Poetry - CLEP Humanities

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" is considered the preeminent Beat-era poem, with its stark descriptions of drugs and sexual acts, as well as its use of a blank verse form inspired by jazz. Ginsberg gained instant notoriety when "Howl" was published in 1957, and was brought forward in an obscenity trial in Ginsberg's native California in 1959.

Roman poetry, largely an adaptation and revision of Greek poetry, featured many different styles, from the epics of Vergil to the short, confessional poems of Catullus. Satires, religious themes, and heroic subjects were all possibilities, with romantic topics also having prominence in the Republican era. The only true uniting force in Roman poetry was a constant stress on the meter and rhythm of the poem, with strict rules governing the usage of different syllables.

The Aeneid, written by the poet Vergil between 29 and 19 BCE, tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero and the mythical founder of Rome. As such, the story is both a continuation of Homer's Iliad, and serves as a founding myth for the Roman people. Vergil's poem traces how Aeneas fled Troy, led a Trojan fleet, and eventually settled in Italy.

The Divine Comedy tells the story of its author, Dante, traveling through the different realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, all to find what happened to his deceased lover, Beatrice. The work is divided into three separate sections between Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Heaven). The whole work is an allegory for the soul's journey to God, as expressed in Medieval Catholic theology.

Sultan Saladin is the correct answer. He was placed in limbo because he was an honorable man, despite being a non-Christian. Sultan Saladin was a contemporary of Richard the Lionheart and conquered Jerusalem in the Second and Third Crusades. Others in limbo in The Divine Comedy include Julius Caesar, Hector, and Avicenna.

The poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was written in 1854 to commemorate the same event in the Crimean War, where a British brigade made a nearly suicidal charge at the Battle of Balaclava. Published just six weeks after the event, Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem is a famous poetic depiction of heroic soldiering from the mid-nineteenth century, with its recitation of the marching, drilling, and cannon fire of the battle.

A rhyme scheme identified by letter describes each rhyme with the same letter. Thus, since the poem's first and third lines rhyme, the first stanza should be marked as ABAB. Because the second stanza has a new rhyming word, the second stanza should be marked CDCD.

In this poem, Dickinson has death something that has "stopped for me," a thing that can know, and that has "Civility." These are all features of a person, despite "death" technically being an event or abstract idea. Making an abstract idea have human traits is called "personification."

The very first character introduced into Milton's narrative in Paradise Lost is Satan. While telling the story of Adam and Eve in a new way, the narrative unfolds from Satan's perspective. Milton's epic poem has greatly contributed to the character of Satan in the Western literary tradition.

The poem describes a woman's body as "cold" and "dumb," and that it needs to be covered by a sheet, indicating that she is dead. The rest of the poem described gathering people for some kind of event where she is central. Thus, the poem is about a funeral or wake.

The poem features a narrator who is attempting to gather everyone for the event. So even though the narrator has a slightly detached view of the event ("Let be be the finale of seem"), the narrator is also deeply involved. There is also a sense of wonder throughout the poem, largely thanks to the narrator's own involvement in the strange circumstances.

(Passage adapted from "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens)

The sonnet was first developed in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, but became a popular form of poetry throughout Europe during the Renaissance. William Shakespeare became well known in England for his sonnets in the late sixteenth century. A sonnet typically has just fourteen strictly metered lines, with a specific structure and strict rhyme scheme.

Iambic pentameter is most famous as the rhythm scheme used by William Shakespeare in most of his plays. The scheme features five "feet" per line, with each foot having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. This rhythm creates a standard speaking pattern for actors and audiences to follow.

Petrarch, who lived from 1304 to 1374, is not just famous for writing most of his poems in the sonnet form, but for widely popularizing the form across Europe. Petrarch used a standard fourteen line form with an ABBA rhyme scheme. Petrarch is considered one of the standardizers of the Italian language thanks to his immense popularity.

When a rhyme scheme is described with letters, the first line automatically gets designated as "A." Any other line that rhymes with the first line will also be marked as "A." Therefore, in an ABBA rhyme scheme, the first and the fourth lines rhyme, as do the second and third lines.

The limerick is a popular short poem form originating in the British Isles and named after a city in Ireland. A limerick always consists of five lines, with a strict rhythm, and an AABBA rhyme scheme. Limericks are frequently humorous and made of doggerel and satiric statements.

"Common meter" is the name of a simple but specific poetic format, with four lines per stanza, and an alternating rhythm and rhyme scheme. The first and third lines of a common meter poem are eight syllabes in four iambs, while its second and fourth lines are six syllables in three iambs; the rhyme scheme is a simple abab. Emily Dickinson, who wrote the poem from which the stanza in question was excerpted, wrote most of her poems in the common meter.

A haiku is a distinctive form of poetry which is a key feature of the Japanese literary tradition. In addition to its strict form, with each line having only a small number of syllables, the poem's structure also requires a kiru, or "cutting." This shift in tone and emphasis midway through the poem creates a paradox and dichotomy that is central to the genre.

Emily Dickinson spent essentially her entire life in the environs of Amherst, Massachusetts, and most of her poems deal with reflections on life in that community and her family. This simplicity of subject was reflected in her use of the simple common meter, which had an alternating rhyme scheme in four line stanzas featuring alternating lines of four and three iambs each. Despite the seeming simplicity of Dickinson's poems, they often ventured into ruminations on death, love, and loneliness.

In descriptions of poetic meter, the first word indicates the kind of poetic feet, or units of measure, in the line, while the second indicates the number of feet. In "trochaic tetrameter," the feet are trochees, or two syllable feet that each consist of a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable. "Tetrameter" indicates there are four feet per line. This meter was famously used in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha.