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Poetry Group Project

• Define "poetry" as a genre in one or two sentences: (see resources on Course Materials)  
• Poetry is either written or spoken in a rhythmical quality characterized by repetition, verses, rhyme, and emphasized aesthetics.      
• Poetry usually is highly symbolic and it makes use of literary devices such as similes, metaphors and personifications to convey a brief story, moment or feeling
• uses a lot of sensory details and images IE: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and feeling.
• Poetry can also be very short, spanning a few lines, or a few pages long. 

• Using the (above) definition of "poetry" explain why three text we're reading for this unit qualify as poems. Do any of these texts push or stretch the genre conventions? If so, which stories? Which conventions?
  
• The texts we're reading in this class that qualify as poems are  "My Last Duchess," "Porphyria's Lover," "The Raven" and the "Aurora Leigh Selection." These four have the rhythmical quality, are highly symbolic and use literary devices to convey feelings that defines poetry.
  

• “My Last Duchess” qualifies as a poem because it is written in verse, it rhymes, it is in iambic pentameter and it expresses a moment in time. (A man looking at a painting of his late wife)
•     First Six lines of "My Last Duchess":

                                       That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, --- A

                                       Looking as if she were alive. I call --- A

                                       That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands --- B

                                       Worked busily a day, and there she stands. --- B

                                       Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said --- C

                                       “Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read --- C

• "Porphyria' Lover" also rhymes, it is in verse and it describes a moment in time. (A scene with two lovers)
• First four lines of Porphyria's Lover:

                                       THE rain set early in to-night,  ---A

                                       The sullen wind was soon awake, ---B

                                       It tore the elm‐tops down for spite, ---A

                                       And did its worst to vex the lake: ---B

• “The Raven” rhymes, it is in verse and it describes a moment in time. (A haunting)

• It seems like a short story written in verse.

• The first six lines of “The Raven”

          Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, ---A
          Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, ---B
          While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, ---C
          As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. ---B
          `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door ---B
          Only this, and nothing more.' ---B

• “Aurora Leigh” is written in blank verse and pushes the conventions of poetry since it rarely rhymes, is very long (it is separated into nine books) and it has a very elaborate plot similar to a novel.
  
• Aurora Leigh Selection:

                                  OF writing many books there is no end; ---A

                                  And I who have written much in prose and verse

                                  For others' uses, will write now for mine,

                                  Will write my story for my better self,

                                  As when you paint your portrait for a friend,---A

                                  Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it

                                  Long after he has ceased to love you, just

                                  To hold together what he was and is.

• Name three text we're studying this year that ARE NOT poems and briefly state why these text do NOT fit the genre conventions.
  
• "Dracula"
• too long
• not written in meter/ verse
• consists of main/ Freytag Pyramid plot

• "Beauty and the Beast"  
• not written in meter/verse
• consists of main/ Freytag Pyramid plot
• leaves reader with a moral lesson at end 

• "The Tempest" 
• Written in dialogue with stage directions/ actions
• divided into acts and scenes
• too long 

Scholarship:

Read and summarize the main points of this essay for the class. Point out three things in this essay that appear in our class readings (primary texts) for the poetry unit (be specific). 

Poetry Group: (name & email)

Tamika Lovejoy ej7509@wayne.edu

Sarah Hawkins     eh8505wayne.edu

Dishank Patel ek0056@wayne.edu

Kristi Marshall ei1373@wayne.edu

Hayley Wenson eh3920@wayne.edu

Kristyn Blair ez9313@wayne.edu