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Poetry analysis is the process of investigating a poem's form, content, and history in an informed way, with the aim of heightening one's own and others' understanding and appreciation of the work. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ...

The words poem and poetry derive from the Greek poiēma (to make) and poieo (to create). That is, a poem is a made thing: a creation; an artifact. One might think of a poem as, in the words of William Carlos Williams, a "machine made of words". Machines produce some effect, or do some work. They do whatever they are designed to do. The work done by this "machine made of words" — a poem — is the effect it produces in the reader's mind. A reader analyzing a poem is akin to a mechanic taking apart a machine in order to figure out how it works. This article is about the art form. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. ... This article is about devices that perform tasks. ...

Like poetry itself, poetry analysis can take many forms, and be undertaken for many different reasons. A teacher might analyze a poem in order to gain a more conscious understanding of how the poem achieves its effects, in order to communicate this to his or her students, by using TPXASTT abd DIDLS. A writer learning the craft of poetry might use the tools of poetry analysis to expand and strengthen his or her own mastery. And, a reader might use the tools and techniques of poetry analysis in order to discern all that the work has to offer, and thereby gain a fuller, more rewarding appreciation of the poem.

Overview

"Another" by Robert Herrick

Returning to the mechanical metaphor introduced earlier, some machines — ballpoint pens, flashlights — can be taken apart by hand or with only the simplest tools. Similarly, some poems reward careful reading, and respond to analysis, but do not require of the reader an extensive set of critical terms, such as this short poem written by Robert Herrick in the 17th century. Ballpoint pen, disassembled (top) and complete (bottom) A ballpoint pen (also eponymously known in British English as a biro and pronounced bye-row in Britain but sometimes bee-row elsewhere), is a modern writing instrument. ... For the Parliament song, see Flash Light (song). ... Robert Herrick Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, by John William Waterhouse, (1908) Gather Ye rosebuds While Ye May, by John William Waterhouse, (1909) Robert Herrick (baptized August 24, 1591- October 1674) was a 17th century English poet. ...

Here a pretty baby lies

Sung asleep with lullabies:

Pray be silent and not stir

Th' easy earth that covers her.

In the first three lines, the reader understands the speaker to be describing a sleeping baby. At the fourth line, this interpretation changes. The baby is covered, not by a blanket which may be the typical interpretation, but by the earth, implying that the baby has been buried. That the baby is in a different form of sleep, one in which the baby never wakes from -- an eternal slumber.

This realization can produce a sharp emotional reaction, enlighten curiosity, complete confusion, intense anger, laughter due to clever wording, and so many other things. The emotional reaction, one of the numerous effect on the reader, can be described as the "work" that this "machine of words" is designed to do. Although it is assumed (supposedly baseless) that this poem is not intended to be humorous, its "mechanism" is similar to that of most jokes: a sudden alteration of perspective produces an immediate and profound response. This sudden shift in viewpoint can also invoke a prolong and yawning-type reception. Perspective all depends on the reader, and this is an inconclusive piece on this or any work of literature and art.

"The Destruction of Sennacherib", by Lord Byron

Similarly, one can derive pleasure from two of the most fundamental tools in the poet's toolbox — meter and rhyme — without necessarily knowing a lot of terminology, as in this, the first stanza of Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib": Meter (British English spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar terminal sounds in two or more different words (i. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ... Byron redirects here. ...

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Byron's use of meter and rhyme is especially evident and rewarding when one reads the lines out loud. The lines have a powerful, rolling, and very evident rhythm, and they rhyme in a way that is impossible to ignore. In other words, the physicality of the language — how it sounds and feels — accounts for a large measure of the poem's effect. The poem does not have a deep, hidden, symbolic meaning. Rather, it is simply pleasurable to read, say, and hear.

Critical terminology becomes useful when one attempts to account for why the language is pleasurable, and how Byron achieved this effect. The lines are not simply rhythmic: the rhythm is regular, it is the same in each line. A poem having a regular rhythm (not all poems do) is said to follow a certain meter. In "The Destruction of Sennacherib", each line has the basic pattern of two unstressed syllables followed by a third stressed syllable, with each of these basic patterns being repeated four times in a line. Those basic patterns are called feet, and this particular pattern (weak weak STRONG) is called an anapest. A line with four feet is said to be in tetrameter (tetra-, from the Greek for four). This poem has a pleasurable and appropriate rhythm, and that rhythm has a name: this poem is written in anapestic tetrameter. (This process of analyzing a poem's rhythms is called scansion.) The poem also rhymes (not all poems do), and the rhymes follow a pattern (they do not have to). In this case, the rhymes come right next to each other, which emphasizes them, and therefore emphasizes the sound, the physical nature, of the language. The effect of the poem's language derives in part from Byron's choice of an appropriate pattern of rhyme (or rhyme scheme): these adjacent, rhyming lines are called couplets. The sound, the physical nature, of the language is also emphasized by alliteration, as in the repetition of s sounds in the third line. Meter (British English spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse. ... In verse, many meters use a foot as the basic unit in their description of the underlying rhythm of a poem. ... An anapaest is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ... In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet: And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea (Anapaest tetrameter) (Byron, The Destruction of Sennacherib) You who are bent and bald and blind (Iambic tetrameter, except for the first foot which is a trochee) (W... Meter (British English spelling: metre) describes the linguistic sound patterns of a verse. ... A rhyme scheme is like the pattern of rhyming like lines in a poem or in like lyrics for music. ... For the Angel episode, see Couplet (Angel episode). ... Alliteration is a literary device in which the same sound appears at the beginning of two or more consecutive words. ...

