Maya Angelo Essays -- biographies bio biography

If I could have the honor of meeting that one person it would be Maya Angelo. She was an inspirational and phenomenal woman of her decade. Not only was she an actress and poet, she was a mother too. Maya Angelo was a beautiful black woman in her time that stood for what was just. She experienced slavery, and even endured it. Her legacy and history is passed on through many of her books like â€Å"I know why the caged bird sings†, or through her poems such as â€Å"A raisin in the sun† and â€Å"phenomenal woman†. Thanks to her tenacity and considerateness this younger generation that I am growing up in can visit the past time and time again through her magnificent writings. Maya Angelo style of writing was very different from the many black authors I had read in the past. I say that because her choi...

Going global means new frontiers Essay

Introduction On the 19th Sep. 2014, the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO) was successfully completed in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), U.S., and the total IPO amount has reached up to $25 billion (Chen. Mac. Solomon. 2014). Alibaba, the miracle creator, used only 15-year’s development to take the seat in the Wall Street and build an e-commercial empire. The NYSE’s IPO is the signal to tell global investors and competitors that Alibaba is ready to join the global market competition. For Alibaba, going global means new frontier, however, the new frontier could be either a barren cliff or cornucopian grassland. In this essay, we will mainly discuss that why Alibaba want to expand global markets, and how Alibaba is going to make the global strategies to against global competitors in overseas market. by avoiding direct competition, targeting similar market as China and increasing firm size in the global market environment to step into a â€Å"grassland† mar ket for persistent development. Alibaba — the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company, was established in 1999 by the group of 18 people led by Jack Ma in Hangzhou, China. There are three main sites in Alibaba China, including T-mall, Taobao and Alibaba.com along with numbers of other companies to support Alibaba’s ecosystem development. Moreover, Alibaba also has Alibaba.com and AliExpress.com to provide worldwide online shopping services (Pressman 2014). Until 2013, Alibaba has more than 2 million merchants across more than 190 countries and regions. In 2013, there was amount of $248 billion transactions went through Alibaba’s online sites which is more than the total of eBay and Amazon. Furthermore, after the NYSE’s IPO, Alibaba’s market cap has reached up to 215 billion dollar, which only followed behind Microsoft, Google and Apple among the global tech firms (Lajoie & Shearman. 2014). Global Market Expansion (convention path: from domestic to overseas) Why Alibaba want to expand global market?  Alibaba is a typical Multi-national corporation, since Alibaba set up the headquarter in the China and operate e-commerce businesses in other  countries. in As a typical multi-national corporation, going global to exploit new distant market, to merge into larger and more efficient units and to exploit better social capital is an irresistible process for Alibaba. As the dominator in the China’s online shopping market, Alibaba has already controlled 80% of the market share, thus Alibaba needs new distant markets for persistent development. Moreover, For Alibaba, both the internal capabilities and external environment allows Alibaba to make the global market expansion decision. For the internal capabilities, Alibaba is a mature Internet corporation, which has controlled 80% of the China’s online shopping market. China’s market profits could constantly provide enormous capital support for Alibaba’s long-term market expansion. Moreover, after the NYSE’s IPO, Alibaba has won the trust from global investors and acquired sufficient capital for early market expansion. However, the challenges always exist during the process of the market expansion, especially from the local e-commercial corporations. Despite of the competition, high cost for setting up facilities, cultural shock, and different government policies would also be main concerns before the decision was made. Thus, I have listed three main strategies below to demonstrate Alibaba’s global market expansion. Avoiding direct competition Instead of â€Å"face to face† competition with those locally dominant e-commercial corporations, Alibaba decided to operate their business around the market edges and move partial of e-commercial businesses to cross-country trade. In 2004, The America’s largest e-commercial corporation–eBay entered the Chinese market by merger with a Chinese e-commercial corporation—EachNet. In order to against eBay, Alibaba decided to launch Taobao, one of the main sites under Alibaba for C2C (customer to customer) business model, compete with eBay. Because of Taobao’s preponderant business model and domestic advantages, eBay finally failed in China’s e-commercial market expansion (Wang, 2010). Right now, Alibaba faced the same challenge in the America’s market, but Alibaba will not make the same mistake as eBay did. In order to avoid direct competition with eBay and Amazon, Alibaba has launched AliExpress for cross-country trade wholesale by offering quality products at factory prices. As the advantages, Chinese  products have unbeatable prices to attract American customers; also Chinese customers have strong demands for American high quality products (like Cherry Farmers and Fisherman). Although it’s too earlier to claim the final result of Alibaba, to avoid direct competition is always a good way to enter a new market without too much pressure from local competitors. Finding similar market as China Alibaba’s global strategies are more likely targeting the large and potential e-commercial market as China’s market. For instance, Brazil, as one of the largest developing economy in the world, the economy status and e-commercial structure in Brazil is really similar as in China. ALthough, eBay and Amazon has already settled down in the Brazil’s market, it’s always not too late for Alibaba overtakes the dominance. In 2013, Alibaba set up a Portuguese e-commerce site to allow Brazil buyers directly purchase goods from Chinese wholesalers. Just in a year, Alibaba has became the third largest e-commercial website and took 20% of market share after Ebay and Amazon. In this July 12 millions of Brazilian customers visited the Alibaba.com, which is ten times than last year (Sciaudone, 2014). Moreover, in Brazil’s market, Alibaba wisely used the local sub-contractor to reduce investment and improve service quality, which subcontracted the online payment services to Boleto and delivery services to Brazil’s state-owned postal service (Pressman, 2014). To make it even better, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Chinese President Xi Jingping have signed the agreement to open the â€Å"Green Channel† to support Alibaba’s business between two countries (Chao, 2014). All in all, the success in the Brazil’s market indicated that to find the similar market is a feasible strategy for future development. Increasing the firm size As a typical multi-national corporation, Alibaba effectively applied the law of increasing firm size, ‘which have rapidly growth in the representative size of the firm, culminating in the MNC, and the parallel growth in organizational complexity’ (Hymer, 1970). E-commercial is the fundamental business for Alibaba’s long-term development, but not the only business Alibaba does or will do. As the range of investments show below, Alibaba  made plenty of investments in smart phone, video websites, telecommunication and so on. Some of them are complement businesses to support Alibaba’s e-commercial, like Juhuasuan, Alipay and Alibaba pictures; and some of them are potential businesses for long-term development, like Kabam, Peel, and Tango. Like Jack Ma has said in the Stanford Business School’s presentation, Alibaba would always follow the market’s path, where is the market, where is the Alibaba. Alibaba believed those investments are the future market and opportunities. On the global market expansion, Alibaba’s strategy is to pursue dynamic, diversified, sustaining development. Impacts on global market and host region With the development of Alibaba, the global e-commerce businesses will absolutely more competitive than before. There will be more and more cheaper and quality products flow into global market from China. Other e-commercial corporations, like eBay and Amazon, have to find the way out to against Alibaba’s expansion. On the other hand, Alibaba’s global market expansion will provide more opportunities and channels for China’s manufactories and factories to enter into a larger market. As Alibaba’s mission said, ‘to make it easy to do business anywhere.’ Alibaba help China’s merchants to do business much easier and more efficient. Conclusion It is indeed that Alibaba made a great success in 15-year development, but some concerns still exist from investors. Some investors even thought it’s possible that Alibaba is too big to be expropriated by Chinese government (Crovitz, 2014). However, It’s a totally misunderstanding, Chinese government always encourage and support China’s corporations to exploit overseas market and welcome foreign investment. Furthermore, investors also consider the instability to an Internet company. Unlike other industries, such as auto or manufacture industry, Internet Company is highly volatile. Internet Company could create billions of fortunes overnight, but also could lose everything instantly. In this case, it’s a significant mission for Alibaba to keep investors’ trust and faith. Up to now, Alibaba’s steady-state growth and expansion is the best response to investors’ trust and support. For 15-year development, Alibaba completely followed the conventional path from serve domestic market to operate businesses overseas. Eventually, Alibaba has successfully built an e-commercial businesses bridge between China and overseas market. Alibaba will continue to grow, and it will continue to change China and change the world. As William Kirby, and expert on Chinese business in Harvard’s business school, demonstrated that Alibaba is ‘a private company that has done more for China’s national economy than most state-owned enterprises (Economist, 2013).’ References Chen, Liyan; Mac, Ryan; Solomon Brian. Alibaba Claims Title For Largest Global IPO Ever With Extra Share Sales. Forbes. Web. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/09/22/alibaba-claims-title-for-largest-global-ipo-ever-with-extra-share-sales/ [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] Crovit, Gordon L. 2014. Alibaba: Too Big to Expropriate? The Wall Street Journal. Web. Available from: http://online.wsj.com/articles/gordon-crovitz-alibaba-too-big-to-expropriate-1411339239 [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] Hymer, Stephen. 1970. Lecture notes distributed in Global Business Environment at The University of Birmingham U.K. on November 2014. INC. 2014. How Alibaba’s Jack Ma Conquered China. INC. Video. Web. Available from: http://www.inc.com/jack-ma/alibaba-jack-ma-reveals-his-global-strategy.html [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] Osawa, Juro. Alibaba Isn’t the Amazon of China. The Wall Street Journal. Web. Available from: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/16/alibaba-isnt-the-amazon-of-china/ [Accessed on: 15/11/2014] Pressman, Aaron. Alibaba a threat to eBay, Amazon outside the U.S., not within. Yahoo Finance. Web. Available from: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/alibaba-aims-at-ebay-and-amazon-outside-of-the-united-states-173757037.html [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] Sciaudone, Christiana. 2014. Alibaba in Brazil Challenges EBay-Amazon Market Grip. Bloomberg. Web. Available from: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-05/alibaba-in-brazil-challenges-ebay-amazon-market-grip.html [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] Shearman, Nick; Lajoie, Marc. 2014. What is Alibaba?. The Wall Street Journal. Web. Available from: http://projects.wsj.com/alibaba/ [Accessed on: 14/11/2014] The Economist. 2013. The World’s greatest bazaar. The Economist. Web. Available from: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21573980-alibaba-trailblazing-chinese-internet-giant-will-soon-go-public-worlds-greatest-bazaar [Accessed on: 20/11/2014] Wang, Helen H. 2010. How eBay Failed in China. Forbes. Web. Available from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/china/2010/09/12/how-ebay-failed-in-china/ [Accessed on: 20/11/2014] http://www.cnbc.com/id/102008330#.

Marketing Plan: Maybelline’s New Perfume

Marketing Plan: Maybelline’s new perfume The University of Sheffield Marketing Management (MTG 2410) Blagoy Savov (BS11124) 21 August 2012 Abstract L'Oreal’s Maybelline, a global, mass market cosmetic manufacturer, has decided to develop and market a new fragrance for women. This report includes research, analysis and evaluation of the market environment for female fragrances. Furthermore, it outlines a marketing strategy for the new product which describes the marketing mix to be used by Maybelline in order to sell its new product addition to the target market.Introduction The fragrance market is a very competitive one with large companies having a global presence and well established images and brands. This market is also very profitable and ever growing with signs of great potential. Maybelline is one of L'Oreal’s brands and is well known worldwide for its value based cosmetics products.Now Maybelline is entering the fragrance market with a new female perfume and this report describes how it will take on this challenge. The first part of the report introduces L'Oreal, which is Maybelline’s mother company, its vision and company profile including its financial success. Maybelline falls under L'Oreal’s Consumer Products Division, which offers mass-market products. The report continues by presenting an environmental analysis of the market as well as a competitive analysis. There are three main players in the industry, which represent 24. 5% of the global market in the face of Coty Inc. Maybelline’s mother company L'Oreal, and Procter & Gamble. The first part of the report concludes with a SWOT analysis of the Maybelline, which indicates that the strengths and opportunities outweigh the weaknesses and threats. Based on the market analysis, the second part of the report proposes a target market for the new female fragrance product and a specific marketing mix in order to successfully reach its customers. The company L'Ore al L’Oreal is one of the largest cosmetics companies in the world, producing and marketing a range of make-up, perfume, hair and skin care products in over 130 countries.The company is headquartered in Clichy, France and employs about 68,900 people worldwide in a total of 41 factories. With 613 registered patents in 2011 the company earned 20. 3 billion EURO of sales in that year and currently has a brand portfolio of 27 international brands (L'Oreal 2011). For more than a 100 years L'Oreal has devoted its efforts in the business of beauty. Its mission is to enable all individuals to express their personalities, gain self-confidence and open up to others by offering the best cosmetics innovation in terms of quality, efficacy and safety.The company pushes the boundaries of innovation by heavily investing in research in order to explore new territories and invent new products (L'Oreal 2012). Wrapping up another year of financial growth, in 2011 Company Responsibility (2005 â₠¬â€œ 2011) – Reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 29. 8% – Reduced waste generated by 24. 2% – Reduced water consumption by 22. 6% – 95. 7% of waste is reused, recycled or used for energy production – Reduced total energy consumption by 6. % for 2010/2011 Company Profile – A century of expertise in cosmetics – â‚ ¬20,3 billion sales in 2011 – 27 global brands – 130 countries – 68 900 employees – 613 patents filed in 2011. L'Oreal grew faster than the worldwide cosmetics market and confirmed its position as the world leader in beauty. The company also heavily invests in being socially, ethically and environmentally responsible to ensure a sustainable growth in the long-term. Compared to 2005 the organization significantly reduced its gas emissions, generated waste and water consumption and invested in research in order to foster sustainable innovation.Maybelline As described in the journal by Aaker and Joa chimsthaler (2000) brand architecture is a structure that organizes the company’s brand portfolio and specifies the brand roles and the relationship between them. Coherent brand architecture provides tools to: ? ? ? permit brands to stretch across products and markets, resolve conflicting brand strategy needs, preserve brand-building resources by leveraging existing brand equity, protect brands from being diluted by over-stretching, and signal a new and different offeringAs outlined in the journal by Harish (2008), L'Oreal’s brand architecture is organized around 27 international brands, which are clustered in separate business divisions, each of which focuses on a specific target market. As illustrated in Table 1, L'Oreal’s business is structured under three divisions (Consumer Products Division, Luxury Products Division and Professional Products Division), one department (Active Cosmetics Department) and an ethical cosmetics brand (The Body Shop). L'Oreal†™s brand architecture, showing brands, positioning and sales channels. Consumer Products Luxury Products Profess.Products Active Cosmetics The Body ShopMajor international umbrella brands: L'Oreal Paris Garnier Maybeline New York SoftSheen Carson Le Club des Createurs de Beute (LCCB) Lancome Biotherm Helena Rubinstein Kiehl’s Shu Uemure Perfumes: Giorgio Armani Ralph Lauren Cacharel Victor and Rolf Diesel Positioning: Quality products at affordable prices for the masses Up-market luxury products for discerning consumers Specialist products for use by professional hair stylists and salon professionals Sales Channels: Mass market retail outlets in the case of L'Oreal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline and SoftSheen CarsonDirect marketing for LCCB High-end international department stores, travel retail outlets, brands’ own boutiques and perfumeries Hair stylists and salon professionals Pharmacies and specialist retailers Predominantly through body Shop’s exclusive retail chain Cosmeceuticals with proven safety and effectiveness; backed by pharmacists and dermatologists Ethical cosmetics for socially and environmentally conscious consumers L'Oreal Professionnel Kerastase RedKen 5th Avenue NYC Matrix Mizani Vichy La Roche – Possay Inneov SkinCeuticals Sanoflore The Body Shop Table 1 Within the Consumer Products Division, L'Oreal Paris is the premium brand while Garnier and Maybelline New York are the neighbouring aspirational brands. The company offers these distinct brands in order to satisfy different target groups and avoid losing customers to a competitor (Harish, 2008). L'Oreal’s goal is to make Maybelline a leading global mass-market brand. This brand is sold in about 127 countries and makes up over 45% of the total revenues.Maybelline is positioned to be the leader of massmarket cosmetics targeted at women between the age of 15 and 49 at a reasonable price and it successfully promotes the â€Å"urban American chic† image a cross the globe. Maybelline includes five ranges of products – face, eyes, lips, nails and tools. Each range includes several lines and there are individual products with unique brands under each line. As per Harish (2008) the products of the Maybelline group are mainly promoted through TV advertising and brand ambassadors like the supermodels Christy Turlington and Adriana Lima. Since 1915, the brand has been empowering women everywhere with the impactful slogan â€Å"Maybe she is born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline. Today Maybelline New York is the leading makeup brand worldwide, which combines technologically advanced cosmetics with trendy expertise to create accessible products with a spirited style that empower women to make a statement by exploring new tools, experimenting without risk, and flaunting their own artistry (L'Oreal, 2012). L'Oreal has a licensing agreement with five different fragrance brands, which complement the firm’s wide spectrum of prod uct offerings. As described in Table 1 these brands fall under the Luxury Products Division, target discerning consumers and are sold in high-end department stores, travel outlets and boutiques. L'Oreal is now developing a completely new perfume under its own Maybelline product line. Environmental Analysis Market AnalysisThe fragrance market experienced a steady growth in sales in the period between 2006 and 2011. Furthermore the overall market growth is expected to accelerate in the next five year period. In 2010 the global fragrance market generated total revenues of $36. 3 billion resulting in a compound annual growth rate of 4. 2% for the period spanning 2006 – 2010 shown in Figure 1 (Datamonitor Global, 2011). Global fragrances market volume: million units 40000 35000 30000 25000 20000 4. 2 3. 1 5. 6 7 6 5 3. 9 4 3 2 $ million % growth 15000 10000 5000 0 2006 2007 2008 Figure 1 1 0 2009 2010 Consumption volume in the fragrance market increased with a compound annual grow th of 4. % between 2006 and 2010 resulting in 1. 3 billion units in 2010. By the end of 2015 the consumption volume is expected to rise to 1. 6 billion units. As shown in Figure 2 female fragrances showed the highest sales numbers generating $23. 1 billion of revenues in 2010, equivalent to 63. 8% of the market’s overall value (Datamonitor Global, 2011). Global fragrances market segmentation by type: % share 5% 64% Female fragrance Male fragrance Unisex fragrance 31% Figure 2 The fragrance market segmentation is distributed between the three major continents.As shown in Figure 3 Europe leads the consumption of fragrances by 45. 1% followed by the Americas with 38. %, Asia-Pacific by 10. 5% and Africa and the Middle East by 6. 4% (Datamonitor Global, 2011). Global fragrance market segmentation by region: % share 6% 11% Europe Americas Asia-Pacific Affrica and Middle East 45% 38% Figure 3 Overall the current fragrance market condition and especially the sub-category of female f ragrances shows to be positive and creates opportunity for new product additions, which is an advantage for Maybelline’s idea to introduce a new perfume (Datamonitor Global, 2011). Market Environment In the book by Perreault et al (2011) it is described that when creating a new product the required marketing strategy planning process includes electing the best opportunities and developing a strategy that will provide superior value to the potential consumer and a competitive advantage to the company itself. In order to find the best opportunity and create a marketing strategy, the company has to analyze and evaluate the important elements of the marketing environment and the occurring trends. Perreault et al (2011) continues by stating that there are different forces that create the market environment. These forces include the direct marketing environment comprised of the customer, the company, and the competitors and the external market environment comprised of the economic, technological, political, legal, cultural and social aspects.In order to create the best marketing mix (product, place, promotion, price and personalization) for the new female fragrance of Maybelline, the marketing environment has to be analyzed. Economic Environment As per Perreault et al (2011) the economic environment refers to macro-economic factors, including economic growth, national income and inflation which affect the way consumers (individual customers? ) and businesses consume. Changes in the economy in general in certain industries or parts of the world could have an impact on the consumption. Technological Environment Technology uses the application of science to convert resources into output.In particular it affects marketing by creating opportunities for new products and new processes. Technological advances allow for better communication and promotion opportunities and it furthers globalization. It also provides for more effective and efficient ways of producing an d delivering products and services (Perreault et al, 2011). Political Environment The political environment of a country is affected by the attitudes and reactions of people, social critics, and the government. The political environment can affect selling opportunities at both local and international levels. In some markets nationalistic feelings can reduce or block marketing activities, which creates a challenge for companies (Perreault et al, 2011).Cultural and Social Environment These two factors have a significant impact on the marketing environment. The cultural and social environment affects the way people live and behave, which in turn affects their consumption behaviour as well as the economic, political, and legal environments. These factors consist of different variables including: language education religion style housing view on work, marriage and family The growth of the fragrance market is different across the various geographic zones depending on the economic conditio ns in that area. The consumption of perfume is largely dependent on demographics and lifestyle trends, in particular the importance of luxury and status.If a particular country is experiencing difficult economic conditions, usually the luxury products suffer the most, as they are not a needed product but rather a nice to have (ReportLinker, 2012). In contrast mass-market, value products are not as impacted by the economy. The US, with the highest market share of 33%,shows steady growth partly due to the fact that the country is coming out of the recession and into better economic conditions. The consumption of perfumes in Asia is relatively low, aside from Hong Kong and Singapore, due to the economic conditions and the perception of perfumes and heavy scents being used as a way to mask body odour.However, the growth potential in these demographics is immense, especially as Asian women are adhering to the Western trends in fashion and personal care, and are receptive to using well-kn own brands for building their self-image (ReportLinker, 2012). The penetration of private fragrance labels in China stands at the low 5%. Brand loyalty and higher levels of disposable income provide popularity for the European fragrance products. Suppliers are targeting the younger population in order to attract new customers, due to the changing age structures in the country. To this day, Chinese consumers favor specialty stores when shopping for fragrances, which is an important consideration for companies wanting to be successful in this market (ReportLinker, 2012). Competitive AnalysisPerreault et al (2011) defines the competitive environment as the number and types of competitors the company is facing and the way these competitors behave in the particular industry. There are four basic kinds of competitive market situations: Pure competition A market state where buyers and sellers trade a uniform commodity such as wheat, copper or financial securities and no single buyer or sel ler has much effect on the market price. In its pure form this market state eliminates the purpose of marketing research, product development, pricing, advertising and promotion. Oligopoly A market state with a few sellers who are highly sensitive and alert to each other’s marketing strategies and pricing.In this market it is difficult for new sellers to enter. Monopolistic competition A market state where many buyers and sellers trade over a range of prices, rather than a single market price. The range of prices occurs due to the fact that the sellers offer a differentiating factor of their product to the buyers. The differentiating factor can be achieved through segmenting, price fluctuations, branding, advertising, personal selling and other marketing tools. Pure Monopoly A market state where a single firm produces a product, for which there are no close substitutes and in which significant barriers to entry prevent other firms from entering the market to compete.The fragr ance market is definitely a monopolistic competition in which many vendors sell to many buyers and there is a range of prices based on differentiating factors created through segmenting, branding, advertising and other marketing tools. The global fragrance market is greatly fragmented with the top three selling companies accounting for 24. 5% of the market value. Most of the leading companies are either large manufacturers of personal care products or large fashion houses and are geographically diversified. As most companies operate large production facilities, fixed costs are high in this market the vast business diversification eases the competitive pressure.In conclusion the rivalry in the fragrance market is moderate. Shown in are the top three leading players in the fragrance market, which are Coty Inc. with 10. 2% share, L'Oreal S. A. with 7. 7% share and Procter & Gamble Company with 6. 6% share. The rest of the market is divided between much smaller fragrance vendors and acc ount for 75. 5% of the market (Datamonitor, 2011). Global Fragrance Market Share: % share, 2010 10% 8% 7% Coty Inc. L'Oreal S. A. Procter & Gamble Company Others 75% Figure 4 Coty Inc. Coty Inc. is a privately held company that manufactures and markets fragrances, color cosmetics, toiletries, skincare, sun care and personal care products.It is headquartered in New York City, employs more than 8,500 people and distributes its products to around 90 countries. The company distributes its products utilizing different channels including department stores, specialty retailers, upscale perfumeries, pharmacies, mass market retailers and duty free shops. The company recorded total revenues of $25. 8 billion in FY2010, an increase of 11. 6% over the previous year. Revenues from the fragrance product category for the company reached $2. 2 billion in FY2009. North America accounted for 32% of total revenues, whereas Europe as its largest ? geographical market accounts for 57% of the total reven ues in FY2010, Asia with 7% in FY2010 and the rest of the world with 4% in FY2010.L'Oreal Even though L'Oreal is the mother company of Maybelline it still needs to be considered as a competitor in a way since it does have five fragrance brands under its umbrella. These brands are placed under the Luxury Product Division and include Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Cacharel, Victor and Rolf, and Diesel. Procter & Gamble Company (P) P manufactures and markets consumer products with over 300 brands in over 180 countries. The company is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio and employs about 129,000 people. The company offers its prestige fragrance products under its beauty division which recorded revenues of $20. 2 billion in FY2011, an increase of 3. 4% over the previous year. P earned 36. 9% of its revenues in the United States and 63. 1% internationally. SWOT Analysis of MaybellinePerrault et al (2011) describes SWOT analysis as a marketing tool used to create a marketing strategy which id entifies screening criteria (and identifies) and outlines the company’s strengths and weaknesses, and its opportunities and threats. The analysis has two categories: internal factors such as strengths and weaknesses, which analyze the company’s resources and abilities; external factors such as opportunities and threats, which are observed by analyzing the external market environment, customers, and competitors. This marketing tool helps the marketing department create a marketing strategy that takes advantage of the company’s strengths and opportunities while avoiding its weaknesses and threats.SWOT analysis is usually illustrated with a diagram consisting of four squares and each one of them summarizes the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Maybelline’s SWOT analysis is illustrated in Figure 5. Helpful Harmful Strengths ? Owned by the biggest cosmetics company in the world Solid financial backing Distributed in 127 countri es Leader in mass-market beauty products ? ? Established image Established production and distribution infrastructureWeaknesses Lack of expertise in manufacturing fragrances Product division completely focused on females Lack of expertise in producing natural and organic products Internal Opportunities Growing presence in emerging markets (Asia, South America) Natural and organic fragrances Men’s fragrances   Threats Counterfeit of fragrances Established strong competition Weak economic conditions worldwide External ? ? Figure 5 Strengths Maybelline enjoys a few significant strengths when it comes to its entry into the female fragrance market. One of them is the fact that Maybelline is owned by the biggest cosmetics company in the world in the name of L'Oreal, which has a solid financial foundation, an established image and existing production facilities and distribution channels. Maybelline itself has strengths in terms of its already established image and worldwide presen ce in the mass-market of beauty products. WeaknessesThe most significant weakness of Maybelline is the fact that it has no realistic expertise in developing and manufacturing fragrances and specifically female perfumes. The brand is well known for making and selling makeup, but the fragrance industry poses its own unique challenges. Maybelline’s complete product set is targeted only towards female’s including their research and marketing departments. This is considered a weakness since the men’s fragrance segment of the market is (still) emerging, which is outlined in the opportunities section of this paper. Another opportunity, which Maybelline is not ready for is the emerging segment of natural and organic products, which makes it a weakness for the company.The production of natural fragrances requires investment in research and development and different know-how and expertise, which Maybelline has not fully developed. Opportunities By the year 2020 countries in Asia and South America (emerging market) may represent more than 50% of the total cosmetics market, which directly affects the fragrance portion of the market. Currently, people living in emerging countries consume fewer cosmetics products than the rest of the world (Western Europe, North America, Japan, etc. ), but as their GDP is increasing, the consumption level should increase accordingly creating a great potential for penetration (Marketline, 2012). This presents a serious opportunity for Maybelline to offer its new fragrance in these demographics. Threats According to Global Insight Inc. 2007) and research performed by the Global AntiCounterfeiting Group, counterfeit perfumes and cosmetics cost the industry 3. 0 billion EURO annually in lost revenue and 555 million EURO in lost profit. The effects of counterfeiting include loss of profit, reduced investment and innovation, and an overall slowing down of the economy as a result of lost jobs and reduced tax revenues. Counterf eiting poses one of the biggest threats to Maybelline and its plans to introduce a new female fragrance on the market. Another threat is the long-time established competition in the female fragrance market including stable companies with an established image. This makes it difficult for Maybelline to penetrate the market with yet another new product.Currently, the global economy in general is struggling and especially in some European countries and the United States. As fragrances and cosmetics in general are not a ‘need’ but rather a ‘want’ product, the effects of lower income and higher unemployment rates are posing a threat to this industry and Maybelline itself. SWOT Conclusion By performing a SWOT analysis for the opportunity for Maybelline to introduce a new female fragrance into the market, it becomes apparent that the strengths and opportunities outweigh the weaknesses and threats. An already established company such as Maybelline is more than halfw ay of creating and marketing a new fragrance regardless of its inexperience with this specific product type.The struggling global economy and counterfeit products are challenges that every fragrance company faces, still this industry is strong and has the potential for growth. Market Strategy Perrault et al (2011) describes that to plan a marketing strategy is to find attractive opportunities and develop a profitable marketing strategyThere are two interrelated parts to a marketing strategy and they are the target market and the marketing mix. As defined in this book, a target market is a fairly similar group of potential customers to whom the company wishes to appeal. A marketing mix is the controllable variables the company puts together to satisfy this target group.These variables include the characteristics of the product, the place where the product will be sold, the price the Figure 6 product will be offered at and the promotion that would be used to market it. As illustrated in Figure 6 at the centre of the marketing mix is of course the target customer. Perrault et al (2011) states that the customer is placed in the center of the diagram to show that the customer is the target of all the marketing efforts. Target Market Currently, Maybelline targets women between the ages of 15 and 49 in more than 127 countries worldwide. Based on this wide market the new fragrance being introduced will be targeted to a narrower target, which is women between the ages of 18 and 34 living in Europe.Although as outlined earlier in this report, the men’s fragrance market is rapidly growing and has great potential, Maybelline offers products only to the female part of the population and has an already Figure 7 established image as such a brand. The new perfume brand will follow that image and target females only. The decision to initially introduce the product in Europe only is based on the fact that this is the strongest market for fragrances. If the product succee ds in this market its reach can be expanded to North America and even Asia. Furthering the definition of the target market, Maybelline will focus its marketing efforts on women between ages of 18 and 34 that are either single or freshly married with little or no children, have an active lifestyle and are young professionals. The target market is summarized in Figure 7. Marketing MixAs described in the book by Perrault et al (2011) the marketing mix specifies the details of the new product being developed and includes four P’s (product, place, price and promotion).1. The first P for Product may involve a physical good (a perfume in our case), a service, or a blend of both as well as its branding, packaging, and warranties. The basic idea is that the product has to satisfy a specific customer need.2. The second P is for Place, which defines how the product will reach its customer when and where it is needed. This includes the distribution channels used for getting the product s old.3. The third P is for Promotion and it describes the way the product will be marketed or sold to the customer, which includes advertising and public relations.4. The fourth P is for Price and specifies the amount of money a customer has to pay to acquire the product. When setting the price, the producer must account for the competition in the target market and the cost of producing and marketing the product. Based on the marketing principles and the research described above in this document a marketing mix for Maybelline’s new female fragrance follows. Product Name Maybelline’s new perfume will be called DENI which is an abbreviation for Desire, Exquisite, Natural and Intimate. The name describes what the perfume stands for. When a woman wears the DENI fragrance, she is desired, the scent is exquisite, the product is natural and the connection with it is intimate.Scent The scent of the perfume will be light and fresh, to be worn by females with an active lifestyle when going to work or being active. It is meant for everyday use and does not intrude, since the individual wearing it will be around people interacting. The perfume will only be available in Eau de Parfum spray since it is the lighter and more affordable version of the original scent. Ingredients An increasing trend in the market is the demand for natural products; therefore the DENI perfume will be made out of natural ingredients. This will possibly raise the production cost but compensate with a differentiating factor and the increasing demand for such products. Packaging DENI will be offered only in a 50ml glass bottle, which is compact and utilizing a screw on cap.The bottle design is meant for being carried in a small purse or a bag without the possibility of the cap coming off and being sprayed inside. To keep with the company’s green ideology, the bottle utilizes an aluminum removable pump, which can be separated from the glass bottle before disposal, so the glass bot tle can be easily recycled. The bottles are packaged in a cardboard box made completely from recycled paper and painted with natural paints. The bottle can also be returned to one of the stores where DENI is offered for a refill. Place DENI perfume will be manufactured at the current Maybelline plant located in North Little Rock, Arkansas.There will be an additional facility built for the manufacturing of the new perfume adjacent to the current massive factory. The administrative and transportation functions of the existing plant will be utilized for the new product as well as the distribution channels. DENI will be sold in Specialist Retailers, Department stores (including Duty-Free Shops), supermarkets and hypermarkets as it is a mass-market product with a low profit-margin. Price DENI will cost 38 EURO for the 50ml bottle to the final customer. The perfume is a mass-market product under L'Oreal’s Consumer Product Division and it is meant for everyday use and hence the pric e must be lower than the more luxurious products that the company itself offers as well as the competition.Table 2 shows a comparison of the prices for 50ml Eau de Parfum spray bottles of some of the bestselling perfumes on the market. For instance Chanel No. 5, as one of the best perfumes on the market costs nearly double compared to the price of an equivalent DENI bottle. The product however cannot be the cheapest since it has to be corresponding to L'Oreal’s image of offering high quality products. Perfume price comparison (EURO per 50 ml) 79 62 43 43 40 38 36 30 Table 2 Promotion Even if Maybelline creates the best product at the best price, no one would buy it if customers do not know about it. A very important part of the marketing strategy is the way the product will be introduced and advertised to the target market. As mentioned above, the target is women

The PC of the future Major developments in the hardware and software Essay Example

The PC of the future Major developments in the hardware and software Essay Example The PC of the future Major developments in the hardware and software Essay The PC of the future Major developments in the hardware and software Essay To the present computers only they have left two generations more to be able to continue being at the same time smaller and more powerful, the two generations that calculate that they allow the present technologies of miniaturization of its basic circuits. The perspective of not being able to maintain this tendency does not please anything to the physicists and computer science technicians, reason why, supported by the great companies of the sector, are looking for new approaches completely for the computers of the future. No of these approaches appears simple but all are suggestive, although to risk to imagine one of these computers molecular, quantum or from DNA is still premature. Whatever it buys a computer nowadays knows that it will be obsolete in a pair of years. Now we give by seated the inexorable increase of the power of the computers. But that cannot follow eternally thus, at least, if the computers continue being based on the present technologies. Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel and one of gurus of the technology of the information, anticipate that the existing methods of miniaturization only will offer two generations more of computers before its capacity is exhausted. In 1965, Moore made a prediction that was confirmed with amazing precision in the three following decades: the power of the computers would duplicate every 18 months. This increase has been due mainly to the more and more small size of the electronic components, so that every time a microprocessor or chip can be introduced more of them in. A modern chip of only half square centimeter contains many million tiny electronic components like the transistors. Each one measures less than one micron of diameter, more or less the hundredth part of the thickness of a human hair. These components are done basically of silicon, that the electricity leads, and of silicon dioxide, that is an insulator. In order to record cards of circuit in silicon microprocessors a called technique is used at the moment photolithograph, by means of which a polymer film forms on the layers of silicon or silicon dioxide that takes the scheme of the set of circuits. The pattern of the circuit records itself in the film of polymer exposing it to the light through a mask. Next chemical substances of engraving are applied that corrode the silicon material no protected. Limitation The size of the elements that can be created by means of this procedure is limited by the wavelength of the used light to fix the pattern. At the moment, they can get to only measure one-fifth part of one micron. But to create still more small electronic components up to one tenth part of one micron of diameter the manufacturers of microprocessors they will need to decide on a radiation of a shorter wavelength: the ultraviolet light of smaller length, x-rays or the electron beams of high energy. The great ones of the computers have still not been agreed on what class to choose, but, in any case, the costs of the development of the new technology and the later variation of the production process will be enormous. IBM, Motorola, Lucent Technologies and Lockheed Martin have been forced to collaborate in the development of the x-rays lithography. But the miniaturization is not limited solely by the photolithograph. Although can be devised methods to make transistors and other devices of a still smaller size, will continue working effectively? The law of Moore anticipates that, for year 2002, the smallest element of a silicon transistor, the insulator of the door, it will have a diameter of only 4 or 5 atoms. Will continue providing the necessary isolation this so fine layer? This question has been investigated recently by the physicist David Miller and his companions of Lucent Technologies. They used manufacture technologies outposts to obtain a silicon dioxide film of a thickness of 5 atoms that introduced between two silicon layers. In comparison, the commercial microprocessors have insulators of about 25 atoms of thickness. Miller and its companions discovered that its ultra thin insulating oxide no longer was able to isolate the silicon layers. The investigators calculated that an insulator of an inferior thickness to 4 atoms of wide would have so many losses that would be useless. In fact, due to the limitations to make smooth films, perfectly even insulating with the thickness double they would begin to break it if they made with the present methods. Therefore, the conventional silicon transistors will have reached their minimum operative dimensions in only one decade more or less. Many computer science technologists affirm that, at the moment, the silicon is what there is; but he can that what there is finishes soon. On the other hand, to try to imagine the computer of the future is to risk seeming as absurd as the science fiction of the Fifties. Nevertheless, judging by the present dreams of the technologists, we will be able to do without the plastic boxes and the silicon Chips. Some say that the computers will be looked more like organisms; their cables and switches will be compound of individual organic molecules. Others speak to practice computer science in a water bucket, sprinkled with fibers of DNA, the genetic material of the cells, or enriched with molecules that manipulate data like answer to the vibrations of radio waves. A thing seems safe: so that the computers have power more and more, their components, the basic elements of the logic circuits, will incredibly have to be tiny. If the present tendency to the miniaturization persists, these components will reach the size of individual molecules in less of a pair of decades, since we have seen. The scientists already are examining nanotubes called the carbon molecule use like cables of conventional molecular size that they can be used to connect component of silicon of solid state. The nanotubes of carbon can measure only a few millionth of millimeter, that is to say, few nanometers, that are equivalent to less than one tenth part of the diameter of cables smaller than they are possible to be recorded in the silicon Chips commercial. One is hollow pure carbon tubes, which are extremely strong and have the added attraction of which some of them lead the electricity. The scientists of the Stanford University in California have cultivated from nanotubes gas carbon methane that connect two terminals of electronic components. But the connection of cables is the easy part. Can the molecules process binary information? That is to say, they can combine sequences of bits (and zeros codified like electrical impulses in the present computers) like the doors logics composed of transistors and other devices of the silicon Chips? In a logic operation, some zeros and combinations in the entrance signals generate other combinations in the exit signals. This way, the data are compared, ordered, added, multiplied or manipulated of other forms. Individual molecules have carried out some operations logics, with the bits codified not like electrical impulses, but like impulses of light or other molecular components. For example, a molecule could unload a photon a luminous particle if it received a loaded metal atom and a photon of a different color, but not if it received only one of both. Nevertheless, nobody has a real idea of how connecting these molecules to a trustworthy and complex circuit that serves to calculate, an authentic molecular computer. Some detractors say that molecular computer science never will be viable. Calculations with DNA At the beginning of the Nineties, Leonard Adleman, of the University of California of the South, it proposed a form different to use molecules to calculate, and indicated that the data base of the own cell the DNA it is possible to be used to solve calculation problems. Adleman realized which the DNA basically a chain of four different molecular components or bases that act as a code of four letters of the genetic information is looked remarkably like the universal computer postulated in the Thirties by the mathematical genius Alan Turing, who stores binary information in a tape. Different chains from bases can voluntarily be programmed in synthetic DNA fibers using the techniques of the modern biotechnology; and later these fibers can be generated, be cut and be assembled in enormous amounts. Could be used these methods to convince to the DNA that it calculated like a machine of Turing? Adleman saw that the system of the DNA could be specially apt to solve minimization problems, like for example finding the route shortest to connect several cities. This kind of problems is one of which it more costs to them to solve to the conventional computers, since the number of possible routes increases very quickly as more cities are included. A current computer takes much in examining all those options. But if each possible solution is codified in a DNA fiber, the problem does not seem so terrible, because a simple one even picks of DNA contains many trillions of molecules. So that only it is necessary to separate the DNA fibers that they have codified the best solution. This can be done using biotechnological methods that recognize specific short sequences of the bases of a fiber of ADN. This procedure is not more than a slightly little orthodox form to find a solution: in the first place, to find all the solutions possible and later to use operations logics to choose the correct one. But, as everything happens parallelly all the possible solutions are created and examined to the same time the process it can be very fast. The calculation by DNA has been demonstrated in principle, but it has still not been proven that solves problems that a conventional computer cannot solve. It seems more apt for a quite specific set of problems, like the minimization and the codification that like method of calculation for questions of all