Dr. Abeer Salah

Dr. Abeer Salah

Poetry• Definition:

• It is a composition in verse communicatingthe sense of complete experience. It is aliterary form characterized by a strong senseof rhythm and meter and an emphasis onthe interaction between sound and sense.

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The Elements of a Poem:

The definition of "elements of poetry" is "a set of instruments used to create a poem."

Theme:

This is what the poem is all about. It is the central idea that the poet wants to convey.

Dr. Abeer Salah

The Elements of a Poem:

• Style/ Technique:

The style of a poem can be analyzed according to three levels:

A-Phonological:

This refers to the sound effect of a poem. Various devices could be used to give musicality to the poem.

1-Rhyme:القافية

The repetition of sounds within different words, either end sound, middle (internal rhymes) or beginning. Rhyme example: loose goose.

The patterns of rhyme are called rhyme schemes.

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The Elements of a Poem:

• 2-Rhythm ايقاع/ meter وزن

They are the building blocks of poetry. Rhythm is the pattern of sound created by the varying length and emphasis given to different syllables. Meter is the rhythmic pattern created in a line of verse, the pattern of the beats.

• 3-Alliteration:

• Two or more words which have the same initial sound. The alliteration may be separated by prepositions. Alliteration example: Pretty princess. Busy as a bee.

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The Elements of a Poem:

• 4- Consonance:

• The repetition of a sequence of consonants but with a change in the vowel. For example: Live – Love

• 5- Onomatopoeia:

• A word whose sound seems to resemble the sound. For example: Hiss (of snakes), buzz (of bees).

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B- Semantic: (Meaning)

• This includes the denotation and connotations of words and the figurative usage of language.

• Some Figures of Speech:

• Simile: A comparison using the words “like” or “as”

• “My love is like a red rose.”

• Metaphor: A method of comparison where the words “like” and “as” are not used. The use of metaphor compares two things that are not alike and finds something about them to make them alike.

• “Life is a journey.”

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Figures of Speech:

• Symbols: Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant.

• Example:• The dove is a symbol of peace.• Pun: two words with same pronunciation but different meanings.• Example:• Son- Sun Right- Write Hear-Here• Personification: This is a way of giving an inanimate object the qualities of

a living thing.• “The sun smiled down on her.”• Apostrophe: A direct address either to an absent person or thing.

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C- Syntax: (Grammar)

• 1-Tense of verbs:

• The Progressive: indicates an ongoing action

• The Present: indicates a fact

• The Imperative: implies urgency

• Modals: give different implications. May, can, for example indicate probability.

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Poetic Forms:

• Certain traditional forms of poetry have a distinctive stanza (group oflines of verse) length combined with a distinctive meter or rhymepattern. One of these forms is the sonnet.

• The Sonnet:

• A single-stanza lyric poem containing fourteen lines written in iambicpentameter. There are three predominant sonnet forms:

• Italian Sonnet: developed by the Italian poet Petrarch. It is dividedinto octave- 1st 8 lines- with a rhyme scheme: ABBA ABBA or ABBACDDC, and a sestet (last 6 lines) with the rhyme scheme: CDE CDE orCDCCDC.

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The Sonnet:

• Shakespearean Sonnet or English Sonnet:

• It contains 3 quatrains and a final couplet. Rhyme scheme is: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

• Spenserian Sonnet:

• A variant that Edmund Spenser developed from the Shakespearean sonnet. Rhyme scheme is: ABAB BCBCCDCD EE

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Romantic Poets

Dr. Abeer Salah

Dr. Abeer Salah

Romantic Poets

• The best known Romantic poets are William Blake, WilliamWordsworth, Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelly, and John Keats.Much of the major writing of the period takes place between 1789(when the French revolution began) and 1824 (the death of Byron).The movement is seen as a response to changing political and socialconditions in one respect or another.

• Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as“romantic” although love may occasionally be the subject ofRomantic art. Rather, it is a movement that redefined the ways inwhich people in Western cultures thought about themselves andabout their world. Romantic poets strove to capture man’srelationship with nature.

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John Keats (1795-1821)

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John Keats (1795-1821)

•Born in London, the English Romantic poet JohnKeats was orphaned by the age of 14 and diedwhen he was only 25. His poems became thecornerstone of the Romantic movement. Like allRomantics, he was a big fan of emotions. Hispoem, “ When I Have Fears” reflects his desperatedesire for love and success. It also shows hiscertainty that he will die before they come hisway.

