What is Poetry?
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Poetry:
Is an Art form in which human Language
is used for its Aesthetics qualities in addition to,
or instead of, its notional Meaning and Semantics
content. It consists largely of oral or Literature
works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by
its user and audience to differ from ordinary Prose. It
may use condensed or compressed form to convey emotion or ideas
to the reader's or listener's mind or ear; it may also use devices
such as Assonance and repetition to achieve Musical
or Incantatory effects. Poems frequently rely
for their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical
qualities of the language used. Because of its nature of emphasising
linguistic form rather than using language purely for its content,
poetry is notoriously difficult to translate
from one language into another. In poetry, it is the connotations
and the 'baggage' that words carry (the weight of words) that
are most important. These shades and nuances of meaning can
be difficult to interpret and can cause different readers to
'hear' a particular piece of poetry differently. While there
are reasonable interpretations, there can never be a definitive
interpretation.
Art:
Although today the word art usually refers to the visual arts,
the concept of what art is has continuously changed over centuries.
Perhaps the most concise definition is its broadest-art refers
to all creative human endeavors, excluding actions directly
related to survival and reproduction. From a wide perspective,
art is simply a generic term for the creative impulse, out of
which sprang all other human pursuits such as science via alchemy,
and religion via shamanism.
Language
Iis a system of gestures, grammar, signs, sounds, symbols,
or words, which is used to represent and communicate concepts,
ideas, meanings, and thoughts. It can be thought of as a "semantic
code". The study of language as such a code is called linguistics,
an academic discipline introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure.
Those who speak or otherwise use a language are deemed (by the
self-appointed linguists) to be part of that language's theoretical
linguistic community.
Aesthetics (or esthetics)
Iis a branch of philosophy dealing with the definition of beauty.
The word aesthetics was first used by German philosopher
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who helped to establish the study
of aesthetics as a separate philosophical field of study. The
word aesthetic can be used as a noun meaning "that
which appeals to the senses." Someone's aesthetic has a
lot to do with their artistic judgement. For example, an individual
who wears flowered clothing, drives a flowered car, and paints
their home with flowers has a particular aesthetic.
Meaning
Is one of the most difficult and complex concepts we have,
studied in semantics (a branch of linguistics) and in the philosophy
of language (the theory of meaning in particular). Meaning in
a wider sense is also part of the general theory of information.
This theory tries to formulate rules, about: (1) the way meaningful
information is emerging; (2) how meaningful information is conserved;
(3) how the meaning of something can be measured; (4) how information
with meaning is lost again.
Semantics:
In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos,
or "significant meaning," derived from sema,
sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. Semantics
is often opposed to syntax, in which case the former pertains
to what something means while the latter pertains to
the formal structure/patterns in which something is expressed
(e.g. written or spoken).
Literature
Is (literally) "an acquaintance with letters" as
in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary; the
term has, however, generally come to identify a collection of
texts. The word "literature" spelled with a lower-case
"l" can refer to any form of writing, such as essays;
while "Literature" spelled with an upper-case "L"
may refer to a whole body of literary work, world-wide or relating
to a specific culture.
Prose
Is a class of literature, in the voice of commonplace or ordinary
speech. Prose may be artful, and employ metaphor, meter, or
rhyme by the cartful. However, if it is versified or has a strict
structure of meter or rhyme, or if it is read in a stylized
fashion, this is a genre of poetry in the voice of ordinary
speech, called prose poetry. Prose writing is usually adopted
for the description of facts, or the discussion of ideas. It
describes the writing of the newspaper, encyclopedia, fiction
and fact, of screenplays, of philosophy, letters to Dad and
appeals to the bank examiner.
Assonance
Is the repetition of vowel sounds within a short passage of
verse or prose. Assonance is more a feature of verse than prose.
It is used in (mainly modern) English-language poetry, and is
particularly important in Old French, Spanish and Celtic languages.
See also: consonance, alliteration, rhyme.
Musical, music:
The definition of the word "music" is hotly
contested, not least because the word has strong connotations
and use beyond the subject itself. Music as sound: One
common definition of music is to label it as "organized
sound" or more ornately, "the artful organization
of sound and silence". This definition is widely held to
from the late 19th century forward, which began to scientifically
analyze the relationship between sound and perception.
Incantatory, incantation:
An incantation is the words spoken during a ritual. such as
those in praise of a god, in witchcraft or when casting a spell.
It comes from the Latin incantare, meaning 'to utter
an incantation', which would be done by an enchanter. Another
name for an incantation is mantra. Examples are "Abracadabra"
as might be said by a magician during a trick, or the Stunning
Spell in the Harry Potter books.
Translation:
Translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of
the sense of a text in one language - the source text
- and the production of another, equivalent text in another
language - the target text. The goal of translation is
to establish a relationship of equivalence between the
source and the target texts (that is to say, both texts communicate
the same message), while taking into account the various constraints
placed on the translator. (These constraints include the rules
of grammar of the source language, its writing conventions,
its idioms and the like.)
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