2. Lyric Poetry
Expresses the personal thoughts and
feelings of a single speaker
Earliest lyric poems = sung by ancient
Greeks to the accompaniment of a
lyre
No longer sung, but still often have a
musical feeling and songlike structure
3. Types of Lyric Poems
Ode: serious, emotional poem paying
respect to a person or thing; speaker
directly addresses subject
Elegy: solemn, formal poem about
death; mourns a person or the passing
of a better time
Sonnet: 14 line poem with a specific
meter and rhyme scheme
4. Elements of Lyric Poetry
Figurative language
Sound devices
Imagery
5. Figurative Language: language
used imaginatively rather than literally
Figures of Speech:
Simile: comparing 2 unlike things
using like or as
Metaphor: comparing 2 unlike things
without using like or as
Personification: giving human traits
to something nonhuman
Oxymoron: juxtaposing 2 opposite
words that reveal an interesting truth
6. Sound devices: use the sounds of
language to add a musical quality to poetry
Repetition: repeated use of sounds,
words, sentences, etc. for emphasis and
a musical effect
◦ Alliteration: initial consonant sounds
◦ Consonance: final consonant sounds
◦ Assonance: similar vowel sounds
Rhyme: repetition of sounds at the ends
of words (eg.: end rhyme)
Onomatopoeia: use words that imitate
sounds (eg.: ring, boom, growl, etc.)
7. Imagery
Descriptive language that appeals to
the senses
◦ Sight
◦ Hearing
◦ Touch
◦ Taste
◦ Smell
Examples: green, humming, cold,
peppery, musty, etc.
8. William Wordsworth
1770-1850
Spent childhood in countryside
13 Parents had died by this time
17 Cambridge University
Traveled Europe, mainly France
Believed in social justice, individual rights
Considered to be “the father of English
Romanticism”
10. “The World is Too Much With Us”
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our
powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune,
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less
forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Sordid = dirty
Boon = favor
