AP English Literature AMSCO Guided Notes
5.1: Power of Poetic Structure
AP English Literature Guided Notes
AMSCO 5.1 - Power of Poetic Structure
Essential Questions
- How do different kinds of poetic structures emphasize ideas and concepts?
I. Closed Forms
1. What is a closed form poem and how do patterns in language and rhyme help readers remember and understand poetry?
A. Lines, Stanzas, Meter, and Rhyme
1. How do line breaks in poetry differ from sentence breaks, and what effect does this have on meaning?
2. What is a stanza and how does the stanza break signal shifts or changes in a poem's ideas?
3. What is meter and how can changes in metrical patterns emphasize meaning in a poem?
4. What is rhyme and how do end rhymes, near rhymes, and internal rhymes create different effects in poetry?
B. The Sonnet
1. What is a sonnet and what are its typical structural characteristics in terms of lines, stanzas, and rhyme scheme?
2. What is iambic pentameter and how does this metrical pattern function in sonnets?
3. How does the structure of a sonnet—with its quatrains and couplet—create an argument or progression of ideas?
II. The Poet's Craft: Breaking Patterns
1. How does 'Dulce et Decorum Est' use the sonnet form while breaking its expected conventions?
2. What might a poet's deliberate breaking of expected patterns communicate about the poem's subject matter and meaning?
III. Open Forms and Emphasis
1. What is open form poetry and how does it differ from closed form poetry?
2. How can the appearance of structure in an otherwise open form poem create emphasis on particular ideas?
A. Emphasis
1. How do multiple structural elements—such as rhyme, stanza placement, and line position—combine to emphasize ideas in a poem?
2. Why is identifying a literary technique insufficient without explaining how that technique contributes to the poem's meaning?
Key Terms
closed form
stanza
rhyme
lines
meter
open form