type. The quantum world Already in the Sixties, some computer science scientists noticed themselves of where he took the miniaturization to them: towards the quantum kingdom, where the non-logical rules of the quantum mechanics govern the behavior of the matter. As the conventional devices of the circuits become smaller, the quantum effects become a more and more important aspect of their behavior. It could be feasible, were asked, turn this possible complication an advantage? This suggestion gave fruit in the Eighties, when the physicists began to observe kindly how he could operate a computer under the influence of the quantum mechanics. What they discovered was that it could win enormously in speed. The crucial difference between processing information in the quantum world and the classic one is that first he is not black and white. In a classic computer, all the bits of information are or a thing or another one: or a 1 or a 0. But a quantum bit, qubit, can be a mixture of both. The quantum objects can exist in a superposition of states that is classically exclusive, like the famous cat of Schrà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½dinger that is not nor alive, nor dead, but in a superposition of the two things. This means that a series of quantum switches objects in defined quantum states good, as atoms in different states from excitation have enough more configurations of qubits than the corresponding classic series of bits. For example, whereas a classic memory of three bits can store only one of the eight possible configurations of and zeros, the corresponding quantum series can store the eight, in a superposition of states. This multiplicity of states gives to the quantum computers enough more power and, therefore, enough more speed, than to its classic companions. But, in fact, to shape these ideas in a physical device supposes an extraordinary challenge. A quantum superposition of states is a thing very delicate, and difficult to maintain, mainly if it is extended by an enormous set of logical elements. Once this superposition begins to interact with its surroundings, it begins to collapse and the environs lose the quantum information. Some investigators think that this problem will return quantum computer science to great scale in which great amounts of data are manipulated in multitude of steps impossibly delicate and difficult to handle. But the problem has been lessen in the last years by the development of algorithms that will allow working to the quantum computers, in spite of the small errors introduced by this type of losses. MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SOFTWARE Introduction Software Engineering is not a 100% science. All the algorithms are made after the logical, the political and the personal surroundings of the programmer. To talk about the future of software, we have to know a few historical facts. After that, we will have to choose our side of the software wars, between those who defend the open source code policy, and the close source policy. The Software wars Internet would not exist without free software. In the years the 60 Bell labs already yielded the source code of his just invented Operating system UNIX, and from that time last to the last version of the Linux nucleus, the history of software has been based on the exchange of information. The fundamental base of the revolution of the society-network is that interchange that is constructing the movement of the Open Code. A field of the technologies of the information and the communication is free software that surely does not have decrease problems. It is a movement that every time is become greater and than it has had in these last years an extraordinary advance. The statistics usually are eloquent. The last year a 50 percent of the software developers already had thought migrating their developments to Open Code. As powerful applications as the suite of computer science Star Office de Sun or the technology of servant in streaming of Real Networks have served like motor tractor of so many other known applications less than also they are being directed towards the free development of his code. The force of this revolution in computer science and the telecommunications is represented by values and a philosophy unknown until the moment. It is the force of the community and the work in group after resolving tasks and objectives that they acquire of by himself a special value in the developers, which are compensated of a no-pecuniary form that was unsuspected until now at the time in which already the protestant ethics has prevailed anywhere in the world western and the values of the work that takes prepared. Students of the technologies and their implications like M. Castells, R. Stallman, P. Himannen, L. Torvalds and Jesus G. Barahona speak to us constantly of the possibilities that open homo digitalis to him to the future reach more knowledge in thanks to the adoption of agreed policies with the founders of this movement based on sharing the code and the knowledge by the mutual good. The movement represented by the Free Software Foundation is something that goes beyond the mere election of policies of development of new Technologies of the Information and the Communication. When bet by the development in opened code, the adoption of standards and the support to free operating systems, is being affected the knowledge of the members of the digital society and not in the mere support to the consumption of computer science by the fact that it is acceded to his use, immediately. In a digital society the use is so important as the knowledge of the tools and the development of these since he is this indeed what gives to be able to the citizens and the organizations. With the adoption of computer science policies based on free software knowledge of networks and code also occurs to the users, with which they can take a fundamental paper from nonpassive actors in the digital revolution. But everything what represents east movement is not compatible with the policies of the great company that nowadays exerts the worldwide control of computer science (Microsoft). The company of the State of Washington is being with most of the souls of the users worldwide population of the Network and the tools of office software and operating systems of workstations. He is this something undeniable, like also it must be for the administrations the systems by which these companies are going to remove data from the users to create profiles and data bases that to knowing where they will finish someday. Being the one of Redmond (Microsoft) a company of a nation that prohibits the safe encriptation to 1024 bits for its subjects, how we are going to have the users of the planet confidence in the security policies that apparently are going to us to sell. And that is thus, although until the own Department of Defense of the U.S.A. trusts in the Open Source and its systems of encriptation, an d it uses itself them. On the contrary, the one that already has proven version XP of Microsoft well knows what is the control via network of the data of the user and its number MAC of computer. And before it, little people have left to fight against those policies. The networks of laboratories of hackers and other groupings of people who affect the education of the free software tools which they are based on the knowledge necessary to maintain servants, to publish without censorship, to develop programs, to give courses of computer science, etc. are an alternative that already is giving its fruits. Gurus of the digital era has full name that goes united to these movements in some stage of their life. The father of all this form to think is Richard Stallman and the most well known image is the one of Linux Torvalds, who not long ago occurred the prize him to the best European industrialist. Linux and Richard are the pieces key in all this revolution based on the freedom, the work in-group via network and the pure satisfaction by the made work. The competition which they can exert certain companies of little is going to be worth before this movement which it is essential for the technologies based on the side of the servant, and will have to ente r itself in him, since it has made IBM and Sun to begin to include/understand his potential and to remove benefit from it. To put a simile, we imagine that the community of doctors and medicine investigators worldwide worked in network sharing their knowledge at any moment of the day and received as it compensates the solution at the moment to all the problems that appeared to them. With this system many of the present diseases would be already for a long time eradicated. In addition, in this example, the professionals with great tied pays to policies of maximum secret in the laboratories of investigation little would have to say before the greater force than she acquires the movement developed by the Network and that the knowledge has its base in sharing. Those that the difference between languages and free development systems like PHP know about, ZOPE, Perl, etc know well until where it is possible to be arrived with the free code. However, those that only know proprietary and clo sed technologies hardly will be able to get to watch the future, since they go to a technological slavery. Conclusion Computer science is a complex science but of which people create. Much people do not know that it is a science with two branches different one from the other, but employees. The architecture of the computer and software to be able to use it are very important. But all their possible uses are so many, that specialists are needed, like in the medicine, of each one of their parts. There per 1947, when the transistor was invented, and when Jaquard (1804) designed a loom that performed predefined tasks through feeding punched cards into a reading contraption; nobody imagined how quickly that it would take to get the nowadays supercomputers.

AP Lit Vocab Essays

AP Lit Vocab Essays AP Lit Vocab Paper AP Lit Vocab Paper Essay Topic: A Raisin in the Sun A. E. Housman Poems Anne Sexton Poems Christina Rossetti Poems Elizabeth Bishop Poems Ezra Pound Poems George Herbert Poems Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems Jonathan Swift Poems Keats Poems and Letters Lycidas Phillis Wheatley Poems Poes Poetry Poes Short Stories Poetry Seamus Heaney Poems The Complete Poems of William Blake The Convergence Of the Twain The Faerie Queene The Poetry of Dh Lawrence The Poetry Of Robert Penn Warren The Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Sonnets of John Milton Thomas Gray Poems Thomas Hardy Poems Wallace Stevens Poems William Carlos Williams Poems Accentual Verse Verse whose meter is determined by the number of stressed (accented) syllables- regardless of the total number of syllables- in each line. Many Old English poems, including Beowulf, are accentual; see Ezra Pounds modern translation of The Seafarer. More recently, Richard Wilbur employed this same Anglo-Saxon meter in his poem Junk. Traditional nursery rhymes, such as Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, are often accentual. Accentual-Syllabic Verse Verse whose meter is determined by the number and alternation of its stressed and unstressed syllables, organized into feet. From line to line, the number of stresses (accents) may vary, but the total number of syllables within each line is fixed. The majority of English poems from the Renaissance to the 19th century are written according to this metrical system. Alexandrine In English, a 12-syllable iambic line adapted from French heroic verse. The last line of each stanza in Thomas Hardys The Convergence of the Twain and Percy Bysshe Shelleys To a Skylark is an alexandrine. Allegory An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. Often an allegorys meaning is religious, moral, or historical in nature. John Bunyans The Pilgrims Progress and Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene are two major allegorical works in English. Alliteration The repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line. Alliteration need not reuse all initial consonants; pizza and place alliterate. Example: We saw the sea sound sing, we heard the salt sheet tell, from Dylan Thomass Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed. Browse poems with alliteration. Allusion A brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement. The Waste Land, T. S. Eliots influential long poem is dense with allusions. The title of Seamus Heaneys autobiographical poem Singing School alludes to a line from W.B. Yeatss Sailing to Byzantium (Nor is there singing school but studying /Monuments of its own magnificence). Browse poems with allusions. Anapest A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. The words underfoot and overcome are anapestic. Lord Byrons The Destruction of Sennacherib is written in anapestic meter. Anaphora The repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines. See Paul Muldoons As, William Blakes The Tyger, or much of Walt Whitmans poetry, including I Sing the Body Electric. Anthropomorphism A form of personification in which human qualities are attributed to anything inhuman, usually a god, animal, object, or concept. In Vachel Lindsays What the Rattlesnake Said, for example, a snake describes the fears of his imagined prey. John Keats admires a stars loving watchfulness (with eternal lids apart) in his sonnet Bright Star, Would I Were as Steadfast as Thou Art. Apostrophe An address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present. In his Holy Sonnet Death, be not proud, John Donne denies deaths power by directly admonishing it. Emily Dickinson addresses her absent object of passion in Wild nights!- Wild nights! Archetype A basic model from which copies are made; a prototype. According to psychologist Carl Jung, archetypes emerge in literature from the collective unconscious of the human race. Northrop Frye, in his Anatomy of Criticism, explores archetypes as the symbolic patterns that recur within the world of literature itself. In both approaches, archetypical themes include birth, death, sibling rivalry, and the individual versus society. Archetypes may also be images or characters, such as the hero, the lover, the wanderer, or the matriarch. Assonance The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme. See Amy Lowells In a Garden (With its leaping, and deep, cool murmur) or The Taxi (And shout into the ridges of the wind). Browse poems with assonance. Aubade A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn. The form originated in medieval France. See John Donnes The Sun Rising and Louise Bogans Leave-Taking. Browse more aubade poems. Ballad A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating fours of this literary ballad form include John Keatss La Belle Dame sans Merci, Thomas Hardys During Wind and Rain, and Edgar Allan Poes Annabel Lee. Browse more ballads. Blank verse Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns. Poems such as John Miltons Paradise Lost, Robert Brownings dramatic monologues, and Wallace Stevenss Sunday Morning, are written predominantly in blank verse. Browse more blank verse poems. Cacophony Harsh or discordant word sounds; the opposite of euphony. See dissonance. Cadence The patterning of rhythm in natural speech, or in poetry without a distinct meter (i.e., free verse). Caesura A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause. A medial caesura splits the line in equal parts, as is common in Old English poetry (see Beowulf). Medial caesurae (plural of caesura) can be found throughout contemporary poet Derek Walcotts The Bounty. When the pause occurs toward the beginning or end of the line, it is termed, respectively, initial or terminal. Elizabeth Barrett Brownings Mother and Poet contains both initial (Dead! One of them shot by sea in the east) and terminal caesurae (No voice says My mother again to me. What?) Canon A list of authors or works considered to be central to the identity of a given literary tradition or culture. This secular use of the word is derived from its original meaning as a listing of all authorized books in the Bible. William Shakespeare, John Milton, and William Blake are frequently found on lists of canonical literature in English. Canto A long subsection of an epic or long narrative poem, such as Dante Alighieris Commedia (The Divine Comedy), first employed in English by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene. Other examples include Lord Byrons Don Juan and Ezra Pounds Cantos. Chiasmus Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA. Examples can be found in Biblical scripture (But many that are first / Shall be last, / And many that are last / Shall be first; Matthew 19:30). See also John Keatss Ode on a Grecian Urn (Beauty is truth, truth beauty). Circumlocution A roundabout wording, such as Samuel Taylor Coleridges twice five miles of fertile ground (i.e., 10 miles) in Kubla Khan. Also known as periphrasis. Common Measure A quatrain that rhymes ABAB and alternates four-stress and three-stress iambic lines. It is the meter of the hymn and the ballad. Many of Emily Dickinsons poems are written in common measure, including [It was not death, for I stood up]. See also Robert Haydens The Ballad of Nat Turner and Elinor Wylies A Crowded Trolley Car. See also Poulters measure and fourteener. Browse more common measure poems. Complaint A poem of lament, often directed at an ill-fated love, as in Henry Howards Complaint of the Absence of Her Love Being upon the Sea, or Sir Philip Sidneys Astrophel and Stella XXXI. A complaint may also be a satiric attack on social injustice and immorality; in The Lie, Sir Walter Ralegh bitterly rails against institutional hypocrisy and human vanity (Tell men of high condition, / That manage the estate, / Their purpose is ambition, / Their practice only hate.). Conceit From the Latin term for concept, a poetic conceit is an often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual. Petrarchan (after the Italian poet Petrarch) conceits figure heavily in sonnets, and contrast more conventional sensual imagery to describe the experience of love. In Shakespeares Sonnet XCVII: How like a Winter hath my Absence been, for example, What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! laments the lover, though his separation takes place in the fertile days of summer and fall. Less conventional, more esoteric associations characterize the metaphysical conceit. John Donne and other so-called metaphysical poets [link to glossary term] used conceits to fuse the sensory and the abstract, trading on the element of surprise and unlikeness to hold the readers attention. In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, for instance, John Donne envisions two entwined lovers as the points of a compass. (For more on Donnes conceits, see Stephen Burts Poem Guide on John Donnes The Sun Rising.) Concrete poetry Verse that emphasizes nonlinguistic elements in its meaning, such as a typeface that creates a visual image of the topic. Examples include George Herberts Easter Wings and The Altar and George Starbucks Poem in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree. Browse more concrete poems. Confessional poetry Vividly self-revelatory verse associated with a number of American poets writing in the 1950s and 1960s, including Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and John Berryman. The term was first used by M.L. Rosenthal in a 1959 review of Life Studies, the collection in which Robert Lowell revealed his struggles with mental illness and a troubled marriage. Read an interview with Snodgrass in which he addresses his work and the work of others associated with confessionalism. Browse more poets who wrote confessional poems. Connotation there was a connotation of distrust in his voice: overtone, undertone, undercurrent, implication, hidden meaning, nuance, hint, echo, vibrations, association, intimation, suggestion, suspicion, insinuation. Consonance A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme (see also Alliteration). Consonance can also refer to shared consonants, whether in sequence (bed and bad) or reversed (bud and dab). Browse poems with consonance. Controlling metaphor controlling metaphors: Metaphors that dominate or organize an entire poem. For example, metaphors of movement structure John Donne ´s A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (1633). couplet couplet: A pair of lines, almost always rhyming, that form a unit. dactyl A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; the words poetry and basketball are both dactylic. Tennysons The Charge of the Light Brigade is written in dactylic meter. (See also double dactyl.) dead metaphor A dead metaphor is a metaphor which has lost the original imagery of its meaning owing to extensive, repetitive popular usage. flowerbed head teacher forerunner to run for office to lose face to lend a hand to broadcast pilot originally meant the rudder of a boat. flair originally meant a sweet smell. a computer mouse denotation denotation: The direct and literal meaning of a word or phrase (as distinct from its implication). Compare connotation. dimeter A line of verse composed of two feet. Some go local / Some go express / Some cant wait / To answer Yes, writes Muriel Rukeyser in her poem Yes, in which the dimeter line predominates. Kay Ryans Blandeur contains this series of mostly dimeter lines: Even out Earths rondure, flatten Eiger, blanden the Grand Canyon. Make valleys slightly higher, widen fissures to arable land, remand your terrible glaciers dirge A brief hymn or song of lamentation and grief; it was typically composed to be performed at a funeral. In lyric poetry, a dirge tends to be shorter and less meditative than an elegy. See Christina Rossettis A Dirge and Sir Philip Sidneys Ring Out Your Bells. dissonance A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms. Like cacophony, it refers to a harsh collection of sounds; dissonance is usually intentional, however, and depends more on the organization of sound for a jarring effect, rather than on the unpleasantness of individual words. Gerard Manley Hopkinss use of fixed stresses and variable unstressed syllables, combined with frequent assonance, consonance, and monosyllabic words, has a dissonant effect. See these lines from Carrion Comfort: Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear. Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod, Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer. doggerel Bad verse traditionally characterized by clichà ©s, clumsiness, and irregular meter. It is often unintentionally humorous. The giftedly bad William McGonagall was an accomplished doggerelist, as demonstrated in The Tay Bridge Disaster: It must have been an awful sight, To witness in the dusky moonlight, While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray, Along the Railway Bridge of the Silvry Tay, Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silvry Tay, I must now conclude my lay By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay, That your central girders would not have given way, At least many sensible men do say, Had they been supported on each side with buttresses, At least many sensible men confesses, For the stronger we our houses do build, The less chance we have of being killed. dramatic monologue A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader. Examples include Robert Brownings My Last Duchess, T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Ais Killing Floor. A lyric may also be addressed to someone, but it is short and songlike and may appear to address either the reader or the poet. Browse more dramatic monologue poems. elegy In traditional English poetry, it is often a melancholy poem that laments its subjects death but ends in consolation. Examples include John Miltons Lycidas; Alfred, Lord Tennysons In Memoriam; and Walt Whitmans When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd. More recently, Peter Sacks has elegized his father in Natal Command, and Mary Jo Bang has written You Were You Are Elegy and other poems for her son. In the 18th century the elegiac stanza emerged, though its use has not been exclusive to elegies. It is a quatrain with the rhyme scheme ABAB written in iambic pentameter. Browse more elegies. elision The omission of unstressed syllables (e.g., ere for ever, tother for the other), usually to fit a metrical scheme. What dire offence from amrous causes springs, goes the first line of Alexander Popes The Rape of the Lock, in which amorous is elided to amrous to establish the pentameter (five-foot) line. ellipsis In poetry, the omission of words whose absence does not impede the readers ability to understand the expression. For example, Shakespeare makes frequent use of the phrase I will away in his plays, with the missing verb understood to be go. T.S. Eliot employs ellipsis in the following passage from Preludes: You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands. The possessive your is left out in the second and third lines, but it can be assumed that the woman addressed by the speaker is clasping the soles of her own feet with her own hands. end-stopped A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break- such as a dash or closing parenthesis- or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase. Many of Alexander Popes couplets are end-stopped, as in this passage from An Essay on Man: Epistle I: Then say not mans imperfect, Heavn in fault; Say rather, mans as perfect as he ought: His knowledge measurd to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest today is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. The opposite of an end-stopped line is an enjambed line. enjambment The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped. William Carlos Williamss Between Walls is one sentence broken into 10 enjambed lines: the back wings of the hospital where nothing will grow lie cinders in which shine the broken pieces of a green bottle epic A long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance. Notable English epics include Beowulf, Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene (which follows the virtuous exploits of 12 knights in the service of the mythical King Arthur), and John Miltons Paradise Lost, which dramatizes Satans fall from Heaven and humankinds subsequent alienation from God in the Garden of Eden. epigram A pithy, often witty, poem. See Walter Savage Landors Dirce, [link to archived poem] Ben Jonsons On Gut, [link to archived poem] or much of the work of J.V. Cunningham [link to poet page]: This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained. epigraph A quotation from another literary work that is placed beneath the title at the beginning of a poem or section of a poem. For example, Grace Schulmans American Solitude opens with a quote from an essay by Marianne Moore. Lines from Phillis Wheatleys On Being Brought from Africa to America