Avenged Sevenfold Hidden Meaning
its power in saying something. It means that the words written in poetry may have meaning other than their literal meaning as seen in dictionary.
Understanding poetry may be difficult since the words are applied beyond their literal meaning. To help understanding a work of poetry,
paraphrasing is needed. According to Kennedy and Gioia 1999, paraphrasing is a process “to map out clearly the key images, actions, and ideas” p. 665.
Further, Kennedy and Gioia add that “in paraphrasing, we put into our own words what we understand the poem to say, restating ideas that seem essential,
coming out and stating what the poem may only suggest” p. 652. Based on those statements, paraphrasing is an attempt the reveal the important things in a
poem in order to understand what the poet wants to say. However, Kennedy and Gioia 1999 note that “some people maintain that no poem can be truly
paraphrased”. It is reasonable since paraphrasing only tries to map the important things in a poem, not to re-create the full effect of a poem. Therefore, the result
of paraphrasing is only one interpretation among many others. Kennedy and Gioia 2002 classify poetry into three major categories:
lyric poetry, narrative poetry, and dramatic poetry. Those three major categories are described below:
a. Lyric Poetry
It is a short poem expressing the thoughts and feelings of a single speaker. Often, the poet will write a lyric in the first person, but not always. Instead,
a lyric might describe an object or recall an experience without the speaker’s
ever bringing himself or herself into it. Generally, lyric poetry refers to poem which made for singing p. 10.
b. Narrative Poetry
It is a poem which main purpose is to tell a story. It similar with fiction in characters, settings, and storyline p. 12.
c. Dramatic Poetry
It is a poem which presents the voice of an imaginary character or characters speaking directly, without any additional narration by the author.
It is often called as dramatic monologue p. 15. Further, each type of poetry contains stanza. According to Kennedy and
Gioia 2002, stanza is “a recurring pattern of two or more lines of verse, poetry’s equivalent to the paragraph in prose” p. 679. Based on this statement,
stanza is the basic organizational principle in poetry. There is also refrain, which Kennedy and Gioia define as “words, phrases, or lines repeated at intervals in a
song or song- like poem” p. 145. According to Kennedy and Gioia 2002,
there are several types of stanza as described below: a.
Couplet Couplet is a stanza that consists of two lines.
b. Tercet
Tercet is a stanza that consists of three lines. It tends to end in the same rhyme.
c. Quatrain
Quatrain is a stanza that consists of four lines. It is also the most common stanza used in English-language poetry.
d. Quintain
Quintain is a stanza that consists of five lines. It is also called as a quintet or a cinquain.
e. Sestet
Sestet is a stanza that consists of six lines. f.
Septet Septet is a stanza that consists of seven lines.
g. Octave
Octave is a stanza that consists of eight lines. There is also one essential thing in poetry, namely a theme. According to
Kennedy and Gioia 2002, theme is “the central thought of the poem” p. 8. In short, Perrine 1969 states that “poetry is just a fancy way of writing something
that could be said more simply” p. 10. However, due to its complexity, poetry needs special treatment as Kennedy and Gioia 2002 suggest that
it needs “to be read slowly, carefully and attentively” p. 5.