It certainly helps to appreciate just how hard writing poetry actually is. All of that effortless rhyme that dripped from the pens of Shaky Bill and his mates took months of effort - hard to appreciate that without having a try yourself.
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It certainly helps to appreciate just how hard writing poetry actually is. All of that effortless rhyme that dripped from the pens of Shaky Bill and his mates took months of effort - hard to appreciate that without having a try yourself.
The first line of Milton's Paradise Lost presents a different type of problem.
Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Again, this line is predominantly iambic, but a problem occurs with the word Disobedience. If we read strictly by the meter, then we must fuse the last two syllables of the word. However, if we read the word normally, we have a breakage in the line's metrical structure. In this way, the poet forges a tension between meter and rhythm: does the word remain contained by the structure, or do we choose to stretch the word out of the normal foot, thereby disobeying the structure in which it was made? Such tension adds meaning to the poem by using meter and rhythm to dramatize certain conflicts. In this example, Milton forges such a tension to present immediately the essential conflicts that lead to the fall of Adam and Eve.
I found this at a website when I was looking up accent/unccent usages.
Is this technacalities?
No, I don't think a person needs to write poetry in order to read it well. It's just something that might enhance someone's appreciation of a poet's work. I think it's the same with most things. I have almost zero talent for practicing the visual arts but I've found that trying a little drawing or painting or pottery just for my own pleasure has helped in my art history studies. Similarly piano lessons have added to my appreciation of music, and practicing cooking myself as well as taking a few cooking lessons while abroad, helped me appreciate food preperation as an art rather than a chore. It isn't necessary to do something to appreciate it, but performing something yourself can enrich that appreciation.Quote:
Re. writing poetry.
I am not sure if that is one of the requisites of poetry appreciation. Surely, having exprerienced oneself, a poet -however amateurish s/he is- might be able to respond more quickly or appropriately to the technicalities of a poem but over all I am not persuaded. We don't need to be cooks to know a good meal or play football ourselves to spot a good footballing skills surely?
I think it would also depend on your priorities when reading poetry. For me, 'meaning' of a poem is more important and that is the first thing I pay attention. If I like a poem's message, then I am more likely to remember it later on. However, a good rhyme does not always have the same effect on me.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
PL & XC> I agree that writing can make one see how hard it actually is to put the right words together to create the right rhyme/sound while still giving the right message.
However, does it help with our 'understanding' of poetry?
What creates the meaning for you? What enhances that meaning? Why not just read a paper instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Many things contribute to the 'meaning' of a poem; words chosen, all the poetic devices employed by the poet and these are the things which make a poem different from ordinary writing and enhance its meaning. However, I personally prefer reading a poem with 'something' to say rather than, say, describe a room or a plant - however poetically 'beautiful' it might be.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Oh, I do read papers, too... A lot.
LOL..I agree that many things contribute to a poem's meaning. I assume your talking about so you have something to say?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
Can't the poetic devices be enough to creating the meaning in poems?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I think it would be a monumental task to achieve - to create the meaning merely out of poetic devices - unless you really have something to say. That is why sometimes we read poems which seem 'beautifully' written but we don't feel satisfied because even though the artistic 'beauty' might be there, they don't offer much substantial 'food for thought'. Of course that is not to say that poetic devices contribute a lot in the way of conveying a poet's message or creating the right atmosphere.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
But enough with the Q & A game... Why don't you tell us what you think? :)
Can you think of any poems which manage to create the meaning only through poetic devices?
How about At the Fishhouses by Elizabeth Bishop. We analyzed this poem in the old 'Poem of the Week' thread. The meaning is created from the description of the scenes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
But to tell you....aren't Imagist also able to create meaning.
The Red Wheelbarrow comes into mind.
To me, 'At the Fishhouses' is a beautiful descriptive poem; however, I am not sure if Bishop is trying to say anything more than she describes or alludes to anything more.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
As for 'The Red Wheelbarrow':
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
How do you think the poetic devices actually construct 'the meaning' here?
