po⋅et⋅ry
[poh-i-tree] 
| 1. | the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. |
| 2. | literary work in metrical form; verse. |
| 3. | prose with poetic qualities. |
| 4. | poetic qualities however manifested: the poetry of simple acts and things. |
| 5. | poetic spirit or feeling: The pianist played the prelude with poetry. |
| 6. | something suggestive of or likened to poetry: the pure poetry of a beautiful view on a clear day. |
1350–1400; ME poetrie < ML poētria poetic art, deriv. of poēta poet, but formation is unclear; prob. not < Gk poi
tria poetess
Related forms:
2. Poetry, verse agree in referring to the work of a poet. The difference between poetry and verse is usually the difference between substance and form. Poetry is lofty thought or impassioned feeling expressed in imaginative words: Elizabethan poetry. Verse is any expression in words which simply conforms to accepted metrical rules and structure: the differences between prose and verse.
2. prose.
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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| po·et·ry (pō'ĭ-trē) n.
[Middle English poetrie, from Old French, from Medieval Latin poētria, from Latin poēta, poet; see poet.] |
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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.Cite This Source
poetry
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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).
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