Quaderno digitale

La versione tradotta in italiano di Leisure di W.H. Davies (1870-1940)

Versione in inglese:

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Versione in italiano:

Cos’è questa vita se, piena di preoccupazioni
non abbiamo tempo per fermarci e ammirare

non abbiamo tempo per stare sotto i rami
e stare a lungo come le pecore o le mucche

non c’è tempo per vedere, passando lungo il bosco
dove gli scoiattoli nascondono le noci nell’erba

non c’è tempo per vedere, in pieno giorno,
i ruscelli pieni di stelle come il cielo la notte

non c’è tempo per voltarsi allo sguardo della Bellezza
e guardare i suoi piedi come possono ballare

non c’è tempo di aspettare fino a che la bocca possa
completare il sorriso che i suoi occhi hanno iniziato

una povera vita è questa se, piena di preoccupazioni,
non abbiamo tempo per fermarci e ammirare.

Poetry has 3 most important elements which make the poem different from other kind of writing:

• its sound (given by assonances, alliterations and rhymes)
• its visual layout (given by the rhyme scheme)
• the special way it uses languages

Poems are typical identified by rhymes.

Verse (or line)

The verse (or line) is the basic unit of poetry. It’s usually 8 to 12 syllables long.

Rhyme

We say that a verse rhyme when two or more lines have the same ending sound. Rhymes are identified by the letters of alphabet.

Rhyme scheme

The rhyme scheme is the pattern rhymes create.

Basic structural units in poetry

The structural units of poetry are:

• the line (also called as verse and it’s the basic units)
• the stanza (it’s a group of two or more verses)
• the canto or book

Stanza

A stanza consists of a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme.

Kind of stanza

There are more types of stanza, they are:

• the couplet (two verses)
• the tercet (three verses)
• the quatrain (four verses)
• the sestet (six verses)
• the octave (octave verses)

Verses are generally 8 to 12 syllables long and stanzas 2 to 12 lines long.

La differenza tra la parola Poem e la parola Poetry è sostanziale, anche se molto spesso si confondono dato che in italiano vengono entrambe tradotte con Poesia.

Poem è la singola poesia, il singolo componimento.

Infinito is a Leopardi’s poem.

L’infinito è una poesia di Leopardi

Poetry è la poesia nel suo senso generale.

The poetry of the 20th century.

La poesia del 20esimo secolo

In inglese:

Poem is a composition which expresses thoughts or feelings and it’s composed by two or more verses (lines) and one or more stanzas

Poetry is a type of art form and a type of literature. Poetry is the art of writing poems

Figure retoriche principali della poesia (figures of speech)

Run-on line (or enjambement)

The run-on line (also know with the French word enjambement) is a figure of speech. It is when a line ends in the middle of a phrase and it continues to the next line.

Alliteration

The alliteration is a figure of speech. It’s the repetition of same initial consonant sound in words which are close together.

Assonance

The assonance is a figure of speech. It’s the repetition of same vowel sound which are close together. It’s used to give a musical effect to the poem. It can be considerated a refrain of vowel sound.

Refrain

The refrain (from Vulgar Latin refringere, “to repeat”), also known as chorus in songs, is the repetition of one of more phrases at the beginning of every stanza.

Repetition

The repetition is when a line or a phrase appear more than one time in a poem. It’s used to enforce the meaning of the sentence.

Onomatopoeia

An onomatopoeia is a word that tries to sound the same as a real sound we might hear. Words similar to woof, click, buzz, boom, crash and shh are examples of onomatopoeia.