preface Alfred Corns Sugar Cane. epitaph A short poem intended for (or imagined as) an inscription on a tombstone and often serving as a brief elegy. See Robert Herricks Upon a Child That Died and Upon Ben Jonson; Ben Jonsons Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.; and Epitaph for a Romantic Woman by Louise Bogan. figure of speech An expressive, nonliteral use of language. Figures of speech include tropes (such as hyperbole, irony, metaphor, and simile) and schemes (anything involving the ordering and organizing of words- anaphora, antithesis, and chiasmus, for example). Browse all terms related to figures of speech. figurative language Whenever you describe something by comparing it with something else, you are using figurative language. Simile A simile uses the words like or as to compare one object or idea with another to suggest they are alike. Example: busy as a bee Metaphor The metaphor states a fact or draws a verbal picture by the use of comparison. A simile would say you are like something; a metaphor is more positive it says you are something. Example: You are what you eat. Personification A figure of speech in which human characteristics are given to an animal or an object. Example: My teddy bear gave me a hug. Alliteration The repetition of the same initial letter, sound, or group of sounds in a series of words. Alliteration includes tongue twisters. Example: She sells seashells by the seashore. Onomatopoeia The use of a word to describe or imitate a natural sound or the sound made by an object or an action. Example: snap crackle pop Hyperbole An exaggeration that is so dramatic that no one would believe the statement is true. Tall tales are hyperboles. Example: He was so hungry, he ate that whole cornfield for lunch, stalks and all. Idioms According to Websters Dictionary, an idiom is defined as: peculiar to itself either grammatically (as no, it wasnt me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements. Example: Monday week for the Monday a week after next Monday Clichà ©s A clichà © is an expression that has been used so often that it has become trite and sometimes boring. Example: Many hands make light work. foot The basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. A foot usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable. The standard types of feet in English poetry are the iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic (two unstressed syllables) found poem A prose text or texts reshaped by a poet into quasi-metrical lines. Fragments of found poetry may appear within an original poem as well. Portions of Ezra Pounds Cantos are found poetry, culled from historical letters and government documents. Charles Olson created his poem There Was a Youth whose Name Was Thomas Granger using a report from William Bradfords History of Plymouth Plantation. free verse Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition. Matthew Arnold and Walt Whitman explored the possibilities of nonmetrical poetry in the 19th century. Since the early 20th century, the majority of published lyric poetry has been written in free verse. See the work of William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and H.D. Browse more free-verse poems. haiku A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables. It creates a single, memorable image, as in these lines by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Jane Hirshfield: On a branch floating downriver a cricket, singing. (In translating from Japanese to English, Hirshfield compresses the number of syllables.) See also Three Haiku, Two Tanka by Philip Appleman and Robert Hasss After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa. The Imagist poets of the early 20th century, including Ezra Pound and H.D., showed appreciation for the forms linguistic and sensory economy; Pounds In a Station of the Metro embodies the spirit of haiku. Browse more haiku. heptameter A meter made up of seven feet and usually 14 syllables total (see Fourteener). George Chapmans translation of Homers the Iliad is written in heptameter, as is Edgar Allan Poes Annabel Lee. See also Poulters measure. hexameter A metrical line of six feet, most often dactylic, and found in Classical Latin or Greek poetry, including Homers Iliad. In English, an iambic hexameter line is also known as an alexandrine. Only a few poets have written in dactylic hexameter, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the long poem Evangeline: hymn A poem praising God or the divine, often sung. In English, the most popular hymns were written between the 17th and 19th centuries. See Isaac Wattss Our God, Our Help, Charles Wesleys My God! I Know, I Feel Thee Mine, and Thou Hidden Love of God by John Wesley. hyperbole A figure of speech composed of a striking exaggeration. For example, see James Tates lines She scorched you with her radiance or He was more wronged than Job. Hyperbole usually carries the force of strong emotion iamb A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. The words unite and provide are both iambic. It is the most common meter of poetry in English (including all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare), as it is closest to the rhythms of English speech. In Robert Frosts After Apple Picking the iamb is the vehicle for the natural, colloquial speech pattern: My long two-pointed ladders sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And theres a barrel that I didnt fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didnt pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. imagery (sensory) Describing words! internal rhyme In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse.[1] irony As a literary device, irony implies a distance between what is said and what is meant. Based on the context, the reader is able to see the implied meaning in spite of the contradiction. When William Shakespeare relates in detail how his lover suffers in comparison with the beauty of nature in My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun, it is understood that he is elevating her beyond these comparisons; considering her essence as a whole, and what she means to the speaker, she is more beautiful than nature. (titantic beauty vs. worms) italian sonnet Italian sonnet: An octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines); typically rhymed abbaabba cdecde, it has many variations that still reflect the basic division into two parts separated by a rhetorical turn of argument (e.g., see Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese [1850]). lyric poetry Lyric poems typically express personal or emotional feelings and is traditionally the home of the present tense.[1] They have specific rhyming schemes and are often, but not always, set to music or a beat lyricism An artists expression of emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way; the quality of being lyrical. kenning A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun. It is found frequently in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry, including The Seafarer, in which the ocean is called a whale-path. (See Ezra Pounds translation) light verse Whimsical poems taking forms such as limericks, nonsense poems, and double dactyls. See Edward Lears The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and Lewis Carrolls The Walrus and the Carpenter. Other masters of light verse include Dorothy Parker, G.K. Chesterton, John Hollander, and Wendy Cope. limerick A fixed light-verse form of five generally anapestic lines rhyming AABBA. Edward Lear, who popularized the form, fused the third and fourth lines into a single line with internal rhyme. Limericks are traditionally bawdy or just irreverent; see A Young Lady of Lynn or Lears There was an Old Man with a Beard. Browse more limericks. metaphor A comparison that is made directly (for example, John Keatss Beauty is truth, truth beauty from Ode on a Grecian Urn) or less directly (for example, Shakespeares marriage of two minds), but in any case without pointing out a similarity by using words such as like, as, or than. See Sylvia Plaths description of her dead father as Marble-heavy, a bag full of God in Daddy, or Emily Dickinsons Hope is the thing with feathers- / That perches in the soul- . Browse poems with developed metaphors. meter The rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse. The predominant meter in English poetry is accentual-syllabic. See also accentual meter, syllabic meter, and quantitative meter. Falling meter refers to trochees and dactyls (i.e., a stressed syllable followed by one or two unstressed syllables). Iambs and anapests (i.e., one or two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one) are called rising meter. See also foot. metonymy A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself. Often the substitution is based on a material, causal, or conceptual relation between things. For example, the British monarchy is often referred to as the Crown. In the phrase lend me your ears, ears is substituted for attention. O, for a draught of vintage! exclaims the speaker in John Keatss Ode to Nightingale, with vintage understood to mean wine. Synecdoche is closely related to metonymy. motif A central or recurring image or action in a literary work that is shared by other works and may serve an overall theme. For example, the repeated questions of an ubi sunt poem compose a motif of the fleeting nature of life. Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels and John Bunyans A Pilgrims Progress both feature the motif of a long journey. Motifs are sometimes described as expressions of a collective unconsciousness; see archetype. narrative poem Poetry that tells a story and is primarily characterized by linear, chronological description. negative capability A theory of John Keats, who suggested in one of his famous letters that a great thinker is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. A poet, then, has the power to bury self-consciousness, dwell in a state of openness to all experience, and identify with the object contemplated. See Keatss To Autumn. The inspirational power of beauty, according to Keats, is more important than the quest for objective fact; as he writes in his Ode on a Grecian Urn, Beauty is truth, truth beauty- that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. objective correlative T.S. Eliot used this phrase to describe a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion that the poet feels and hopes to evoke in the reader (Hamlet, 1919). There must be a positive connection between the emotion the poet is trying to express and the object, image, or situation in the poem that helps to convey that emotion to the reader. Eliot thus determined that Shakespeares play Hamlet was an artistic failure because Hamlets intense emotions overwhelmed the authors attempts to express them through an objective correlative. In other words, Eliot felt that Shakespeare was unable to provoke the audience to feel as Prince Hamlet did through images, actions, and characters, and instead only inadequately described his emotional state through the plays dialogue. Eliots theory of the objective correlative is closely related to the Imagist movement. objectivism A term coined by William Carlos Williams in 1930 that developed from his reading of Alfred North Whiteheads Science and the Modern World. He described it as looking at a poem with a special eye to its structural aspects, how it has been constructed. Louis Zukofsky expanded the term and attempted to articulate its principles when he guest-edited the February 1931 issue of Poetry. He included Charles Reznikoff, George Oppen, and Carl Rakosi. Later, the poet Lorine Niedecker was closely associated with this movement. These objectivist poets, Zukofsky noted, were Imagists rather than Symbolists; they were concerned with creating a poetic structure that could be perceived as a whole, rather than a series of imprecise but evocative images. For more on objectivism, read Peter OLearys feature, The Energies of Words. Browse Objectivist poets. occasional poem A poem written to describe or comment on a particular event and often written for a public reading. Alfred, Lord Tennysons The Charge of the Light Brigade commemorates a disastrous battle in the Crimean War. George Starbuck wrote Of Late after reading a newspaper account of a Vietnam War protesters suicide. Elizabeth Alexanders Praise Song for the Day was written for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. See also elegy, epithalamion, and ode. octave An eight-line stanza or poem. See ottava rima and triolet. The first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet are also called an octave. ode A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Its stanza forms vary. The Greek or Pindaric (Pindar, ca. 552-442 B.C.E.) ode was a public poem, usually set to music, that celebrated athletic victories. (See Stephen Burts article And the Winner Is . . . Pindar!) English odes written in the Pindaric tradition include Thomas Grays The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode and William Wordsworths Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Reflections of Early Childhood. Horatian odes, after the Latin poet Horace (65-8 B.C.E.), were written in quatrains in a more philosophical, contemplative manner; see Andrew Marvells Horatian Ode upon Cromwells Return from Ireland. The Sapphic ode consists of quatrains, three 11-syllable lines, and a final five-syllable line, unrhyming