Poetry is commonly described to as literature with particular characteristics that distinguish it in its presentation both visually and aurally. Aesthetic and rhythmic elements ensure that the poetry dictation has a well-organized framework. Besides from providing a notable auditory essence, such traits facilitate a variety of meanings. Poetry has a distinct framework that differs greatly from that of prose or theatre. Both prose and poetry are literary works, but they tell stories in very different ways. Poetry, for example, has several characteristics that set it apart from other literary works. Such features, rightly known as elements of poetry, provide a definitive and unique structure to the poetic dictation with richer sound qualities, including phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, metre etc.
Elements of poetry bestow a definitive structure to a poem. Any literary work with the presence of such characteristics would be called a poem or poetry. The elements of poetry include structure, sound, imagery, figurative language, elements of fiction and poetic forms (Gardner, 13). The elements offers better understanding of a poetry form as it exists with apt uniqueness. Furthermore, poetry induces diverse emotive expressions due to its well-established literary customs and practices.
The varied literary practices of poetry include repetition, onomatopoeia, aesthetics, resonance, rhythm etc. These are the elements and techniques which play a very important role in depicting pleasant-sounding tone of the verses and words. Also, many other characteristics of poetry include symbolism, ambiguity, and irony etc. which represent diverse meanings to interpreters’.
In a similar manner, figures of speech such as allegory, expression and metonymy provide a kind of reverberation between otherwise incongruent imageries – a multi-layered meaning, and establish relations not observed before. Associated procedures of character may exist between individual verses in the designs of the rhyme or rhythm. Like other elements, the structure element is very vital and has other minor associated facets, which are poetic lines, stanza, enjambment, placement, verse etc.
According to Longenbach, a group of related words constituted by a single line of poetry is known as poetic line (Longenbach, 9). For instance, Clement Clarke Moore crafted “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house” that illustrates a famous poetic line of “A Visit from Saint Nicholas”. Similarly, a stanza represents a number of lines that do convey closely related information of poetry. For example,
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
illustrates a stanza in a couplet form. The couplet is taken from a poem,“Barbara Frietchie” eloquently written by John Greenleaf Wittier:
Structure is one of the most distinctive features of poetry. A poetic expression is visually distinctive from other forms of prose, including lay as well prose. Lines and stanzas are associated with forms of poetry. They actually add to visual portrayal of a piece of literature in a very organized manner, making it very different from other literary forms. The visual appearance enhances rhythmically richer in-depth meaning. For instance, Acrostic poems express the gist in the primary letters of lines. They may also deliver it in letters at other precise spaces in a poem.
Similarly, the element of sound is very crucial in poetry. It gives a distinctive acoustic character to a poetic dictation. The techniques used such as rhythm, meter, end rhyme, internal rhyme, and assonance etc. bestow a very richer aural attitude to poetry, which is far different from that of other forms of literature. Imagery and figurative language also adds definitive feature to a poetry dictation. Precise language and sensory details are associated with the imagery. On the other hand, symbolism, personification, metaphor, hyperbole and sarcasm include the attributes of figurative language (Strachan, John, Terry, Richard, 119).
Poetry differs a lot from other forms of literature. The unique style in its presentation both visual and aural makes it none of a kind. The above discussed elements are very vital to the structural philosophy of the poetic dictation and make it more meaningful and interesting. Elements of poetry can be applied on any piece of literature to check, whether it is poetry or not. The elements can be utilized as a litmus test to identify the validity of poetic literature. Broadly speaking, any literary text without the presence of any element of poetry would not be categorized as poetry. Every literary work is not poetry. However, every poetic dictation is literature with definitive associated characteristics, which are generally known as ‘elements of poetry’.
Works Cited
Gardner, E, Janet. Literature: A Portable Anthology (3rd Edition). 2012
Longenbach, James. Modern Poetry After Modernism. Oxford University Press. (1997). pp. 9, 103.
Strachan, John R; Terry, Richard, G (2000).Poetry: an introduction. Edinburgh University Press. p. 119.
