How To Analyse Poetry

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Originally Posted by superunknown

Well, I think chipman got it down pretty well: a poem is not about trying to find the "hidden message." If it were, it would be like a riddle, and it would lose all its value as soon as you discovered the answer, as happens with any riddle. But you can read a poem hundreds of times, analyze the hell out of it and still love it.

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Good, poems usually don't have hidden messages. But poems do display the author's art, and sometimes it's hard for us readers to identify and appreciate what the author has 'made use of,' if we only read the poem a few times. Some poems just keep giving everytime you read it.

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An analysis of a poem shouldn't come down to "in this poem, Wordsworth laments the death of his dog when he was a child" because this essentially implies that if you don't know anything about Wordsworth or his dead dog the poem has no value whatsoever. Ultimately poetry is a form of art, and art is there to celebrate itself. In the words of Oscar Wilde, "all art is quite useless."

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It could if he had phrases like, 'my childhood dog' or the title is 'Lament of My Childhood Dog.' :lol: I don't agree with Mr Wilde. I feel art can uplift someone's emotions and can empower people.

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It's not really the place of a poem to preach, as something like an essay is much better suited for that. Of course, many poems do have some sort of preaching message, like Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est," but the central point of the poem is the language itself: the fascinating thing about it, and the thing that makes it a truly great poem, is that through the usage of nothing other than words, Owen brings forth an incredibly dark, depressing, stifling, and hopeless atmosphere, and therein lies the beauty.

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I agree the poems purpose is not to preach.

edit.....

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Originally Posted by superunknown

It's always good to be able to analyze poetry on a technical level as well.

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*hangs head in shame*

Unfortunately, since leaving school, I find myself less and less worried about this aspect of poetry. Not because I find it unimportant but because I find looking into a poem to grasp its meaning (and at times assign new ones of my own, which were not probably what the poet him/herself had in mind).

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Originally Posted by Riesa

Occasionally the commentary of certain 'poem of the week' critics can make me want to shoot myself or them.

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How so? :D

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

How so? :D

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with a thirty ought six. ;)

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

For me though, ultimately, the real beauty of this poem is the way that it sends shivers of horror down my spine and brings tears to my eyes every time I read it and the way that this effect is amplified tenfold whenever I read (or hear it read) aloud. You can analyse why it works till your blue in the face but in the end, Owen's skill lies in far more than technical ability and following rules - it depends on the inbuilt instinct that a true poet has for when to break those rules - that can't be taught.

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Thats a good measuring stick for how good a poem is. :nod:
A great poem for me is both the above you mention, and the power of the word(s) to come to 'life' when one reads those words. Ultimately, to transcend the author and time.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

(In reply to post #12 above)
You are not meant to pronounce 'coughing' wiith the stress on the final syllable - it's a trochaic substitution - the stress falls on 'cough', causing a break in the rhythm, as you suggest, but NOT through an unnatural phrasing of the word. Owen uses several other substitutions, trochaic, spondaic and pyrrhic in this poem.

As an example, in the line, "GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling," Owen uses spondees in the first 4 syllables which are all stressed; a pyrrhic substitution in '-sy of'; and ends with a female ending in fumbling - the unstressed '-ling' falling off the tongue. All of these are long established poetic forms - Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, and any other poet that has ever used iambic pentameter has employed them. They augment the simplicity of 5 regular iambic feet, adding colour and movement.

I quite agree that Owen employs these tricks to brilliant effect in this poem - but I suspect that there is far more going on than you realise, given your last post.

For me though, ultimately, the real beauty of this poem is the way that it sends shivers of horror down my spine and brings tears to my eyes every time I read it and the way that this effect is amplified tenfold whenever I read (or hear it read) aloud. You can analyse why it works till your blue in the face but in the end, Owen's skill lies in far more than technical ability and following rules - it depends on the inbuilt instinct that a true poet has for when to break those rules - that can't be taught.

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I definitely agree on that last paragraph of what you said. Like I said in my post, the true value of the poem comes in the incredibly sombre, chilling, and depressing atmosphere it creates, but I think it's always interesting to examine the technical aspects as well and a truly in-depth analysis of a poem isn't complete without going at least slightly into this.

