A Connectionist Model of Poetic Meter
Abstract. Traditional analyses of meter are hampered by their inability to image the interaction of various elements which affect the stress patterns of a line of poetry or provide a system of notation fully amenable to computational analysis. To solve these problems, the connectionist models of James McClelland and David Rumelhart in Explorations in Parallel Distributed Processing (1988) are applied to the analysis of English poetic meter. The model graphically illustrates the dynamics of a poetic line and incorporates a number of features associated with the actual oral performance of a poetic text, while providing a notational system that allows mathematical analyses of poetic meter.
One of the salient features of poetry is its metrical structure. Many poets use regular patterns of stress to achieve specific aesthetic effects; readers expect such patterns and foreground them in their oral interpretations of the poems, whether they be read aloud or subvocally. Consider the opening line to Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey": "Five years have past; five summers, with the length . . ." According to traditional "rules" of scansion, this iambic pentameter line would receive a heightened stress on the alternate even numbered syllables years, past, sum-, with, and length. Yet the repetition of the adjective five calls for some degree of emphasis upon each occurrence of the word, even though it is found in an unstressed position. But how much emphasis? More than the "stressed" with? More than years? Is the stress equal in both uses of five? And where does the stress or emphasis come from--from our act of interpretation or from an intonation pattern generated by the syntax?
Each stanza is composed of words that present a logical flow of growth through the entire poem. The words in the poem do not rhyme and the lines are different lengths.
In the poem By Watching, Hiram Larew uses signature craft techniques to show the realization that people can regain their conviction in God by conquering the doubt in their mind’s eye.
The em dash is used to separate the poem, whereas a special style is used in order to make the poem flow smoothly. This style is called iambic meter, a style that divides lines into two syllable sections. The syllable pattern is 8, 6, 8, 6 for every stanza in the poem. Iambic meter is used to counteract and support Dickenson’s use of the em dash.
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
Making difficult decisions show up in life more often than realized. These choices can alter a person’s life in good and bad ways. “The Bicycle” by Jillian Horton is a story that focuses on a young talented pianist named Hannah. Throughout the story Hannah deals with the strict teachings of her Tante Rose, which leads her to make ironic decisions. Similarly, in the story “Lather and Nothing Else” by Hernando Tellez, the barber undergoes a dilemma in which he must consider his moral values before making his final decision. Both stories have a protagonist that face conflicts which lead to difficult decision making, and in the end leads the characters to discover themselves. In both stories the authors use the literary devices theme, irony and symbolism to compare and contrast the main ideas.
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
Most all ethnicities and cultures have been prosecuted at one time or another from an oppressing source. In the case of the Native Americans, it was the English coming in and taking their land right from underneath them. As the new colonies of the cohesive United States of America expanded, they ran into the territories of the then referred to Indians. These people were settled down south on the east coast, for example Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and the Carolinas. America obtained this land through the Louisiana Purchase, where they bought it from France. The Native Americans were already there before anyone, yet the big power countries bargained with their land. The Native Americans did not live the way the American democracy did, and they
Manhood and its definition is a major theme in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. On first appearance, Macbeth is characterized as a loyal and valiant thane in defense of the honor of Scotland and King Duncan. The brutality that he shows as a warrior on the battlefield is an acceptable and lauded trait. These attributes come into question as the witches introduce the prophecies tempting Macbeth’s vaulting ambition. After the regicide, Macbeth is damned and is no longer concerned with being honorable. He covets immediate gratification at all costs and by all means. However, this gratification is temporary due to that Macbeth later on, experiences guilt and regret which directs him towards his morbid fate and ultimate demise.
One particularly useful cross-disciplinary element employed in concrete poetry is the use of space. The poetry of Emmett Williams, Seiichi Nikuni, and Ilse and Pierre Garnier in particular, make use of spatial relationships in their poetry. The use of space can be employed in place of traditional grammar and syntax to convey meaning in concrete poetry, particularly when the spatial position of one element is taken into consideration with other elements of the poem. Another element that may arise from these spatial relationships is a temporal aspect that all poetry employs, but which becomes uniquely meaningful in the context of the concrete poetry of the twentieth century. Without these relationships concrete poems may appear as crude distortions of words on a page, with no significant sense or meaning to communicate. Therefore, the temporal/spatial relationships between poetic elements become necessary tools which the reader needs in order to fully understand the linguistically driven meaning behind many concrete poems.
Although I do not intend here to resolve the question of gender in Macbeth (actually, I hope to provoke further thoughts on interpretation), I do wish to note that Shakespeare has forcefully bound the cultural problem of violence to the promulgation and validation of the roles a community assigns by sex. Read the play; attend a performance; consider the moral and ethical implications bound up in the plot of a would-be king who sheds true manhood even as he fulfills the masculine ideal.
In the sexist historical period in which the play Macbeth is set, women were not seen as equals and could be accused of witchcraft without reason. There were many male and female stereotypes that were popular perceptions of what each gender should be, creating gender roles. In the play, Lady Macbeth takes on many stereotypically masculine characteristics and her dominant power has led to interpretation that she was responsible for the horrible events of Macbeth. She acted as more of a real women than society would’ve even known at that time, by being brave and helping her husband while having goals of her own. However, Lady Macbeth’s strong actions, despite their bold defiance of gender roles, did not lead to the tragedies of the play, but
In the play "Macbeth," Shakespeare demonstrates that the thirst for power is strong enough to taint the mind of a person once so honorable. He shows the contrast of what it is to be a real man and a man of cowardice. There is also a battle between gender, a woman who acts and thinks like a man? This is a twist in the common gender role, where it is seen constantly, Lady Macbeth capturing of her husband's scepter and taking the lead and being the strong suit in their path for a
Did I Miss Anything? is a poem written by a Canadian poet and academic Tom Wayman. Being a teacher, he creates a piece of literature, where he considers the answers given by a teacher on one and the same question asked by a student, who frequently misses a class. So, there are two speakers present in it – a teacher and a student. The first one is fully presented in the poem and the second one exists only in the title of it. The speakers immediately place the reader in the appropriate setting, where the actions of a poem take place – a regular classroom. Moreover, the speakers unfolds the main theme of the poem – a hardship of being a teacher, the importance of education and laziness, indifference and careless attitudes of a student towards studying.
The poem “Bell Theory", written by Emily Jungmin Yoon is portraying her dissatisfaction with how she been treated in the United States. She is basically stereotyped daily and made fun of for mispronunciations of words. She uses poetic devices such as imagery, repetition, and metaphors to symbolize her disapproval and emphasize her melodramatic chaotic life. Jungmin also used things such as real life references for example tensions between Japan and Korea to depict how stereotypes are not only a thing between Americans and Asians but between Asians themselves as well. The crux of the poem is that no matter how closely related you are people will always find a way to differentiate themselves and call themselves superior.
Prosodic design is the study of meter. The poem is organized in a way that all the lines contain the same structure. Meaning each line contains four stressed syllables, of the four; three begin with the same sound. According to Webster the repetition of sounds in two or more neighboring syllables is alliteration...