Portal:Poetry
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Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet.
Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. They also frequently organize these effects intos, which may be strict or loose, conventional or invented by the poet. Poetic structures vary dramatically by language and cultural convention, but they often use rhythmic metre (patterns of syllable stress or syllable (mora) weight). They may also use repeating patterns of phonemes, phoneme groups, tones (phonemic pitch shifts found in tonal languages), words, or entire phrases. These include consonance (or just alliteration), assonance (as in the dróttkvætt), and rhyme schemes (patterns in rimes, a type of phoneme group). Poetic structures may even be semantic (e.g. the volta required in a Petrachan sonnet).
Most written poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow the poetic structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry. (Full article...)
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Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple genre classification by its use of varying themes and tones. Ovid took inspiration from the genre of metamorphosis poetry, and some of the Metamorphoses derives from earlier treatment of the same myths; however, he diverged significantly from all of his models.
One of the most influential works in Western culture, the Metamorphoses has inspired such authors as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante and Boccaccio. Numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in masterpieces of sculpture and painting by artists such as Titian. Although interest in Ovid faded after the Renaissance, towards the end of the twentieth century there was a resurgence of attention to his work; today, the Metamorphoses continues to inspire and be retold through various media. The work has been the subject of numerous translations into English, the first by William Caxton in 1480. (Full article...)
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Cædmon (/ˈkædmən/ or /ˈkædmɒn/) is the earliest English (Northumbrian) poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century historian Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet.
Cædmon is one of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval sources, and one of only three of these for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived. His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastical History of the English People") by Bede who wrote, "[t]here was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in Old English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven."
Cædmon's only known surviving work is Cædmon's Hymn, the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English language and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Rabab Al-Kadhimi was threatened with deportation from Egypt due to the political nature of her poetry?
- ... that Tang dynasty poet and calligrapher Li Yong was falsely accused and executed for attempted treason in 747, but had actually committed treason 37 years earlier?
- ... that Charles Dickens's talking raven Grip inspired the poem "The Raven"?
- ... that Laura Ashe believes the Gawain Poet used the beheading game to criticize the emptiness of chivalry?
- ... that the newspaper Qizil Tugh (Red Banner) provided a publishing platform for young Uyghur-language poets and writers in the Soviet Union?
- ... that Sarah Pickstone based her John Moores Prize–winning painting on an illustration that accompanied the poem "Not Waving but Drowning"?
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| Mandala 1, Hymn 1, Rigveda by anonymous |
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1. I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice, The hotar, lavishest of wealth. 2. Worthy is Agni to be praised by living as by ancient seers. He shall bring. hitherward the Gods. 3. Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day, Most rich in heroes, glorious. 4. Agni, the perfect sacrifice which thou encompassest about Verily goeth to the Gods. 5. May Agni, sapient-minded Priest, truthful, most gloriously great, The God, come hither with the Gods. 6. Whatever blessing, Agni, thou wilt grant unto thy worshipper, That, Angiras, is indeed thy truth. 7. To thee, dispeller of the night, O Agni, day by day with prayer Bringing thee reverence, we come 8. Ruler of sacrifices, guard of Law eternal, radiant One, Increasing in thine own abode. 9. Be to us easy of approach, even as a father to his son: Agni, be with us for our weal. |
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