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poetrymore about poetry

poetry

 

  4  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Poetry  \Po"et*ry\,  n.  [OF.  poeterie  See  {Poet}.] 
  1.  The  art  of  apprehending  and  interpreting  ideas  by  the 
  faculty  of  imagination;  the  art  of  idealizing  in  thought 
  and  in  expression. 
 
  For  poetry  is  the  blossom  and  the  fragrance  of  all 
  human  knowledge,  human  thoughts,  human  passions, 
  emotions,  language.  --Coleridge. 
 
  2.  Imaginative  language  or  composition,  whether  expressed 
  rhythmically  or  in  prose.  Specifically:  Metrical 
  composition;  verse;  rhyme;  poems  collectively;  as  heroic 
  poetry;  dramatic  poetry;  lyric  or  Pindaric  poetry.  ``The 
  planetlike  music  of  poetry.''  --Sir  P.  Sidney. 
 
  She  taketh  most  delight  In  music,  instruments,  and 
  poetry.  --Shak. 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  poetry 
  n  1:  literature  in  metrical  form  [syn:  {poesy},  {verse}] 
  2:  any  communication  resembling  poetry  in  beauty  or  the 
  evocation  of  feeling 
 
  From  Easton's  1897  Bible  Dictionary  [easton]: 
 
  Poetry 
  has  been  well  defined  as  "the  measured  language  of  emotion." 
  Hebrew  poetry  deals  almost  exclusively  with  the  great  question 
  of  man's  relation  to  God.  "Guilt,  condemnation,  punishment, 
  pardon,  redemption,  repentance  are  the  awful  themes  of  this 
  heaven-born  poetry." 
 
  In  the  Hebrew  scriptures  there  are  found  three  distinct  kinds 
  of  poetry,  (1)  that  of  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  Song  of  Solomon, 
  which  is  dramatic;  (2)  that  of  the  Book  of  Psalms,  which  is 
  lyrical;  and  (3)  that  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  which  is 
  didactic  and  sententious. 
 
  Hebrew  poetry  has  nothing  akin  to  that  of  Western  nations.  It 
  has  neither  metre  nor  rhyme.  Its  great  peculiarity  consists  in 
  the  mutual  correspondence  of  sentences  or  clauses,  called 
  parallelism,  or  "thought-rhyme."  Various  kinds  of  this 
  parallelism  have  been  pointed  out: 
 
  (1.)  Synonymous  or  cognate  parallelism,  where  the  same  idea  is 
  repeated  in  the  same  words  (Ps.  93:3;  94:1;  Prov.  6:2),  or  in 
  different  words  (Ps.  22,  23,  28,  114,  etc.);  or  where  it  is 
  expressed  in  a  positive  form  in  the  one  clause  and  in  a  negative 
  in  the  other  (Ps.  40:12;  Prov.  6:26);  or  where  the  same  idea  is 
  expressed  in  three  successive  clauses  (Ps.  40:15,  16);  or  in  a 
  double  parallelism,  the  first  and  second  clauses  corresponding 
  to  the  third  and  fourth  (Isa.  9:1;  61:10,  11). 
 
  (2.)  Antithetic  parallelism,  where  the  idea  of  the  second 
  clause  is  the  converse  of  that  of  the  first  (Ps.  20:8;  27:6,  7; 
  34:11;  37:9,  17,  21,  22).  This  is  the  common  form  of  gnomic  or 
  proverbial  poetry.  (See  Prov.  10-15.) 
 
  (3.)  Synthetic  or  constructive  or  compound  parallelism,  where 
  each  clause  or  sentence  contains  some  accessory  idea  enforcing 
  the  main  idea  (Ps.  19:7-10;  85:12;  Job  3:3-9;  Isa.  1:5-9). 
 
  (4.)  Introverted  parallelism,  in  which  of  four  clauses  the 
  first  answers  to  the  fourth  and  the  second  to  the  third  (Ps. 
  135:15-18;  Prov.  23:15,  16),  or  where  the  second  line  reverses 
  the  order  of  words  in  the  first  (Ps.  86:2). 
 
  Hebrew  poetry  sometimes  assumes  other  forms  than  these  (1.) 
  An  alphabetical  arrangement  is  sometimes  adopted  for  the  purpose 
  of  connecting  clauses  or  sentences.  Thus  in  the  following  the 
  initial  words  of  the  respective  verses  begin  with  the  letters  of 
  the  alphabet  in  regular  succession:  Prov.  31:10-31;  Lam.  1,  2, 
  3,  4;  Ps  25,  34,  37,  145.  Ps  119  has  a  letter  of  the  alphabet 
  in  regular  order  beginning  every  eighth  verse. 
 
  (2.)  The  repetition  of  the  same  verse  or  of  some  emphatic 
  expression  at  intervals  (Ps.  42,  107,  where  the  refrain  is  in 
  verses,  8,  15,  21,  31).  (Comp.  also  Isa.  9:8-10:4;  Amos  1:3,  6, 
  9,  11,  13;  2:1,  4,  6.) 
 
  (3.)  Gradation,  in  which  the  thought  of  one  verse  is  resumed 
  in  another  (Ps.  121). 
 
  Several  odes  of  great  poetical  beauty  are  found  in  the 
  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  song  of  Moses 
  (Ex.  15),  the  song  of  Deborah  (Judg.  5),  of  Hannah  (1  Sam.  2), 
  of  Hezekiah  (Isa.  38:9-20),  of  Habakkuk  (Hab.  3),  and  David's 
  "song  of  the  bow"  (2  Sam.  1:19-27). 
 
 
  From  THE  DEVIL'S  DICTIONARY  ((C)1911  Released  April  15  1993)  [devils]: 
 
  POETRY,  n.  A  form  of  expression  peculiar  to  the  Land  beyond  the 
  Magazines.




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