Sound of Silence

In restless dreams I walked alone aNarrow streets of cobblestone a Rhyming Couplet'Neath the halo of a street lamp bI turned my collar to the cold and damp bWhen my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light cThat split the night cAnd touched the sound of silence a Oxymoron

And in the naked light I sawTen thousand people, maybe morePeople talking without speaking Synonymy / AnaphoraPeople hearing without listeningPeople writing songs that voices never shareAnd no one daredDisturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not knowSilence like a cancer growsHear my words that I might teach youTake my arms that I might reach you“ EpiphoraBut my words, like silent raindrops fellAnd echoedIn the wells of silence

Poetry Characteristics

• Subjectivity – Heightened Individual perception/awareness

• Musicality and Lyricism

• Brevity/Density/Economy of words

The Hippopotamus Behold the hippopotamus!We laugh at how he looks to us,And yet in moments dank and grim,I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!We really look all right to us,As you no doubt delight the eyeOf other hippopotami.

Ogden Nash

Nash’s Poem

• Brevity• Selective theme (think of all the other things he could have

said about a hippopotamus!)• Subjective perspective of the speaker (“lyric persona”)• Rhyme scheme (rhyming couplets) and an almost regular

metre• Division into stanzas• Lack of plot• repeated use of exclamations and other deviations from

everyday language

= enhanced level of artistry and artificiality

Poetry

• Narrative Poetry• Tells a story with a clearly developed plot

and characters in a rhymed form• usually long and often as complex as

novels: example: epic long poem, romance, mock epic, ballad

• Lyric Poetry Tells no story: event, image, idea.

How Poetry Works/Functions

Examples

The dog cried

to

The chap’s song

The cat chanced

as

The rats flung

And this this

„Strikers luck pitch backs heap tips pit slacksDressed pints demon shrinks bread drunk dead drinksStretch clubs models box draw skin black shocksMoney spines paper lung kidney bingos organ funFlag stunt rock stone dole axe crash diveBreathe thrift take speed double take weekendsSkull row drugs hall colour bars sex callsSparkle finds rented rings pretty things clipped wingsGold street spy fleet scandal food poor treatFire run club gun rule mob burn someBomb time pop crime stock frame steady climbFresh name donor game fair meat all the same“

(Wire, Kindney Bingos)

Foregrounding

Paradigmatic –Selection

Syntagmatic – Combination

Artificality, self-reference, self-reflecion (referential function to reality is reduced and minimized)

Equivalence/selection is determined by linguistic, contiguity which is expressed through 1) lexical theamtic; 2) visual and 3) rythamic acouistic aspects

Analysing poetry

1. Lexical-thematic dimension: diction, rhetorical figures, theme

2. Visual dimension: stanzas, concrete poetry

3. Rhythmic-acoustic dimension: rhyme and metre, onomatopoeia, etc.

Lexical• Diction – Slection of words, style, vocabulary• Lyric persona, spekar, or poet himselfTenor: The person, object or idea (“my love”)Vehicle: Object of comparison (“red, red rose)

Rhetorical Figures

• Metaphor (My love is a red red rose, Robert Burns)• Similie (My love is like a red red rose)• Symbols/Symbolism (equates emotion, feeling)

Subjectivity

Implicit and Explicit

“That’s my last Dutchess Painted on the Wall

Looking as if she were alive”

“The apparation of these faces in the crowd

Petals on a wet, black bough.“

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun

Pour away the Ocean and sweep the wood.

Speech Situation

• Lyric Thou“I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart.In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.”

Enounced – “what of poem”

Enunciation – “how of poem”(speech situation)

“I remember you as were

in the Garden of John Doe’s

The wind wailed past

as you crossed the 14th Street”

2. visual dimension: stanzas, concrete poetry George Herbert “Easter Wings” (1633)

The AltarA broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;No workmans tool hath touch'd the same

A HEART aloneIs such a stone,As nothing but

Thy pow'r doth cut.Wherefore each part

Of my hard heartMeets in this frame,To praise thy Name:

That if I chance to hold my peace,These stones to praise thee may not cease.

O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.

l(a

leaffall

s)onel

iness