As for the pronounciation of "coughing," that was something I drew out myself and perhaps wasn't intended by Owen (not that we'll ever know), but due to the fact that this method works perfectly for the first line, I thought that Owen could have implied this in the second line and taken advantage of the special effect created by mispronouncing "coughing." Certainly that method of pronounciation is no longer applicable by the second stanza, I agree on that much. And I've also noticed how other poets you've mentioned have messed around with iambic pentameter. I particularly love Shakespeare's usage of it in that sonnet in which he says that he wishes he could write a poem for a woman, but is unwilling to do so because he doesn't have the necessary skill (I forget what it's called). His deliberate poetic clumsiness in that sonnet is just brilliant.

It so happens I gave my thoughts to someone not too long ago, so I have some of my thinking on this at my fingertips. This is a little bit of an expansion of those thoughts. I haven't read any of the previous posts yet, so perhaps I may repeat something. I divide this into four catagories. I'll save what I find to be the most important for last.

1.Learn poetic techniques. There is no easy way to absorb this. Osmosis won't work. Get a book or perhaps several on the craft of poetry and learn meter, form, symbolism, imagery, etc. Every time you read a poem identify the elements, whether it ultimately means something or not. Go line by line, word by word, syllable by syllable. You have to know them so they become intuitive, know them so that you can almost see the poet writing his work. This requires a lot of work and time. And if you live to be 44 like me and you've been doing it for over 25 years it does almost become intuitive. But there is always more to learn.

2. Learn the english language (or whatever language you are working in), it's history, it's grammer, of course vocabulary, it's transitions from old english to middle english to renaissance english to contemporary, it's sounds, it's phonemes. Learn foreign languages (which I am conspicuously poor at), and their relationship to english. Bring your knowledge of different fields to the table, the language of gardening or science or engineering or whatever interests you. I've been playing around with an idea of something set in machine shop, using the language of machinery, which can be quite beautiful in its own way. If a poet uses the language of a field you are not familiar with, you'll have to look it up. If you are readng poetry of chivalry, you will have to learn the sub-language of horseback riding and medevil arms. Always remember that poetry is charged language. The poet has to do something to the language to make it poetry. The other thing I would recommend under this catagory is understanding rhetoric. Poetry is a sub-set of rhetoric and it absolutely helps to know rhetorical devices from all types of composition. Unfortuantely they don't really teach this in depth in colleges anymore.

3. Learn aesthetics, the learning of what makes something beautiful. And you can divide this into two parts. (a) The history of aesthetics (and I do not mean literary criticism) from Aristotle to Horace to Loginus to Philip Sidney to Wordsworth. They have identitfied the various reasons of what makes something beautful and it will be helpful when you approach any work of art. (b) Learn the techniques of aesthetics, whether from art or music or literature. For instance there are five ways (that I know of) any artist progresses with an idea: theme, development, repetiition, contrast, and variation.

4. Break down the poetic work into logical sections to understand the thought pattern of the author. I find this to be the single most important means of analyzing any work of art. Analysis is an act of inductive reasoning. You are piecing together from elements to formulate a complete thought. The way the mind formulates that is inductively. I didn't think this up. This is the central method of Aristotle in his poetics. What are the links (narrative, parallel, contiguous, developmental, etc.) between the elements of a work are critical. I listed this last because I wanted to emphasize it, but it is almost always the first thing I try to do when I come across a work for the first time. Notice I haven't mentioned literary criticism or whatever fads are currently taught in colleges. I consider myself not warped by grad school mentality.

And finally write poetry yourself. It's the only way you can understand the pressures a poet feels as he constructs a work. In English classes I could always tell the students who took creative writing classes from those who didn't. The approach to analyzing a work was clearly different.

I should begin by saying that I think every poem is approached and analysed in a slightly different way, since analysing a poem is a lot like getting to know a person. Some poems you have an almost instant understanding of, while others require some time and extra attention and understanding before you appreciate them. That said, I think I'll just write out how I commonly approach poems in general. The one thing I always do when analysing a poem is to read it multiple times--usually a minimum of two or three. I'll outline a typical series of readings:

1. When I very first read a poem it is almost never with any kind of critical eye. I approach it in a way very similar to music. It's all about listening carefully to the sound of the words and just sensing way they come together, the way their meanings resonate with me, the feelings and images they conjure. I hardly ever articulate anything about the poem in a first reading. I just experience it.

2.When I read it again it's usually the complete opposite of my first reading. I pay little attention to the "music" of the verse, and concentrate instead on what the most basic primary literal meaning is--what the poem would say in plain, straightforward prose. That may sound obvious, but I'm always surprised at how important a step it is to just look carefully at what exactly is being said (and what is not being said).