You can't see the differences in description between man and land made thing? She doesn't need to convey the meaning, but rather the description conveys the meaning for her. I'll go with the second poem though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
As for 'The Red Wheelbarrow':
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
How do you think the poetic devices actually construct 'the meaning' here?[/QUOTE]
I never really got what 'the white chickens' meant, but the poetic device is
in the image itself of what the words create. How many different things must happen for this scene to be shown as it is: 'glazed with rainwater'.
Ktd,Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I am not sure if I get your point but, before I toddle off to bed, here is what I have in mind (both by ee cummings):
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
or
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
(from 'somewhere i have never travelled')
In both poems, the poetic devices are used to convey a meaning. However, I am still wondering if a poem only based on such devices could.
What I mean for the Red Wheelbarrow is that for it to be glazed with rainwater, not drenched, but glazed mulitple events compounding must happen for the scene described to be shown as it is.
But I do see your point that it's difficult to believe.
edit: good night. don't delete anything. ;)
I think if I ever had to analyze a poem for an exam(timed or not timed), I would approach my way through the poem by identifying a key element(whatever it is: syntax, image created by words, structure...etc) and work my understanding through the poem around this key element.
Is this the wrong way to approach to understanding poetry or writting an essay on poetry? This is how I approach all poems which I can't extract meaning out of by simply reading through the poem.
It is the right approach for an exam essay, but the key elements you take up you have to link them to the poet's theme. Just pointing out the rhyme scheme if it has no relevance is not enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
I know, thats what I was getting at when the thread was closed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
I thought so. Too bad it got closed. I never got to mention what I thought was good about the poem. Oh well.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
You can still tell me what Goethe has to do with the poem through PM.
You have a VALID point. We should keep in mind that often poetry was written to be performed or read aloud. It is enormously helpful in finding its interpretation. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
what about the critical appreciation part of my upcoming a level exam? I will have an unseen poem to crit- and if I read it aloud I get thrown out of my exam room! And no, I don't want to whisper. I think that reading a poem silently gives a slightly different take on it, that's all- a take which is not very technical in terms of rhythm etc but more general and personal.
Aaaaah the voices in the head...if you ve read alot of poetry, and more importantly heard a lot of poetry, you ll get a voice in the head to read any poem to you.
Note it very carefully-is it the voice of someone you know?
What sort of voice is it?
Then think: why this voice?
It may help with response. Id recommend you practice,dyingflame, before your unseen.
All the best and good luck!
I was taught TP-CASTT.
Title: Ponder the title before reading the poem
Paraphrase: Translate the poem into your own words
Connotation: Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal level
Attitude: Observe both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitude (tone).
Shifts: Note shifts in speakers and attitudes
Title: Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level
Theme: Determine what the poet is saying
To analyze tone, my teacher taught me DIDLS!
Carefully observe the passage's
Diction
Imagery
Details
Language
Syntax
That could also be used for short stories, etc. but I love the way it sounds. We did DIDLS in English today, mommy! :D
here's some steps you could follow =)
1. find the prose statement, or the literal interpretation of what the poem is trying to convey.
2. paraphrase each stanza into simpler wording (or a more prose-style)
3. determine character, tone, setting, plot - and analyze them (what they're trying to demonstrate)
4. search for technical judgements (ie. schemes, tropes, sound values, sound patterns, diction, rhyme, form, structure)
5. find the biographical information of the author and see how it applies to the poem (or explains a possible reason why the author might have written about a particular theme)
How about we do an example poem, to show how it works?
Oh that's too much! You're making reading poetry seem like homework. When I read a poem there is no set list I follow which delves me into the poem. It's whatever peculiarities about the poem strikes me first. I go from there. Not all the of what's mentioned on those lists are needed to understand what's happening in a poem. And like I say if it seems like homework, then my dog ate it.
well i guess in high school, analyzing/reading poetry is pretty much homework :sick: which shouldn't be the way poetry is treated at all, but i guess the teachers never really think of it that way do they =3
Well I guess in a school setting the purpose is to teach students to identifying theme, subject, tone, etc. And I guess in that respect - what a better learning source than poetry - because it requires you to read so carefully, if students are able to identify such things in poems, they can pretty much extrapolate that knowledge over to any other written medium, since in poetry each word and word order can carry so much meaning that if one can identify such things in poems, they should have no trouble identifying such things in other written sources.Quote:
Originally Posted by sea moraine
It's just when I read a poem with the purpose of checking off things on a list, I get bored halfway and quite. That is not the way to read poetry in my view.
don't unless one plans to make a career out of it.
