How do you read a long poem?

[amca01]

By long poem I mean something book-length, like an epic ("Paradise Lost") or a narrative ("The Ring and the Book"). I haven't read much long poetry: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (in the original middle English), is about it.

But I've just started reading Clough's "The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich" and Cowper's "The Task". I'm enjoying both very much. But... when I read a novel, I read fairly fast, and I have a pretty good novel reading mindset. However, with a poem, either I get bogged down in the particulars ("what does that mean?") or I read at novel-reading speed and discover I've read several pages of words without having actually taken anything in.

So I'd like a little advice on how to train myself to read a long poem and get the best value from it, as it were.

And on that subject, what are good long poems for beginners like me?

Thanks!
-A.

[Charles Darnay]

If you have tackled the Canterbury Tales in its original form, I would hardly call you a beginner.

There are two ways to look at it (which you sort of point out). Let's take Paradise Lost as our example. You can read it at "novel pace", and yes you may not catch every detail but I think you will still get an appreciation of the key characters and plots. Or you could read it slowly, as you would a short poem; it will take you longer, but you will take the time to examine the use of language, and in the case of Paradise Lost, really appreciate the rhetoric that fills the poem.

It really depends what you want to get out of the poem. One thing that I like doing with poetry is reading aloud (awkward of course if your are in public). But reading it aloud 1. Forces you to slow down and 2. Lets you get a good feel for the rhythm of the poem. This works just as well with long poetry as with short.

[AjaxAscendant]

If you have tackled the Canterbury Tales in its original form, I would hardly call you a beginner.

There are two ways to look at it (which you sort of point out). Let's take Paradise Lost as our example. You can read it at "novel pace", and yes you may not catch every detail but I think you will still get an appreciation of the key characters and plots. Or you could read it slowly, as you would a short poem; it will take you longer, but you will take the time to examine the use of language, and in the case of Paradise Lost, really appreciate the rhetoric that fills the poem.

It really depends what you want to get out of the poem. One thing that I like doing with poetry is reading aloud (awkward of course if your are in public). But reading it aloud 1. Forces you to slow down and 2. Lets you get a good feel for the rhythm of the poem. This works just as well with long poetry as with short.

I read Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained at novel pace, but I did do some research simultaneously that gave me a better, deeper understanding of what Milton wanted to say when he churned out the thousands of lines that make up these two epics.

[Lokasenna]

It really depends what you want to get out of the poem. One thing that I like doing with poetry is reading aloud (awkward of course if your are in public). But reading it aloud 1. Forces you to slow down and 2. Lets you get a good feel for the rhythm of the poem. This works just as well with long poetry as with short.

Absolutely agreed. I always read poetry aloud. It is also something that needs to be read slowly and carefully in order to get the most out of it.

[chris66]

I agree with both ways as well. But I guess there could be a third way of tackling poetry and which would combine the two: it would consist in reading the poem at a novel pace, but several times, so that you can pinpoint the tiny details that were unnoticed at first reading. This is what I usually do, and it proves particularly efficient, especially when reading middle-English Canterbury Tales from Chaucer, which are supposedly for advanced readers.

[paulanderson114]

A long poem is not like a short poem. It’s more like a novel.Thus a long poem is not a transparent. Reading poetry well is part attitude and part technique. Curiosity is a useful attitude, especially when it’s free of preconceived ideas about what poetry is or should be. Effective technique directs your curiosity into asking questions, drawing you into a conversation with the poem.

[han401]

I have found that reading at a slower pace really helped me. I recently read "Paradise Lost" and I tried to read it at a quick place and found myself having to "back-track" many times. I tried reading it slowly and found I was able to take in more. This may not work for everyone, but I found it especially helpful since I get tested on specific information at my school.

[JBI]

Every poem has its own exegetical method it forces on you, and the hard part is to wrestle against it.

Generally, I would look for turns in the narrative, and then pair them with development of tropes.

It really depends on which long poem - Canterbury Tales rush forward as a narrative, whereas something like Christabel by Coleridge is complicated and at war with itself from the beginning.

Generally I would look for natural divisions - paragraphing, book divisions, etc. and break it down from there.

[Link]

From start to finish

aloud but with breaks in