3. It's normally only in a third reading of a passage that I'll start thinking about prosody and structure, and diction and all that fun stuff (in other words, many of the analytic techniques Virgil and others have very helpfully suggested how to acheive above). I'm usually guided to what to look for on a technical level both by what intuitively stood out to me, or touched me in some way in my first reading and by questions I formulated on a more logical basis in my second reading focusing on the poem's contents. This would also be the time when I start looking at historical allusions and context (if applicable) more carefully as well. It is only after having gone through all these steps on my own (which obviously sometimes takes more than three readings, sometimes less) that I'll look at other people's criticism and the theories that make up that part of my mind owed to a "warped grad school mentality" as a certain lupine character termed it in the post above ;) (I'm even wary of looking at footnotes when first reading a poem, apart from glosses for word meanings and the like).

Perhaps the more interesting question for this thread is why we analyse poetry. I've always thought it was important to keep the reasons in the forefront. I think ideally, for me at least, analysis should not drive our reactions to the poem as much as the reactions to the poem should lead us to analysis. A reaction to a poem usually starts with either a feeling we get from that poem, or puzzlement about what we've just read. I turn to analysis to get a better understanding of how an author is able to produce that feeling, or to better understand a point that seems troublesome or problematic to me. Usually I'll find a close examination of an author's words really deepens my understanding of and appreciation for a poem, but very seldom have I benefited from heavy analysis if I haven't first found something intuitively interesting about the poem, whether it's the subject, or the sound of the verse itself, or some much more vague emotional reaction (even if it's a negative reaction).

One final note. I think Virgil has an excellent point about writing poetry yourself. Part of what drew me to understanding the way poems work in the first place was my own writing (I've always been deeply drawn to, almost compelled to write poetry). I make no claims to having much talent as a poet, but I've found it enriches my understanding of a really good poet's words to have made some experiments of my own.

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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

since analysing a poem is a lot like getting to know a person.

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What a wonderful way to put it !

Let me add one more thing to my post, which I think is a corollary to my number 2.

Remember that the poem is a work of art. Yes, the poet has to communicate an idea. But the artistry is paramount to the idea. If the poet was only interested in presenting an idea, he would have written an essay, where he would have been absolutly clear. But he didn't. He went through the trouble of shaping and stylizing and finding language that speaks in suggestion. The artistry is always paramount. Whenever I come across someone who is absolutely fixed on communicating intellectualized ideas out of a poem without linking it to the poetry, my mind quickly turns to a Beethoven symphony. There are no intellectulized ideas in a Beethoven symphony. There are musical and aesthetic ideas. No different for poetry.

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Originally Posted by Riesa

Occasionally the commentary of certain 'poem of the week' critics can make me want to shoot myself or them.

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:lol: :lol: I hope you don't intend to put a bullet into me! :eek2:

But if you read it aloud surley different accents affect the way a word is said and not only does that prehaps affect the ryhme bu the rythem as well, becasue somtimes stresses on a word are differnty.

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Originally Posted by Nightshade

But if you read it aloud surley different accents affect the way a word is said and not only does that prehaps affect the ryhme bu the rythem as well, becasue somtimes stresses on a word are differnty.

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I'm not sure I understand. For example:

Go in the window
Is alternating stress/unstress...so tell me how that would change by what you explained in quotation(edit)?

its not applicable to that particular one.
Lets see ok
Tissue
it can be prenounced Ti-SHOE. Tiss-YOU and Ive even heard it prenoncved Tissh-OW, but that would affect the rythem because its all 2 sylabols but things ( cant think of one right now but I know it exsists because Ive come across it before ) That can be prononced eiither with 2 or one sylabol debending on accent or whether it si American or English wll affect the rythem and feel of the poem, wont they?

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Originally Posted by Nightshade

its not applicable to that particular one.
Lets see ok
Tissue
it can be prenounced Ti-SHOE. Tiss-YOU and Ive even heard it prenoncved Tissh-OW, but that would affect the rythem because its all 2 sylabols but things ( cant think of one right now but I know it exsists because Ive come across it before ) That can be prononced eiither with 2 or one sylabol debending on accent or whether it si American or English wll affect the rythem and feel of the poem, wont they?

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I'm not sure, but in this case all three different pronunciations still show the stress on the second syllable of the word-even if you sound each of the three outloud. But yes, the degree of the stress in all three pronunciations seem different here.
EDIT: again, the last syllable is unstressed, not stressed. Sorry about that.

