B) Poetic and Highly Literary Words. Poetic words,as the term itself implies, are used primarily in poetry

Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;

Few earthly things found favour in his sight

Save concubines and carnal companie,

And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

Poetical tradition has kept alive such archaic words and forms as yclept (p. p. of the old verb clipien — ' to call, name'); quoth (p. t. of cwethan —'to speak'); eftsoons ( eftsona ,— 'again', 'soon after'), which are used even by modern ballad-mongers. Let us note in passing that archaic words are here to be understood as units that have either entirely gone out of use, or as words some of whose meanings have grown archaic, e. g., hall in the following line from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage:

Deserted is my own good hall, its hearth is desolate.

It must be remembered though, that not all English poetry makes use of "poeticisms or poetical terms", as they might be named. In the history of English literature there were periods, as there were in many countries, which were characterized by protests against the use of such conventional symbols. The literary trends known as classicism and romanticism were particularly rich in fresh poetic terms.

Poetical words in an ordinary environment may also have a satirical function as seen in this passage from Byron.

But Adeline was not indifferent: for

(Now for a common-place!) beneath the snow,

As a volcano holds the lava more

Within — et cetera. Shall I go on? —- No,

I hate to hunt down atiredmetaphor,

So lettheoften - usedvolcanogo.

Poor thing: How frequently, by me and others,

It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers!

(Don Juan)

The satirical function of poetic words and conventional poetic devices is well revealed in this stanza. The 'tired metaphor' and the 'often-used volcano' are typical of Byron's estimate of the value of conventional metaphors and stereotyped poetical expressions.

The striving for the unusual — the characteristic feature of some kinds of poetry — is akin to the sensational and is therefore to be found not only in poetry, but in many other styles.

A modern English literary critic has remarked that in journalese a policeman never goes to an appointed spot; he proceeds to it. The picturesque reporter seldom talks of a horse, it is a steed or a charger. The sky is the welkin; the valley is the vale; fire is the devouringelement ...

Poetical words and word combinations can be likened to terms in that they do not easily yield to polysemy. They are said to evoke emotive meanings (See p. 58). They colour the utterance with a certain air of loftiness, but generally fail to produce a genuine feeling of delight: they are too hackneyed for the purpose, too stale. And that is the reason that the excessive use of poetisms at present calls forth protest and derision towards those who favour this conventional device.

The use of poetic words does not as a rule create the atmosphere of poetry in the true sense; it is a substitute for real art. This is probably due to the very low degree of predictability, which is a property of a truly poetical work.

Poetic words are not freely built in contrast to neutral, colloquial and common literary words, or terms. The commonest means is by compounding, e. g. 'young-eyed', 'often-used', in the above quotations from Byron. There is however one means of creating new poetic words still recognized as productive even in present-day English, viz. the use of a contracted form of a word instead of the full one, e. g., drear instead of dreary, scant (= 'scanty'). Sometimes the reverse process leads to the birth of a poetism, e. g., vasty (= Vast'. 'The vasty deep,' i.e. the ocean); steepy (='steep'); 'paly' (='pale').

These two conventional devices are called forth by the requirements of the metre of the poem, to add or remove a syllable, and are generally avoided by modern English poets, as the reader is apt to think him a poor poet if he could not find a better way to express himself in the chosen form.

Poetical words and set expressions make the utterance understandable only to a limited number of readers. It is mainly due to poeticisms that poetical language is sometimes called poetical jargon.

In modern English poetry there is a strong tendency to use words in strange combinations. It manifests itself in the coinage of new words and, most of all, in combining old and familiar words in a way that hinders understanding and forces the reader to stop and try to decipher the message so encoded.

The following may serve as examples:

"and time yet for a hundred indecisions." (T. S. Eliot)

"he danced his did." (E. E. Cummings)

"a grief ago." (Dylan Thomas)

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