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Summary/ Analysis

• He expresses his fear that he will be deprived of the three things that he values most:

• 1-writing poetry of varied ideas.

• 2-Experience the wonderful mystery of nature and gain experience from it.

• 3-Experience the magical power of passionate love.

• Each of the three quatrains in this Shakespearean sonnet deals with one of his fears. It is a standard sonnet written in iambic pentameter. (unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable)

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Summary/Analysis

• The first quatrain focuses on the fear that early death will prevent thepoet from realizing his dreams. His brain is teeming with subjects,ideas, and inspirations for his work, enough to fill the bookshelf abovehis desk. He needs time for the ripening and harvesting one’s gifts.

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Summary/Analysis

• Next , in the following quatrain, the poet looks at nature, the clouds and the stars as source of romantic inspiration. Death at a young age will prevent him from enjoying this and will kill the imagination, the essential resource of his writing life before it has had a chance to mature.

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Summary and Analysis

• Then, in the third quatrain, he refers to his beloved and to the lovethat he will be deprived of.

• In the final couplet, there is a change of thought.

• Thus, the poem expresses 2 major thoughts. The first part of thesonnet expresses Keats’ fear of dying young with the result that hewill not fulfill himself as a writer. Losing his beloved is his other fear.Then in the final couplet he resolves his fears by asserting theunimportance of love and fame.

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When I Have Fears

• When I have fears that I may cease to be

• Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain

• Before high-piled books, in charactery

• Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain

• Vocabulary:

• Cease: Stop

• Glean’d: Collect patiently

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Vocabulary:

• Teeming: full of

• Charactery: words

• Garner: silos, storehouse for grains صومعة الغالل

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Paraphrase:

• When I have fears that I may cease to be

• Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain

• Before high-piled books, in charactery

• Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain

• The poet feels that he will diebefore he has used his manygreat ideas in writing poetry,before he could write severalbooks that are rich with hismature ideas.

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Commentary:

• Harvest Metaphor:

• the central metaphor is the comparison between writing poetry andharvesting grain. The 1st quatrain emphasizes how fertile hisimagination is and how much he has to express. Hence the use of theimagery of the harvest. The poet identifies one of his fears for thereader. It’s not merely death that worries him, but the fear that hemay not achieve his full creative potential, his” full ripened grain “ inthe form of “high piled books” that he could write. Death will cutshort his poetic career.

Full ripened grain: ideas which need to be written down are like thegrain to be harvested. The fruits of the poet’s mind become “ripen’d”

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Harvest Metaphor:

only as the poet ages and therefore his writings are mature in content.Thus, there will be no chance for “harvesting” them. These fruits whichare his poetic works, grant the poet fame, and are represented by “thehigh-piled books.” The books are compared to garners which will holdall of his written work.

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Figures of Speech:

• Teeming

High-piled , Rich

• Glean’d , grain , garners

• When , before

• The word suggests that the speaker is still full of life and ideas, which contrasts with his approaching death.

• Signify abundance .

• Alliteration, that creates rhythm and focuses the reader’s attention on the harvest image.

• The repetition of these adverbs suggests the passing of time and shows that the poet is aware of his threatening death.

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When I Have Fears

• When I behold upon the night’s starr’d face

• Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance

• And think that I may never live to trace

• Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance

• Vocabulary:

Behold: take notice, look at

High romance: elevated narrative of chivalry

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Paraphrase:

• When I behold upon the night’s starr’d face

• Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance

• And think that I may never live to trace

• Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance

• The poet is gazing up at the sky.He finds in the clouds all of thesymbols of high romance. Hefears that he will die before hecan be able to use in his poetrythe material offered by nature.He will not get the chance torepresent the beauty of naturein his medium, namely, poetry.He wont be able to use thepower of imagination andemotion.

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Figures of Speech:

• Night’s starr’d face: personification, night is personified as having a face.

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When I Have Fears

• And when I feel, fair creature of an hour

• That I shall never look upon thee, more

• Never have relish in the faery power

• Of unreflecting love; then on the shore

• Vocabulary:

• Thee: You

• Relish: enjoy

• Faery: old form of “fairy”

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Paraphrase:

• And when I feel, fair creature of an hour

• That I shall never look upon thee, more

• Never have relish in the faery power

• Of unreflecting love; then on the shore

• In the third quatrain, the poet talksabout idealistic love. In addition tohis fear of failing to achieve hispoetic aspirations, the poet is alsoconcerned with having everexperienced love; he is afraid hemay never experience the magicalpower of love. He is also afraid hemay never get another chance tosee this potential beloved, who isalso at the mercy of time as she is“a creature of an hour.” thequatrain reflects his hopelessness.