But I think I know what your saying. Take a look at this poem by Walt Whitman:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars

Focus on the word learn'd. You could pronounce this word as learn'd or
learn-ned. Indeed, depending on which pronunciation you use it does have an affect on rhythm. But to this point, it would probably just be up to you to compare the pronunciation to the rest of the poem and see which variation fits.

Sorry if I am wrong but I assume that some might be drawn to this thread because they wish to pick up ideas about what is required of analysis by examination markers. Another teacher passed it to me and it isn’t without its weaknesses but, having been an examiner, I can vouch for its validity in some respects. It’s rather long so feel free to ignore it. It is certainly not meant to be the last word on analysis but some students out there should find it useful if they are studying for examinations. I know that many of mine did. It’s about Yeats’ Wild Swans At Coole.

The study written by ‘Ted’ (names have been changed to protect the innocent) runs as follows:

This poem describes some wild swans. The writer is very impressed by the sound of their wings and their tireless nature. He describes the swans as ‘brilliant’ and ‘mysterious, beautiful’. He claims that they ‘delight men’s eyes’. But the writer is not entirely at ease. He says that his ‘heart is sore’. He looks back into the past and sees that ‘all’s changed’. He sees that while these swans will never change their nature the landscape will, as man continues to make it over to his own use. He asks, at the end of the poem, what place the swans will find to make their homes when he ‘awakes someday to find they have flown away’.

Although the swans themselves are the main figures in the poem, some attention is given to their surroundings. The swans are not actually introduced until the sixth line of the first verse. This has the effect of setting the scene. We are told that it is autumn and that it is twilight. The water in the lake is calm and undisturbed. Yeats brings this across very effectively in the metaphor 'the water mirrors a still sky'. Perhaps this tranquil scene mirrors the poet's state of mind at the beginning of the poem. The water is also described as 'companionable'. By comparing the water to a companion the writer emphasizes the harmony of the birds and the landscape. This metaphor makes the change foreseen by Yeats at the end of the poem all the more unwelcome. When the poet makes his appearance the swans are frightened and begin to fly about in great circles.

All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

The lack of punctuation in these lines suggests a frantic movement. By describing the swans as 'clamorous' the poet emphasizes this. He also compares the noise of their wings to the sound of a bell: he speaks of the 'bell-beat' of their wings. The sound is loud and monotonous. The metaphor could imply that the sound of their wings has a summoning effect.

The swans have a tireless nature. Yeats says that 'their hearts have not grown old'. They 'climb the air' with the greatest ease. They are compared to lovers who perhaps never tire during the early days of their courtship. But the poet also sees them as passive creatures, as being 'Mysterious' and 'beautiful'. He describes them 'drifting in the still water'. The long 'i' in 'drift' and 'still' stresses this passivity.

Numbers seem to figure highly in this poem. Yeats notes that there are 'nine-and-fifty' swans. This is a rather large number and must indicate that the pond or lake on which he sees them must be fairly big. He also tells us that

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;

This use of numbers is perhaps a sinister hint that the number of years that the swans will be able to stay in their environment at Coole is limited. The language of the poem is simple and therefore blends in well with the simplicity of Nature. Alliteration is used a few times. The repetition of the letter 't' in 'trod with a lighter tread' has a pleasant-sounding effect. The alliteration of the letters 'p' and 'c' in

They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air

conveys a feeling of softness. The repetition of 'w' in 'wander where they will' is very positive, giving weight to the idea of the indefatigable swans.

The poem on the whole is regular in form. It has five verses, each with six lines. The rhyme pattern, with a few variations, is a regular A B C B D D. Generally, the poem is about swans, with some hidden deeper meaning which is a bit confused and obscure.

Yeats has perhaps tried to keep himself too disciplined in his rhyme-scheme to make this meaning entirely clear. The poem suggests that the poet sees the swans as a symbol for someone close to him, probably a woman whom he loved and who has left him, possibly for someone else. Perhaps the idea of lost love is reinforced by such words as 'Autumn'and'October', which herald winter, the symbol of death. Likewise, night is heralded by twilight. In this case, the death is of the woman's love for the poet. The fact that the poet 'awakes' suggests that he was blind to the gradual dying of this love, and he was awakened by her desertion.

The poet seems, finally, to envy or resent the swans because they are still 'lovers'. They are symbolic because the man's heart, since he first visited them, has grown old, whereas the swans seem eternally young. This kind of immortality the poet longs for.