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 incantatory effects. Most poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate pattern. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry.
Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in the Sumerian language.
Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing as well as from religious hymns (the Sanskrit Rigveda, the Zoroastrian Gathas, the Hurrian songs, and the Hebrew Psalms); or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe, Indian epic poetry, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. (Full article...)
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A villanelle, also known as villanesque, is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately at the end of each subsequent stanza until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines. The villanelle is an example of a fixed verse form. The word derives from Latin, then Italian, and is related to the initial subject of the form being the pastoral.
The form started as a simple ballad-like song with no fixed form; this fixed quality would only come much later, from the poem "Villanelle (J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle)" (1606) by Jean Passerat. From this point, its evolution into the "fixed form" used in the present day is debated. Despite its French origins, the majority of villanelles have been written in English, a trend which began in the late nineteenth century. The villanelle has been noted as a form that frequently treats the subject of obsessions, and one which appeals to outsiders; its defining feature of repetition prevents it from having a conventional tone. (Full article...)
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Poetry WikiProject
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Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and—in addition to publishing his poetry—was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the illustrations in the 1992 video game Tetris Classic are based on scenes from Alexander Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Ludmila?
- ... that a 14th-century work, originally attributed to another poet, was discovered in 2018 to be the creation of the Azerbaijani poet Yusuf Meddah?
- ... that Laura Ashe believes the Gawain Poet used the beheading game to criticize the emptiness of chivalry?
- ... that the 19th-century poet Cyprian Norwid, now recognized as one of the most important Polish poets, led a poverty-stricken life and his works were rarely appreciated until decades after his death?
- ... 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 the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
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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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