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Figures of Speech:

• Fair creature of an hour

• faery

• Implies that she is mortal and that humans don’t have much time to spend on this earth.

• Suggests the magical and inexplicable quality and power of love. Using an old fashioned word suggests, too, that love is timeless.

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When I Have Fears

• Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

• Till love and fame to nothingness do sink

• Paraphrase:

• Finally, after reflecting upon his feelings, which the act of writing thissonnet has involved, Keats thinks about human insignificancecompared to the whole world. He finally accepts the unimportance ofhis desire for fame and love and thus ceases to fear and yearn. Herealizes that death turns everything into nothing. Therefore, his highhopes for fame and love are not worth such intense stress.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Figures of Speech

• Wide world • Alliteration that creates rhythm and also suggests vastness of the world.

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The Turn:

• A sonnet always has a “turn” : a point in the poem that signals amajor reversal in the thoughts or desires that shaped the first lines ofthe poem. Usually the turn occurs around line 8 or 9.

• Keats starts his turn in line 12. he has spent much time thinking aboutfame and love. The first section develops a single concept: his desirefor love and success and his certainty that death will cut those desiresshort. Then the poem turns. The 2nd section reverses these thoughts,taking the poem to a new direction. Now, his focus is wider; it is onthe wide world. The last lines reject all of his desires as futile.

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Theme of the poem:

• The theme is human mortality, which is one of the famousthemes of the Romantics. Keats is afraid of death at a veryyoung age, but his fear is justified. He lost his father at theage of 8. a year later, his grandfather died. In his early teens,his mother died. Exposed to so much death at a young age,keats realized the transience of life. The sonnet givesexpression to his personal fear of his own early death whichwould doom to oblivion his human longings and artisticambition.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Dr. Abeer Salah

William Wordsworth

Dr. Abeer Salah

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

• William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is regarded as the father of EnglishRomanticism. He is often referred to as the ‘poet of nature’ as most of hisverse deals with natural description, and a call to go back to nature in orderto feel the presence of the spirit of God.

• In the summer of 1802, William Wordsworth traveled with his sister,Dorothy, to Calais, France. They stopped in London and when they left, itwas early on the morning of July 31st. They crossed over the famousWestminster Bridge to get out of town. Wordsworth apparently wrote thesonnet while sitting on top of his coach. Maybe he was so awed by the citybecause he didn't live there: he spent much of his time in one of the mostpicturesque natural landscapes in England, Lake District. The poem isremembered not as a biographical record, but as a beautiful depiction ofLondon in the morning.

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Composed upon Westminster Bridge

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Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

• Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty;This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steepIn his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at his own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!

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vocabulary

words

• Fair

• Dull

• Majesty

• Glittering

• Splendor

• Glideth

• Mighty

meanings• Beautiful

• Stupid or not lively in spirit

• Supreme greatness

• Sparkling

• Great brightness

• Move smoothly without effort

• Of great size or great in importance

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Composed Upon Westminster BridgeSummary

• in lines 1 through 8, which together compose a single sentence, thespeaker describes what he sees as he stands on Westminster Bridgelooking out at the city. He begins by saying that there is nothing"more fair" on Earth than the sight he sees, and that anyone whocould pass the spot without stopping to look has a "dull" soul. Thepoem takes place in the "beauty of the morning," which lies like ablanket over the silent city. He then lists what he sees in the city andmentions that the city seems to have no pollution and lies "Openunto the fields, and to the sky."

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Summary:

• In lines 9 through 14, the speaker tells the reader that the sun hasnever shone more beautifully on valleys, rocks, or hills. He goes on todescribe the way that the river glides along at the slow pace itchooses. The poem ends with an exclamation, saying that “thehouses, or its inhabitants, seem asleep and the heart of the city isstill.

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Paraphrase

• Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty;This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

• The sonnet opens with hyperbole. Theearth has no other sight as beautiful asthe one the poet is seeing at the present.He believes that anyone who could seethe sight he is witnessing and pass bywithout being stunned by its beauty has adull spirit. The City has a majestic androyal touch when it is wearing thebeautiful garment of the morning. Thepoet then moves on from describing thebeauty and silence of the morning to a listof buildings that usually abound withactivity and movement and which areopen into the fields and the sky. Thewhole city shines so bright in theunpolluted morning air.

