark. Here, we’ll use － for stressed and ∨ for unstressed. Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across the screen ∨ － ∨ ∨?－∨??－ ∨ －∨??－ Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across the screen Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. ∨ － ∨ － ∨ ∨ － ∨ － ∨ － Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. Then we count the stres