Ms. A’s 9th Grade Lit. and Comp.

This week we are re-visiting some of the basic elements of poetry, which we reviewed at the beginning of the Odyssey unit. The following are the terms you will need to be comfortable with in order to proceed to the research and Shakespeare stuff!

• Imagery-
• Imagery can be difficult to discuss because it is, by definition, taking feelings that are wordless–smells, sounds, sights, the feeling of a cool breeze on the skin–and making the reader sense those feelings because of the words in the text. Imagery is poetry. It evokes one (or more) of the senses. Sometimes it can make you think of something unrelated, a little secret hint from the author to you, adding additional significance to the scene.
  • example: when Romeo and Juliet first meet, they converse with each other using religious terminology: sacred vs. profane, proper decorum for a pilgrim (someone who has traveled to a sacred place for religious purposes), saints, sin.  This type of imagery is meant to make you think of the church, and of religious ceremonies.  This would have resonated particularly with Shakespeare’s audience.
    • ROMEO: [To JULIET]  If I profane with my unworthiest hand
      This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
      My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
      To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
      Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
      For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
      And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

      ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

      JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

      ROMEO: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
      They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

      JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

      ROMEO: Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
      Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

      JULIET: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

      ROMEO: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
      Give me my sin again 

• In addition to a general use of vivid sensory detail, imagery is also used very often in similes and metaphors.  The comparison is made to help add description to an object, and a good description most often uses vivid imagery.  Check out this example from “The Space,” by Gary Soto (p. 467 in your book)
  • “…where the javelina
  • lies on its side
  • Like an overturned high heel.
  • I say it is enough
  • to be where the smells
  • of creatures
  • braid like rope
  • and to know
  • if the grasses rustle
  • it is only
  • a lizard passing.
    it is enough, brother,
  • listening to a bird coo
  • a leash of parables,
  • keeping an eye
  • on the moon,
  • the space between cork trees
  • where the sun first appears.”

• Simile-
• Yes, we can all repeat what we learned in fifth grade, “a simile is a comparison using like or as,” but can we discuss why a poet or playwright would use a simile? It is important to understand that by comparing A to B, the author is taking important qualities of B and attributing them to A.
• “Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like a thorn,” sighs Romeo as he pines for his love, Rosaline. One aspect of love is like the thorn, though love and the thorn are not the same in other characteristics.
• “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!” Again, Romeo, the romantic, uses simile to express his feelings, comparing Juliet’s beauty to “a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.” Now, he is not saying that Juliet is an earring, but that she moves delicately and brightly, “hangs upon the cheek of night,” like a bright diamond earring dangling from a dark complexioned woman’s ear. So he is not comparing the earring to Juliet, but more her presence in the room, the way she lights up the space and captures his attention.
• Metaphor-
  • Like simile, metaphor associates qualities of B with a description of A. What’s the difference? “Metaphor doesn’t use like or as,” AND metaphor usually is more comprehensive. It is save to say, I think, that metaphor is more likely to associate ALL of the qualities of B with A. (ex: ALL of the qualities of an abandoned puppy to a lost child. ) A is B.
    • “Arise, fair sun and kill the envious moon, for she is envious that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she,” exclaims Romeo as he sees Juliet standing in her window. Because this is a metaphor, not a simile, Romeo is able to expand his initial comparison of Juliet to the sun into a battle between celestial objects (or goddesses). He has compared her to the sun, and can then go on to explore the relationship of the sun to other things (the moon).
    • “Oh happy dagger, here is thy sheath,” Juliet cries right before she stabs herself over Romeo’s body. This is a metaphor comparing Juliet’s body to the sheath of a dagger. Not that it is like a sheath to the dagger, but that it is the sheath. A simile in this situation would never carry the same feeling of permanence that the graceful metaphor does.
• Hyperbole
  • Hyperbole is an exaggeration of something for the purpose of achieving an effect.
    • “ROMEO: Commend me to thy lady.
      Nurse: Ay, a thousand times.”
      • Here, Romeo is pestering the Nurse (Juliet’s nanny, asking her over and over to “commend my to thy lady,” or to put in a good word for him with Juliet.  The Nurse responds, “Ay, a thousand times,” expressing exasperation at his repeated requests.  Did Romeo actually ask her a thousand times to mention him to Juliet? NO, but the nurse’s reply shows that she feels as if it were a thousand times.

The first three weeks of our 101 word vocabulary acquisition project.  We will have vocab quizzes every Friday, and they will cover ALL the words we have done so far!

Week 1

Week 2

WEEK 3

Week 4

Week 5