but with a strict meter. See Algernon Charles Swinburnes Sapphics. The odes of the English Romantic poets vary in stanza form. They often address an intense emotion at the onset of a personal crisis (see Samuel Taylor Coleridges Dejection: An Ode,) or celebrate an object or image that leads to revelation (see John Keatss Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to a Nightingale, and To Autumn). Browse more odes. onomatopoeia A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense (for example, choo-choo, hiss, or buzz). In Piano, D.H. Lawrence describes the boom of the tingling strings as his mother played the piano, mimicking the volume and resonance of the sound (boom) as well as the fine, high-pitched vibration of the strings that produced it (tingling strings) ottava rima Originally an Italian stanza of eight 11-syllable lines, with a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the form in English, and Lord Byron adapted it to a 10-syllable line for his mock-epic Don Juan. W.B. Yeats used it for Among School Children and Sailing to Byzantium. Browse more ottava rima poems. panegyric A poem of effusive praise. Its origins are Greek, and it is closely related to the eulogy and the ode. See Ben Jonsons To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare or Anne Bradstreets In Honor of That High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth. paradox As a figure of speech, it is a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth. For instance, Wallace Stevens, in The Snow Man, describes the Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. Alexander Pope, in An Essay on Man: Epistle II, describes Man as Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all. Paradox is related to oxymoron, which creates a new phrase or concept out of a contradiction. parody A comic imitation of another authors work or characteristic style. See Joan Murrays We Old Dudes, a parody of Gwendolyn Brookss We Real Cool. paraphrase summarize pastoral Verse in the tradition of Theocritus (3 BCE), who wrote idealized accounts of shepherds and their loves living simple, virtuous lives in Arcadia, a mountainous region of Greece. Poets writing in English drew on the pastoral tradition by retreating from the trappings of modernity to the imagined virtues and romance of rural life, as in Edmund Spensers The Shepheardes Calendar, Christopher Marlowes The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and Sir Walter Raleghs response, The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd. The pastoral poem faded after the European Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, but its themes persist in poems that romanticize rural life or reappraise the natural world; see Leonie Adamss Country Summer, Dylan Thomass Fern Hill, or Allen Ginsbergs Wales Visitation. Browse more pastoral poems. personification A figure of speech in which the poet describes an abstraction, a thing, or a nonhuman form as if it were a person. William Blakes O Rose, thou art sick! is one example; Donnes Death, be not proud is another. Gregory Corso quarrels with a series of personified abstractions in his poem The Whole Mess . . . Almost. Personification is often used in symbolic or allegorical poetry; for instance, the virtue of Justice takes the form of the knight Artegal in Edmund Spensers The Faerie Queene. pathetic fallacy ascribes human, emotional qualities (feelings, thought, sensation) to inanimate objects, as if possessed of human awareness.[1] [2] As such, in the term pathetic fallacy, the word pathetic communicates feelings of two types, pathos (emotion) and empathy (capability of emotion). poetic device A poetic device is a language feature such as a simile, metaphor, pun etc. poetic devices or often called poetic methods can be a number of things used in a poem. Examples of poetic devices are. language, imagery, assonance, alliteration, metaphor, similie and there are many more. poetic inversion inversion, also called anastrophe, in literary style and rhetoric, the syntactic reversal of the normal order of the words and phrases in a sentence, as, in English, the placing of an adjective after the noun it modifies (the form divine), a verb before its subject (Came the dawn), or a noun preceding its preposition (worlds between). Inversion is most commonly used in poetry in which it may both satisfy the demands of the metre and achieve emphasis: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree - (from Samuel Taylor Coleridges Kubla Khan) Inversion used simply for the sake of maintaining a rhyme scheme is considered a literary defect, although it is a common convention in folk ballads: quatrain A four-line stanza, rhyming -ABAC or ABCB (known as unbounded or ballad quatrain), as in Samuel Taylor Coleridges The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. -AABB (a double couplet); see A.E. Housmans To an Athlete Dying Young. -ABAB (known as interlaced, alternate, or heroic), as in Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard or Sadie and Maud by Gwendolyn Brooks. -ABBA (known as envelope or enclosed), as in Alfred, Lord Tennysons In Memoriam or John Ciardis Most Like an Arch This Marriage. -AABA, the stanza of Robert Frosts Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. refrain A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza. See the refrain jump back, honey, jump back in Paul Lawrence Dunbars A Negro Love Song or return and return again in James Laughlins O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again. Browse poems with a refrain. rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines. Bid me to weep, and I will weep While I have eyes to see; And having none, and yet I will keep A heart to weep for thee. rhyme royal A stanza of seven 10-syllable lines, rhyming ABABBCC, popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer and termed royal because his imitator, James I of Scotland, employed it in his own verse. In addition to Chaucers Troilus and Criseyde, see Sir Thomas Wyatts They flee from me and William Wordsworths Resolution and Independence. rhythm An audible pattern in verse established by the intervals between stressed syllables. Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and difference, observes Edward Hirsch in his essay on rhythm, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. See also meter. rondeau Originating in France, a mainly octosyllabic poem consisting of between 10 and 15 lines and three stanzas. It has only two rhymes, with the opening words used twice as an unrhyming refrain at the end of the second and third stanzas. The 10-line version rhymes ABBAABc ABBAc (where the lower-case c stands for the refrain). The 15-line version often rhymes AABBA AABc AABAc. Geoffrey Chaucers Now welcome, summer at the close of The Parlement of Fowls is an example of a 13-line rondeau. A rondeau redoublà © consists of six quatrains using two rhymes. The first quatrain consists of four refrain lines that are used, in sequence, as the last lines of the next four quatrains, and a phrase from the first refrain is repeated as a tail at the end of the final stanza. See Dorothy Parkers Roudeau Redoublà © (and Scarcely Worth the Trouble at That). scansion The analysis of the metrical patterns of a poem by organizing its lines into feet of stressed and unstressed syllables and showing the major pauses, if any. Scansion also involves the classification of a poems stanza, structure, and rhyme scheme. sestet A six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. sestina A complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a three-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas; the closing envoy contains all six words, two per line, placed in the middle and at the end of the three lines. The patterns of word repetition are as follows, with each number representing the final word of a line, and each row of numbers representing a stanza: 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 1 5 2 4 3 3 6 4 1 2 5 5 3 2 6 1 4 4 5 1 3 6 2 2 4 6 5 3 1 (6 2) (1 4) (5 3) See Algernon Charles Swinburnes The Complaint of Lisa, John Ashberys Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape, and David Ferrys The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People. Browse more sestinas. simile A comparison (see Metaphor) made with as, like, or than. In A Red, Red Rose, Robert Burns declares: O my Luve is like a red, red rose Thats newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody Thats sweetly played in tune. What happens to a dream deferred? asks Langston Hughes in Harlem: Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet? sonnet A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme originating in Italy and brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, earl of Surrey in the 16th century. Literally a little song, the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or turn of thought in its concluding lines. spondee A metrical foot consisting of two accented syllables. An example of a spondaic word is hog-wild. Gerard Manley Hopkinss Pied Beauty is heavily spondaic: With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him. sprung rhythm A metrical system devised by Gerard Manley Hopkins composed of one- to four-syllable feet that start with a stressed syllable. The spondee replaces the iamb as a dominant measure, and the number of unstressed syllables varies considerably from line to line (see also accentual verse). According to Hopkins, its intended effect was to reflect the dynamic quality and variations of common speech, in contrast to the monotony of iambic pentameter. His own poetry illustrates its use; though there have been few imitators, the spirit and principles of sprung rhythm influenced the rise of free verse in the early 20th century. stanza A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a prose paragraph, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought. syllabic verse Poetry whose meter is determined by the total number of syllables per line, rather than the number of stresses. Marianne Moores poetry is mostly syllabic. Other examples include Thomas Nashes Adieu, farewell earths bliss and Dylan Thomass Poem in October. Browse more poems in syllabic verse. symbol Something in the world of the senses, including an action, that reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly. A rose, for example, has long been considered a symbol of love and affection. Every word denotes, refers to, or labels something in the world, but a symbol (to which a word, of course, may point) has a concreteness not shared by language, and can point to something that transcends ordinary experience. Poets such as William Blake and W.B. Yeats often use symbols when they believe in- or seek- a transcendental (religious or spiritual) reality. A metaphor compares two or more things that are no more and no less real than anything else in the world. For a metaphor to be symbolic, one of its pair of elements must reveal something else transcendental. In To the Rose upon the Rood of Time, for instance, Yeatss image of the rose on the cross symbolizes the joining of flesh and spirit. As Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren write in their book Understanding Poetry (3rd ed., 1960),The symbol may be regarded as a metaphor from which the first term has been omitted. synecdoche A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole (for example, Ive got wheels for I have a car, or a description of a worker as a hired hand). It is related to metonymy. synesthesia A blending or intermingling of different senses in description. Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine, writes Emily Dickinson. In her heavily synesthetic poem Aubade, Dame Edith Sitwell describes the dull blunt wooden stalactite / Of rain creaks, hardened by the light. In George Merediths Modern Love: I, a womans heart is made to drink the pale drug of silence. tautology A statement redundant in itself, such as free gift or The stars, O astral bodies! Also, a statement that is necessarily true- a circular argument- such as she is alive because she is living. tercet A poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed. Thomas Hardys The Convergence of the Twain rhymes AAA BBB; Ben Jonsons On Spies is a threes of poems in unrhymed tercets include Wallace Stevenss The Snow Man and David Wagoners For a Student Sleeping in a Poetry Workshop. tetrameter A line made up of four feet. See William Shakespeares Fear No More the Heat o the Sun or Channel Firing by Thomas Hardy. trimeter A line of three metrical feet. Percy Bysshe Shelleys To a Skylark employs trochaic trimeter in the first two lines of each stanza. See also Là ©onie Adamss The Mount. trochee A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. Examples of trochaic words include garden and highway. William Blake opens The Tyger with a predominantly trochaic line: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright. Edgar Allan Poes The Raven is mainly trochaic. tone The attitude taken in or by a poem toward the subject and theme. verse As a mass noun, poetry in general; as a regular noun, a line of poetry. Typically used to refer to poetry that possesses more formal qualities. villanelle A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain. See Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishops One Art, and Edwin Arlington Robinsons The House on the Hill. word order The syntactic arrangement of words in a sentence, clause, or phrase.