ENGD98Y3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Connotation, Denotation, The Waste Land
Document Summary
Formalism: alert to the form of a text. Formalist reading begins with a sensitivity to the words of the text and their denotative and connotative values: Denotation: literal or dictionary meaning of a word. Connotation: associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word. One also has to have an awareness of multiple meanings of a word, or it"s etymologies (study of word origins; often seen in dictionaries) - offers significant insight to what the work is saying. Formalist also study structural relationships and patterns - not only in words themselves but in sentence structure as well. Can refer to the relationship of stanzas in a poem: Stanzas: used in poetry; refers to groupings of lines (set off by blank spaces) that usually has a set meter or rhyme. Octave: poem or stanza of eight lines (ex. Sonnet: fourteen-line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. Two main types are petrarchan/italian and shakespearean sonnet.