Ok, this is related to another discussion in the "dream deferred" thread about needing to know historical/cultural details to understand the full meaning of a poem. To me this would seem to be one of the most important things to know with regards to understanding any work. A couple of examples would be "Out of Avernus" by Crichton Smith & "address from Beelzebub" by Burns.
Due to Smith's work still being under copyright I cant post the poem in its entirity, however I will post some parts of it (from ASLS website around 7/8ths of way down the page)
Now this poem refers to the end of the poets mental illness, although it works on other levels as well. My point is that without knowing that Avernus was a lake that the Romans believed led to Hades and the Underworld the imagery is not as strong.Quote:
And now I bear
my quivering leaf
as an angel might
on the new found earth
or the gift of a rose.
So out of the gross
dark of Avernus
I freely bear
my gift of a leaf
from my renaissance
this light bright leaf.
With regards to Burn's poem, here, I think it is also necessary to understand the way the Scottish social structure was at the time to understand the meaning of this poem.
I agree Kilt. Most people find poetry to be baffling, but really what they are usually missing is the full context of the poet. Poetry is a much more personal art, and one can't help not explaining. The explanation would ruin the poem.Quote:
Originally Posted by kilted exile
Geez, how to analyze poetry? Haha there must be thousands of ways of doing so. Well, what I do is read the poem over and over and annotate my opinions of things i see. I usually go over each stanza one by one and look for any symbols that i may be missing.
What? Explanations do not ruin a poem, any poem. It is a way see the poet at work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
ktd, I was referring to the poet explaning inside the poem. The absence of giving full details within the poem is why it seems to baffle readers.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Not necessarily. I just analyzed a poem in the "I need help too" thread, and I fully understood the meaning and saw, and felt the art.Quote:
Ok, this is related to another discussion in the "dream deferred" thread about needing to know historical/cultural details to understand the full meaning of a poem.
I wasnt taught this at school, or really much of anything. But with the amount of analyzing i do for fun and the fact that we were forced to figure out things on our own in school analysis because no one told us anything, i have essentially followed the system below for analyzing any form of literature.
1)Know the cultural context (value and belief systems, ideologies, important events,etc.) of when the poem was written
2)Know the authors personal context and experience within the above
3)Compare the two in terms of the author conforming to or challenging his societal context(looking at how popular the author was,be it good popular or infamous, when they wrote it helps in this comparison)
4)Look at the style or movement the poem was written in and its conventions
5)Observe the techniques used by the author to conform to this style or movement
6)Observe the different themes and moods achieved by 5)
7) Combining your knowledge of the context,techniques, and effects of the poem, make an educated assumption as to what you think the author's message/s are. What is the purpose of writing this poem?
8) How does YOUR personal context influence your assumption and reading? How would it differ then that of someone of the authors context?
9) How do all the above tie in with the big picture of life? How do these messages and theme relate to society or the human condition?
Or, in brief:
What is the poem trying to say?
Why do they need to say it?
How do they say it?
What do you think of what they are saying?
thanks :) that's what im doing. .my english a level has 3 papers of 3 essays each hehe it's going to be tough. the pass rates are disheartening too (only 210/804 passed last year) .. this week I wrote a critical analysis/appreciation of ella higginson's sonnet in a valley of peace- could i post it here and here some thoughts on it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony Furze
well here is my latest crit! how would you rate it and my approach? (I always write crit in this style)
In A Valley of Peace by Ella Higginson
This long green valley sloping to the sun,
With dimpling, silver waters loitering through;
The sky that bends above me, mild and blue;
The wide, still wheat-fields, yellowing one by one,
And all the peaceful sounds when day is done -
I cannot bear their calm monotony!
Great God! I want the thunder of the sea!
I want to feel the wild red lightnings run
Around, about me; hear the bellowing surf,
And breathe the tempest's sibilant, sobbing breath;
To face the elements, defying death,
And fling myself prone on the spray-beat turf,
And hear the strong waves trampling wind and rain,
Like herds of beasts upon a mighty plain.