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Paraphrase

Never did sun more beautifully steepIn his first splendor , valley, rock, or

hill;Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so

deep!The river glideth ,at his own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying

still!

• The sestet opens with a sense ofdisbelief and exaggeration when hesays that he has never seen the sunrise more beautifully. When itappears and shines brightly, itlights up the hills, rocks, andvalleys-elements of the naturallandscape. The river is also flowingpeacefully. The whole sight bringshim a sense of peace he has neverexperienced. He ends the sonnetby directly referring to thesignificance of the city which is the“mighty heart.”

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Analysis

• Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" is an Italiansonnet, written in iambic pentameter with ten syllables per line. Therhyme scheme of the poem is abba abba cd cd cd. The rhymescheme is repetitive and regular which gives a heart beat pulse to thepoem like that of the city.

• the octave presents a view of the city as it wears the sunlit morninglike a garment. The sestet declares that this man-made formation isas beautiful in the sunlight as any natural formation such as valleysand hills.

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Summary/ Analysis

• The sestet opens with a sense of disbelief and exaggeration when hesays that he has never seen the sun rise more beautifully. When itappears and shines brightly, it lights up the hills, rocks, and valleys-elements of the natural landscape. The river is also flowing peacefully.The whole sight brings him a sense of peace he has neverexperienced. He ends the sonnet by directly referring to thesignificance of the city which is the “mighty heart.”

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Analysis

• The poem begins with a rather shocking statement, especially for aRomantic poet: "Earth has not anything to show more fair." Thisstatement is surprising because Wordsworth is not speaking ofnature, but of the city. He goes on to list the beautiful man-madeentities therein, such as "Ships, towers, domes, theatres andtemples." In fact, nature's influence isn't described until the 7th line,when the speaker says that the city is "open to the fields, and to thesky.“ Nature and man-made structures compliment each other’sbeauty.

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Analysis

• Wordsworth continues to surprise his reader by saying that the sunhas never shone more beautifully, even on natural things. He thenpersonifies the scene, giving life to the sun, the river, the houses, andfinally to the whole city, which has a symbolic heart. The readerimagines that the city's heart beats rapidly during the day, whileeverything and everyone in it is bustling about, but now, in the earlymorning hours, the city's heart is "lying still.“ The busiest city inWordsworth’s world, London, sleeps and wears the beauty of themorning. By using personification in his poem, Wordsworth brings akind of spirit to the city, which is usually seen as a simple constructionof rock and metal.

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Analysis

• The opening lines of the poem immediately states what the poetwants to say. This image he is confronted with, London is quiet andsleeping, is the most beautiful he can recall. He challenges the readernot to appreciate it by saying that only those without a lively soulcould fail to be touched by this beautiful scene. The city is personifiedto seem like a person sleeping. The poet seems to enjoy the contrastbetween how London usually appears during daytime and how itappears in the early morning, which is strikingly calming and beautifulbecause of the unexpectedness.

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Imagery & figures of Speech:

• The most striking figure of speech is personification which is used in several places in the poem with reference to the city, sun, river, and houses. The poet creates the impression that nature is a living being with soul.

• This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning;

• The beauty of the morning is compared to a dress or a garment in a simile. Only people wear clothes, so London is personified. This also explains the use of the capital letter in “City.” So, he creates an image of a beautiful woman made more beautiful by the perfect dress she is wearing.

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Imagery & Figures of Speech

• The river glideth ,at his own sweet will:

• The river is also personified as a person with a free will, moving quietly and smoothly. The image implies that the river is calm and there is no one to disturb its flow, which contributes to the serenity of the whole scene.

• Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;The houses are personified as sleeping people because the city is

quiet and still. The huge city, London, which is always alive and noisy seems vacant and at peace.

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Imagery & Figures of Speech

• And all that mighty heart is lying still!

• Personification of England with London as its heart, always pumping and moving to keep the whole world moving. Now, this heart is “lying still” because the city, like its people, is asleep.

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Imagery and Figures of Speech

• Use of Hyperbole, or exaggeration.

• Earth has not anything to show more fair:

• Never did sun more beautifully steep

•

• The first line of the poem conveys thepoet’s exact feelings. It emphasizes hisemotions and admiration regarding anurban cityscape. He is exaggeratingthe beauty of nature and claims thatthe effect of the morning light onLondon creates beauty that neverbeen experienced before. Then, thereis a parallel structure in the first line ofthe sestet. There is a hyperboliccomment about the sun never havingbeen anywhere more beautiful. Thisshows that natural beauty combinedwith architectural, or man-made,beauty, is incomparable.

