help! imagery or poetic device?

When you say "the dangle of hung men" are you referring to men that are swinging from the gallows, or men with very large packages?

It's a simile, not personification.

Simile is pretty easy to spot by looking for "like," or "as."

Personification has to do with the non-human thing being described as if it were human. Give me a minute, and I'll put up an old handout.

This might help.

'Ranging the pavements of their pasturage'

Has aliteration, assonance, metaphor and imagery.

Repetition of the same vowel in the same syllable is assonance. Imagery is invoked by the implication of "pasturing animals" in relation to the street-walking prostitutes. It doesn't come right out and call them animals, that is alluded to in the metaphor and you are left to "imagine" a herd of grazing "whatever".

Any line of poetry can have any number of poetic devices within it.

And I'm no expert so maybe I shouldn't even be commenting. Feel free to ignore.

licity-lieu said:

Wow, thanks for that hand out, one for the old resource collection. BUT, isnt it also personification? because it does describes the trousers as having a human quality (hung men) Students are very likely to say that the line is an example of both. How does one choose? Or is that the complexity of poetry?

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It's not personification, because many other critters, and objects, are hung.

Trousers are hung, in closets. It's not markedly "human."

You could, if you wanted, make a case for analogy, or even extended metaphor; I'd have to see the whole poem.

Hmmm... just as an aside. Personification can also be classified as poetic imagery, right? On the other hand, when we refer to poetic devices we are talking about the mechanics of poetry, those language features that bring rhythm and rhyme such as alliteration and assonance.

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The really big group, and the most appropriate labels for all such things, would be rhetorical figures.

You could also go with literary devices.

Imagery is a sub-category of literary device.

You want some helpful books about this stuff?

Once again: over to you guy's. I'm just a humble prose person.

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None of these, with the possible exception of rhyme, are restriction to poetry.

All of them are used, all the time, in prose, too.

No, in the example of the "pasturage" line there are four (more actually), not two, poetic devices. And, depending on how the preceding line was written, or if this is the first line of a stanza and the last line of the previous is actually part of this one, there are five devices.

Bah bah bah
The street-walking prostitutes,

Ranging the pavements of their pasturage
Bleet out their calls to the passers-by.

would be an example of "enjambment". The thought, and sentence structure of a line is carried over to the next line or stanza.

Is this line rhymed with any other?
Is it cross-rhymed?
Is it separated out as a mono-stich? (I doubt it).

It is comprised of ten syllables.
Is this a syllabic line or is there a specific meter and rhythm to it?

It has a trochaic feel to it but it doesn't scan completely trochaic. The three main words are
Ranging = pyrric
Pavements = trochaic
Pasturage = dactylic

throw in "the, of, their" and it could be seen as iambic pentameter I suppose, but I wouldn't scan it that way.

Regardless, the line has "some" form of meter even if it's only syllable count. As for rhythm, it's either contrived or non-existent.

But, there's always a but, because of the word choice and the aliteration and assonance, it does have a certain cadence, it flows ok but has a certain jarring to it with the "pavement" and "pasturage", this is called "cocaphony" which, if used intentionally, is also a device.

So, how many devices you got going here? If you're trying to get them to learn all they can from this line, certainly more than two.

licity-lieu said:

For linguists, such as yourself, it must be music to your ears

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I'm not a linguist. Really! You'll get me in trouble with the real linguists saying that

I'm a medievalist, mostly, and a philologist. I've taught English lit to undergrads for a lot of years though.

licity-lieu said:

Thanks so much for your help

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You're more than welcome.

If you're teaching poetry to older students, I would stick to the classics such as John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfrid Owen, John Betjeman and (for the difficult classes) T S Eliot.

Things dangling like hanged men (it should NOT be 'hung' - therein lies the ambiguity) and tarts cruising pavements would have been dealt with far better by these luminaries than the poet you quote. Try 'The Rape of the Lock' for a tongue in cheek masterpiece.

After all, you don't want your students getting into bad habits!

Medievalist said:

It's not personification, because many other critters, and objects, are hung.

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damn straight.

this thread makes me sad.

Hillgate said:

If you're teaching poetry to older students, I would stick to the classics such as John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfrid Owen, John Betjeman and (for the difficult classes) T S Eliot.

Things dangling like hanged men (it should NOT be 'hung' - therein lies the ambiguity) and tarts cruising pavements would have been dealt with far better by these luminaries than the poet you quote. Try 'The Rape of the Lock' for a tongue in cheek masterpiece.

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It should be hung, poetically and grammatically.

Hung works because of the ambiguity--texts thrive on ambiguity, particularly poetry. That's the reader's job, to notice and reflect and figure it out--and be aware that a good poem, a good text, allows for a multiplicity of readings.

If the text supports it, a reading is viable.

licity-lieu said:

Amen to that! I love to teach (and read) poetry for this exact reason.

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You might want to look at Richard Hugo's poem "Degrees of Gray" as an interesting companion poem. You'll find it here.

It's both, but more simile, so just remove that option of personification from the abcd checklist.

I'm little confused as to how you're teaching this and coming here for the answer to that.

William Haskins said:

damn straight.

this thread makes me sad.

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Makes me very confused.

licity-lieu said:

As I said--I'm on the rusty side when it comes to seniors. Better to ask than to guess then to teach it incorrectly.

sheesh!

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Like for instance someone named...ahem...Lyx incorrectly teaching someone named Licity all about passive construction.

Hey Licity, how've ya been, "mate-ette?"

Lyx