Popular legends and tales are littered with images of stories and tempests, usually that reflect dramatic disasters, many times implying an irrevocable change to the worse. Mankind's instinct always protected him from such elemental, brutal anger. Can such devastation be regarded as good, even as something to be wished for?
In most cases, it is the other way round: it it the calm and serenity of nature that has always been idealized by literature and artists. What better way, then, to express rage and frustration towards a life that yields no opportunity for change, but to evoke these very storms and wish for them most passionately?
This is the essential rebellious concept behind Ella Higginson's sonnet: the medium by which the very evident emotion of frustration trembles in the development of the images used, which begin as a seemingly ideal description of what may be seen as paradise on earth from a traditional perspective,
but which are suddenly inverted by use of a volta five verses into the poem: "I cannot bear their calm monotony!" explodes out of the poet's heart- straight to the reader, plunging him in constant upheavals of emotional entrapment.
After that, it soon becomes apparent that the title and the first quatrain's conveyed description of "a valley of peace" is deeply ironic. The initial diction, while seemingly glorifying life and nature with undeniably beautiful visual evocations of the "dimpling, silver waters loitering through" feel increasingly hollow- even suffocating! "The sky that bends" above the persona, for example, can be easily imagined closing off the poet in her "valley" from the rest of the world. The image itself suggests and deliciously conveys the sense of infinite entrapment: it seems that the even the sky and the valley are conspiring together to trap her in like two cupped hands. The result of this "imprisonment" by slow routine leads to the release of extreme frustration by the poet.
A rather clever play on words is employed just before the false exposition shifts tone (but not style.) The image of "clam monotony" indicates total utter stillness and stagnation. The choice of "clam" instead of "calm" conveys, through implication, a sense of a much heavier weight than would have otherwise been attained. The idea is that clams, being unable to move and trapped between their shells, are a projection of the poet's feelings about her stalemate. This shackling feeling heightens considerably when one also takes the form of the work in account with its content: the poem, being is a sonnet, must abide by the sonnet's restrictions and rules; a curious choice for a rebellious poem, but which serves an end. The form itself again expresses how much the world bears down heavily, so much, in fact, that even the only outlet for the ever mounting anger, writing, is restricted! This sonnet does, at times, digress from following the rules too strictly, but in barely noticeable ways compared to the restrictions the sonnet imposes. These digressions mainly stretch to the enjambment "red lightnings run/around, above me" and to the fact that it mixes the Shakespeare form of three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet with Italian Sonnet elements like the two main concepts separated by a volta.
Imagination is let loose in the second part of the sonnet: the tone becomes darker, and seems to descend into hysteria, as the poet damns the "still wheat fields" and years for the powerful "thunder of the sea" the "bellowing surf" and the "tempest's sibilant sobbing breath." All these images combine precise linked diction and unmistakably recreate the seaside storm through visual and the aural connotations of the words chosen.
"In a Valley of Peace" also employs a musical quality in its verses. Reading the sonnet aloud, one realizes how easily the words roll of the tongue as the poem progresses and the rhythm increases. This brings out the rushing, rolling tones of the apocalyptic tempest the poem evokes towards its unfulfilled closure: the poem seems to be leading to some final culmination since it seems to gain power and momentum constantly, and yet its finale is "compromised" by the anti-climax of the concluding rhyming couplet, which merely leaves one feeling how much the poet feels the situation is hopeless and unchangeable; preferring to be trampled beneath the hooves of beasts rather to endure the present situation.
Ella Higginson's work displays traces of the wish for rebellion in its content and images conveyed that awake dormant emotions of fervor in the reader. Yet it is also submissive to the sonnet form; acknowledging that "the valley" of our lives can rarely be escaped- only a lucky few manage to do so. Its utter lack of hope, expressed powerfully in its strong diction, is what what makes it an extended metaphor to the daily torments of routine, making it instantly identifiable and easy to relate with its intelligent portrayal of the soul's innermost frustration.
what do you say? have i got the makings to become a literary critic someday? or should i just go shoot myself?