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Imagery and Figures of Speech

• Use of Hyperbole, or exaggeration.• Earth has not anything to show

more fair:• Never did sun more beautifully

steep• In his first splendour, valley, rock,

or hill;Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so

deep!The river glideth at his own sweet will:

• He builds up the images of the citywith “ships”, “towers”, & “domes.”He also uses the natural images ofthe “field” and “the sky”. Natureand man-made city are working inharmony to create this perfection.The city joined with nature to givethe early riser a tableau ofglistening water and buildings.

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Imagery and Figures of Speech

• Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

• Use of exclamation & apostrophe

• The poet addresses God directly.He is describing what he has seen,thought, and felt on a specific day,at a specific moment. Dear God!:expresses his wonder and surprise.He is struck by the beauty of thecity and of nature. because it is sounexpected in the heart of theworld’s busiest city. He, therefore,cant hide his emotions. Though hehas been describing the wholescene for so long, his feelings havenot abated.

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Imagery and Figures of Speech

Never did sun more beautifully steep

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

Use of anaphora. (the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses)

• The repetition of “Never”emphasizes his belief that thissight brings him a sense of peaceand joy he has neverexperienced.

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The Title:

• The poem’s title is significant. It shows that the poem has beencomposed in the place it describes. So, the poem is an immediaterecord of an inspiration that belongs to a particular time and place. Itreflects a particular, fleeting experience. The poem reflectsWordsworth’s vision of London’s serene beauty.

• The Message: the city is as beautiful as anything in nature.

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Applications

• Discuss briefly Romanticism as a movement.

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What is John Keats trying to express throughout this sonnet?• The poet is reflecting upon all the things that he wants in life ;

namely, success, fame, and love. Yet, he is sure that his life will cometo and end before he can achieve his goals. The poem shows hisdesires and despair.

• In this sonnet, Keats expresses his fear that he might die beforehaving a chance to experience the love of a woman or develop histalent as a poet.

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Discuss the form and meter used by Keats in this sonnet?

• “When I Have Fears” is a Shakespeareansonnet. It is a standard sonnet written iniambic pentameter. (unstressed syllablefollowed by a stressed syllable). It consistsof three quatrain and a final rhymingcouplet. Each of the three quatrain dealswith one of his fears.

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What are Keats’s fears? How does he introduce them in his sonnet?• He expresses his fear that he will be deprived of the three things that

he values most:

• 1-writing poetry of varied ideas.

• 2-Experience the wonderful mystery of nature and gain experience from it.

• 3-Experience the magical power of passionate love.

• Each of the three quatrains in this Shakespearean sonnet deals with one of his fears.

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How does Keats end his poem?

•The poet ends his poem with a change in histhoughts. The poem expresses 2 major thoughts.The first part of the sonnet expresses Keats’ fearof dying young with the result that he will notfulfill himself as a writer. Losing his beloved is hisother fear. Then in the final couplet he resolveshis fears by asserting the unimportance of loveand fame.

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What is the dominant figure of speech used in the first quatrain?• the central metaphor is the comparison between writing poetry and

harvesting grain. The 1st quatrain emphasizes how fertile hisimagination is and how much he has to express. Hence the use of theimagery of the harvest. The poet identifies one of his fears for thereader. It’s not merely death that worries him, but the fear that hemay not achieve his full creative potential, his” full ripened grain “ inthe form of “high piled books” that he could write. Death will cutshort his poetic career.

Full ripened grain: ideas which need to be written down are like thegrain to be harvested. The fruits of the poet’s mind become “ripen’d”

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Dominant figure of speech in the 1st quatrain:

only as the poet ages and therefore his writings aremature in content. Thus, there will be no chance for“harvesting” them. These fruits which are his poeticworks, grant the poet fame, and are represented by“the high-piled books.” The books are compared togarners which will hold all of his written work.

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What is the significance of using the following words?• Teeming:• The word suggests that the speaker is still full of life and ideas, which

contrasts with his approaching death.High-piled , Rich• Signify abundanceGlean’d , grain , garners• Alliteration, that creates rhythm and focuses the reader’s attention on the

harvest image. When , before• The repetition of these adverbs suggests the passing of time and shows

that the poet is aware of his threatening death.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Why does Keats refer to his beloved as “fair creature of an hour?”

•Because she is also at the mercy of time asshe is “a creature of an hour.” She, too, hasa short life span because, like him, she ismortal. The image implies that she is mortaland that humans don’t have much time tospend on this earth.

