Please help me in analyzing this poem. I need help with literary elements as well as meter, feet and rhyme schemes. caesura, apostrophe, synechde. Please help me. I need help really fast. Thanks

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court.
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love o'er heard the King, a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, The Count my lover is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.

She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"By Heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."
-- James Leigh Hunt


>meter, feet and rhyme schemes. caesura, apostrophe, synechde

A caesura is a pause, usually at the middle of a line of poetry. Notice there are fourteen syllables in each of Hunt's lines. There are usually eight syllables before a comma or semicolon, then six syllables following. This is usually seen in 'ballad meter'. That is, in the format below:

King Francis was a hearty king,
and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought,
sat looking on the court.

Same thing as the fourteeners, except Hunt's rhymes in couplets, and ballad meter rhymes xaxa (every 2nd line rhyming). Why did Hunt use ballad meter? Is the poem a ballad?

Each line ends with a stressed and single syllable. That is to say, there are no trailing syllables at the end, such as the word 'trailing', or the word 'syllable'. The meter is therefore iambic (every 2nd syllable stressed),

King FRANcis WAS a HEARTy KING, and LOVED a ROYal SPORT,

So, if iambic pentameter is five stresses per line, seven would be ... ?

Heptameter, right!

Yes, not all lines are iambic, but he did that for 'variation'. Same-oh, same-oh gets boring quickly, doncha know. Still, there are seven stresses in each line, with a pause (caesura) after the fourth one. Yes, it would appear there are lines with additional pauses, but clearly Leigh intended it to be read as four beats, take a breath, three beats to finish a line. Note also the 'internal rhymes' in the last line of each stanza - can you find them? Do any other lines have such rhymes?

Synecdoche is a figure of speech meaning to use 'the part for the whole', such as 'all hands on deck!', ordering sailors (hands) about. Compare synecdoche with metonymy for extra credit. And, if you figure out the difference, let me know, since I still find the terms confusing.

Apostrophe usually means addressing an inanimate object as if it were a person, or addressing a person not present. Does that happen in this poem? Your call.

Hello again.
Thanks for the answer earlier. Could you also help me with the overall meaning of the poem and any symbolism or allusion. Also, something about the rhyme scheme, assonance and consonance .

Thanks

Marla, for help with the terms go here: [www.poeticbyway.com]

The rhyme scheme is aabbcc etc.

The overall meaning, or message is not to push your luck.

The lady was lucky to have the love of the Count, but she wanted more glory. She threw her glove to see whether he would dare fetch it. If he were injured or killed she would gain glory by showing how valuable her affection was to the count. But her plan backfired, the Count rescued the glove, showing his bravery, but then rejected her love.

Les

Laughing jaws
Smiling lips

Are those personification?

Also, I know the poem is a narrative but could you tell me what kind since it doesn't fit the typical ballads?

Thanks again

I would say they are synecdoche. The jaws and lips are part of a human, and in fact it is the human doing the laughing and smiling.

Personification is giving inanimate objects (things) human characteristics.

Form dictionary of literary terms and literary theory -j.a. cuddon:

The three main kinds of narrative verse are: epic, metrical romance and ballad, but there are a very large number of narrative poems which cannot be easily classified and which certainly do not fit into any of the above categories, ...

As you said, it's not a ballad. An epic is a LONG narrative poem and a metrical romance is (from the dic of lit terms): "a story of adventure, love, chivalry and deeds of derring-do".

So, even though it is a bit short for one, if you have to classify it, I would classify it under metrical romance as it certainly deals with deeds of derring-do.

However, keep in mind that it also turns the "classical" metrical romances around. So, actually, I would call it a satirical metrical romance.

Well, lions don't really laugh, so that would be personification. Beauteous dames do have smiling lips (except when hearing one of my weak jokes), so that would not be.

If there is one single and clear definition of a ballad, I have never read it. Contrary examples abound, that is. Still, I personally would label this one as a ballad. See for example the ballad of Patrick Spence, for comparison.

[eir.library.utoronto.ca]

Call it a folk ballad, instead of just a ballad? Sure, why not.

[www.poeticbyway.com]

Satirical metrical romance? Yeah, that too.

Were the participants in the story real people? Perhaps King Francis I (1494-1547). Looks like there was also a Lorge de Montgomerie who aided the Scots against the English at about the same time in 1545. Pure speculation, right. Might also be the Count was physically large in, say, the cut of his jib.

Hello

I know you have helped me with this poem before but there are couple of lines that I don't know how to label it. For the most part the poem is in iambic heptameter but please help me with the meter/feet/rhythm on these lines.

