Poetry (from the
Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making") is a form of
literary art in which
language is used for its
aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent
meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in
poetic drama,
hymns or
lyrics.
Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long
history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as
Aristotle's
Poetics, focused on the uses of
speech in
rhetoric,
drama,
song and
comedy.Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition,
verse form and
rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from
prose. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using
language.
Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to suggest alternative meanings in the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as
assonance,
alliteration,
onomatopoeia and
rhythm are sometimes used to achieve
musical or
incantatory effects. The use of
ambiguity,
symbolism,
irony and other
stylistic elements of
poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly,
metaphor,
simile and
metonymy[4] create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of
meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual
verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.
Some forms of poetry are specific to particular
cultures and
genres, responding to the characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. While readers accustomed to identifying poetry with
Dante,
Goethe,
Mickiewicz and
Rumi may think of it as being written in
rhyming lines and regular
meter, there are traditions, such as those of
Du Fu and
Beowulf, that use other approaches to achieve rhythm and
euphony. Much of modern British and American poetry is to some extent a critique of poetic tradition,playing with and testing (among other things) the principle of euphony itself, to the extent that sometimes it deliberately does not rhyme or keep to set rhythms at all.In today's
globalized world, poets often borrow styles, techniques and forms from diverse cultures and languages.
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