Poetry Analysis

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”- Rita Dove. The art of poetry shows to be a powerful way to convey a message, emotion, or story, and the artistic elements involved depict the characteristics of the poet. Poems come in different sizes and shape each having its own distinct features. Haikus, sonnets and odes are few examples of the different types of poems and their unique style of expressing their themes. Haikus are most notable for being sweet and short, hence making them harder to write. If done correctly, Haikus could be used to relay a powerful theme through a few sentences. The history of haikus could be dated back to 7th century Japan. Short lyrical poems were used for religious ceremonies and prayers as …show more content…
A common theme found in sonnets is the theme of love. The meter and rhyme scheme is great to talk about love as the words naturally flow off the tongue. The Italian style was popularized by Francesco Petrarch who was known for writing about his admiration of a woman. The sonnet quickly spread throughout Italy and was formally known as Petrarchan sonnet. The sonnet consisted of two stanzas, the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (the final six lines), the form totaled 14 lines. The octave usually presented a problem or question which was later answered in the sestet. The rhyme scheme was abba, abba in the octave, and cdecde or cdcdcd in the sestet. This rhyme scheme perfectly suits the Italian language which is rich with rhymes. Petrarch wrote about love and used Petrarchan conceit which associates woman to a hyperbolic comparison. The Petrarchan conceit was common amongst renaissance poets and writers. The sonnet influenced English ambassador and poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt brought the Italian sonnet to England and translated Petrarch’s work. The sonnet also became popular in England and poets started composing their own. One such poet was the prominent poet, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare used the Italian sonnet and modified it to better suit the English Language. The Shakespearean sonnet had four stanzas, three quatrains (stanza with four lines) and an ending …show more content…
“Ode” comes from the Greek word aeidein, and translates to “sing or chant”. Odes are a type of traditional Lyric poetry originating in ancient Greece; their special characteristics make them different from other forms of poetry. Ancient Greeks were known for their inventive skills in Art, philosophy and music. Music was a part of their tradition and this helped the development of odes. Pindar was a lyric poet who wrote choral poems in a specific format. These types of poems became known as Odes and more specifically Pindaric Odes. The structure of the Pindaric ode starts off with a strophe followed by an antistrophe and ends with an epode. The strophe and antistrophe has an identical meter and rhyme scheme which is up to the poet’s liking. The epode has a different meter and rhyme scheme than of the previous two sections. The melodic poems started gaining popularity and were recited by a choir as a form of entertainment. The romans were influenced by this choral ode and started composing their own. A group of Romans used odes to write spoken-word odes and of these lyricists, Horace stood out with his highly-personalized poems. Horace changed the traditional ode to a homostrophic ode which meant that all the stanzas had identical structures. Each stanza consisted of two to four lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme. The Horatian ode became prevalent in Rome and Horace is credited for the origination