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Paraphrase the final couplet.

• Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

• Till love and fame to nothingness do sink

• Paraphrase:

• Finally, after reflecting upon his feelings, which the act of writing thissonnet has involved, Keats thinks about human insignificancecompared to the whole world. He finally accepts the unimportance ofhis desire for fame and love and thus ceases to fear and yearn. Herealizes that death turns everything into nothing. Therefore, his highhopes for fame and love are not worth such intense stress.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Keats’ sonnet shows a deviation in his thoughts reflected in the poem. Explain.

• There is a major reversal in the thoughts or desires thatshaped the first lines of the poem. Keats starts to change histhoughts in line 12. he has spent much time thinking aboutfame and love. The first section develops a single concept:his desire for love and success and his certainty that deathwill cut those desires short. Then the poem turns. The 2nd

section reverses these thoughts, taking the poem to a newdirection. Now, his focus is wider; it is on the wide world.The last lines reject all of his desires as futile. He realizes thatdeath turns everything into nothing. Therefore, his highhopes for fame and love are not worth such intense stress.Dr. Abeer Salah

What is the theme of the sonnet?

• The theme is human mortality, which is one of the famousthemes of the Romantics. Keats is afraid of death at a veryyoung age, but his fear is justified. He lost his father at theage of 8. a year later, his grandfather died. In his early teens,his mother died. Exposed to so much death at a young age,keats realized the transience of life. The sonnet givesexpression to his personal fear of his own early death whichwould doom to oblivion his human longings and artisticambition.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Wordsworth uses “hyperbole” in his sonnet. Explain.• The sonnet opens with hyperbole. The earth has no other sight as

beautiful as the one the poet is seeing at the present. He believesthat anyone who could see the sight he is witnessing and pass bywithout being stunned by its beauty has a dull spirit.

• The sestet opens with a sense of disbelief and exaggeration,too. whenhe says that he has never seen the sun rise more beautifully. When itappears and shines brightly, it lights up the hills, rocks, and valleys-elements of the natural landscape. The whole sight brings him asense of peace he has never experienced.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Both Keats and Wordsworth use 2 different sonnet forms to convey their emotions. Explain.

keats uses the Shakespearean sonnet. It is a standard sonnetwritten in iambic pentameter. Each of the three quatrains inthis Shakespearean sonnet deals with one of his fears. Then, inthe final couplet , he reconsiders his thoughts and presents adifferent point of view. He finally accepts the unimportance ofhis desire for fame and love and thus ceases to fear and yearn.He realizes that death turns everything into nothingness.Therefore, his high hopes for fame and love are not worthsuch intense stress.

Dr. Abeer Salah

• Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3,1802" is an Italian sonnet, written in iambic pentameter with tensyllables per line. The rhyme scheme of the poem is abba abba cd cdcd. The rhyme scheme is repetitive and regular which gives a heartbeat pulse to the poem like that of the city.

• the octave presents a view of the city as it wears the sunlit morninglike a garment. The sestet declares that this man-made formation isas beautiful in the sunlight as any natural formation such as valleysand hills.

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What is the dominant figure of speech used by Wordsworth. Illustrate with examples.• The most striking figure of speech is personification which is used in

several places in the poem with reference to the city, sun, river, and houses. The poet creates the impression that nature is a living being with soul.

• This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning;

• The beauty of the morning is compared to a dress or a garment in a simile. Only people wear clothes, so London is personified. This also explains the use of the capital letter in “City.” So, he creates an image of a beautiful woman made more beautiful by the perfect dress she is wearing.

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• The river glideth ,at his own sweet will:

• The river is also personified as a person with a free will, moving quietly and smoothly. The image implies that the river is calm and there is no one to disturb its flow, which contributes to the serenity of the whole scene.

• And all that mighty heart is lying still!

• Personification of England with London as its heart, always pumping and moving to keep the whole world moving. Now, this heart is “lying still” because the city, like its people, is asleep.

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• Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;The houses are personified as sleeping people because the city is

quiet and still. The huge city, London, which is always alive and noisy seems vacant and at peace.

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What is the significance of the title?

• The poem’s title is significant. It shows that the poem has beencomposed in the place it describes. So, the poem is an immediaterecord of an inspiration that belongs to a particular time and place. Itreflects a particular, fleeting experience. The poem reflectsWordsworth’s vision of London’s serene beauty.

Dr. Abeer Salah

Dr. Abeer Salah