Valour and Love and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and Roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws

With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another

King ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine.


Also, I have labeled two sentences as inverted in the poem. Please tell me if I am correct.

1. With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another
2. Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws.


Last thing, if its not too much. How do I go about doing a line by line analysis on this poem?
I know the overall meaning but I have to present a line by line analysis to my class.

Thanks so much.
Marla

How do I go about doing a line by line analysis on this poem?

Ask your instructor, to be certain, but usually the teacher wants you to tell what each line means to you (connotation) and how that line relates to the rest of the poem.


Les

Could someone please look at my last post and help me with the rhythm/meter/feet labeling on the lines I have posted? I have to present my assignment tomorrow and i am running out of time. Thanks


Marla

Must say I find this whole business of labelling meter rather academic. The same goes for some of the other drills of so-called analysis. I suspect some teachers insist on them simply because it's a way of pretending to the students that they appreciate poetry; but dissection takes the life out of an organism, and it's hard to love the lifeless, dissected pieces.

It is important to know what the terms mean, and to be able to find examples to prove that you know, and to appreciate how different metric feet can contribute to the overall rhythm and feel of a poem; but struggling to choose which label to apply to some hybrid line which the poet has composed for the sake of variation seems a sterile concern. I suggest that the most important thing with meter is to recognise where the stresses are intended to be. Sometimes it's strictly syllabic; sometimes not.

The recognition of stresses can be complicated by the fact that lines can be read different ways. In reading a poem aloud (or reciting it), it's often possible and sometimes desirable to vary the length and stress of syllables away from how they might have been identified on the page. It's part of elocution technique, to make the text more comprehensible and interesting to listeners. For instance, the first line of this poem, in which Hugh has correctly identified the underlying meter, might be spoken as:

      KING FRANCis was a HEARTy KING, and LOVED a ROYal SPORT

and in such a rendition, the word King in the middle of the line might only be half voice-stressed, because nouns have some inherent weight which doesn't need stress; and even the word 'loved' might be down-stressed in favour of putting more stress on the adjective 'royal'. Departures from the underlying meter by such spoken variations can be compensated by adjusting the voice speed and the pauses. It's similar to what singers often do with songs.

I mention these points because ballads were traditionally communicated orally. They were, I believe, originally sung or accompanied by music. Of course, that was long before Leigh Hunt. I agree with Desi that this poem isn't like a traditional long ballad, but I also agree with Hugh that it could nevertheless be labelled a ballad. It has underlying ballad meter.

In the first three of the four lines you have queried, I would identify the stresses as:

      VALour and LOVE and a KING aBOVE, and the ROYal BEASTS beLOW

      RAMPED and ROARED the LIons, with HORRid LAUGHing JAWS

      With WALLowing MIGHT and STIFled ROAR they ROLLED on ONE aNOTHer

The fourth is harder to fix, as it could be read various ways. Could be

      King, LAdies, LOVers, ALL look ON; the ocCASion IS diVINE

but orally that would sound awfully sing-song. A good reader might render it as

      KING, LAdies, LOVers, ALL look ON; the ocCASion is diVINE

making tiny pauses where the commas and semi-colon are, and after 'all', to mimic the lady's voice rhythm.

In reply to your question about inverted sentences, the second is certainly inverted, because the verbs precede their subject ('lions'), but that's not so in the first where the verb is preceded only by an adverbial phrase. Other lines in the poem in which the verb precedes the subject are S1L4, S2L6, S4L5 and S4L6. The last three of these are unremarkable examples, because the subjects are prepositions, and the inversions ('said Francis', 'quoth he') are such common usages that they are hardly striking.

>Ramped and Roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws

Definitely three beats, caesura, three beats, yep. An error? I would say so, yes.

Still, when reading it out loud, I find myself saying,

RAMPED and ROARED the LIons WITH ... HORRid LAUGHing JAWS

Impossible to hear Hunt read it, so make your own decisions.

No one actually wants to DO the assignment for you, Marla. We all enjoy discussing poetry, and most feel the educational system benefits by tweaks offered here to students. But surely you have enough information to make a really good presentation on your own by now. And hopefully the feedback was at least interesting.

Good luck!

Thanks Hugh....but I don't expect anyone to DO my assignment. I have been working really hard on this poem for the last week. I didn't ask anyone to analyze the lines forme. I asked HOW DO I GO ABOUT IT...in other words. How do I approach it. For example read each line thentalk about it or read two lines..or stanza by stanza. That is all I needed..just some advice..Thanks for all your responses and yes, you have helped enough. BYE