"The Silken Tent" by Robert Frost

In these two examples, analytic terms are not needed to appreciate the poem; they are only needed to explain or describe the poem's effect. Sometimes, though, the reader needs a certain skill in analyzing poetry in order to appreciate the poem. If a listener doesn't know what fish tanks and military tanks are, he or she will not "get the joke" about the two fish. Similarly, sometimes a poem cannot work, cannot produce its intended effect, and cannot do what it was designed to do, unless the reader brings a certain level of analytic skill to the experience of reading it. One such poem is Robert Frost's "The Silken Tent". Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. ...

She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when a sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

Often, a good way to begin analyzing a poem is to reword it, putting it in one's own words, or into ordinary speech, in order to get a good grasp of the poem's content. (This is called doing a prose paraphrase.) Like Shakespeare's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day", this poem uses a sustained image to describe another person. Frost draws out an extended comparison between a woman and a silken tent in order to make some essential aspect of the woman's character real and available to the reader. The comparison is not to just any tent, but to a tent imagined in a very specific way. Ropes or cords draw up, become taut, when wet. In this case, the tent is imagined at midday. Any morning dew which would have soaked the tent's guy-lines has evaporated, and the ropes are now somewhat slack. The tent sways slightly in response to the wind. This imagery conveys — at a subconscious but very real and effective level — a sense that the woman being described is not tense or nervous, but is instead genial, relaxed, comfortable to be around. This does not mean, though, that she is wishy washy, someone who is blown about by every gust of fad and fashion. The tent's pole — its upright nature, its strength — conveys a sense of backbone, character, and firmness in the woman being described. In this woman's case, firmness of character does not lead to her becoming dogmatic or insistent. Rather, her character derives in part at least from her deep investment in friends, family, and community, from "countless silken ties of love and thought". Some people would experience numerous relationships — and the obligations they entail — as something entangling, binding, or limiting. This woman does not seem to. She seems to be very much at ease in this situation, so much so that she and those around her are only likely to be aware of their bounds and limits in unusual circumstances. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Imagery is any of the five senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste). ...

When one reads this poem aloud, rhythm and meter are much less evident, much less emphatically presented than in "The Destruction of Sennacherib". In fact, most people who hear the poem read aloud for the first time will say that it does not rhyme and it does not have any particular rhythm. Closer examination reveals that the poem does rhyme though. In fact, it rhymes in a specific pattern: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG (that is, the first line rhymes with the third line (the A's), the second line rhymes with the fourth line (the B's), and so forth). But, the rhymes are much less forceful, much less emphatic and noticeable, than in Byron's poem. This is in part because Byron arranged the words such that each line ending (and therefore each rhyme) corresponds a natural pause in speech. That is, the lines end at the same places where one would pause if the lines were set as prose and one were reading the words aloud. Such lines are said to be end stopped. End stopping makes rhyme more noticeable. Frost, though, arranged at least some of the lines in "The Silken Tent" such that the line endings do not coincide with natural pauses (such as the end of line 2: someone reading the words "a sunny, summer breeze / has dried the dew" would not necessarily pause after "breeze"). This technique is called enjambment. Enjambment de-emphasizes rhyming lines. Enjambement is the breaking of a linguistic unit (phrase, clause or sentence) by the end of a line or between two verses. ...

And, there is a rhythm, albeit a rather subtle or muted one. Each line has ten syllables, and (with slight and pleasant variations) they follow a pattern of weak syllables followed by strong syllables:

has DRIED the DEW and ALL its ROPES reLENT

This pattern (weak STRONG) is called an iamb. There are five iambs to the line here: these are pentameter lines (penta- is from the Greek for "five"). The poem does have a meter: it is called iambic pentameter. Frost employs the meter with a very light touch, though, and — rather like a good jazz musician — feels free to "play around with it", briefly departing from the regular pattern as appropriate. An iamb or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. ... Insert non-formatted text hereIambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. ... For other uses, see Jazz (disambiguation). ...

Interestingly, the whole poem is a single sentence:a single, rather long, but nonetheless conversational sounding sentence that covers fourteen lines.

So, this poem, which at first seems rather formless, in fact has a very specific structure: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. There is a term for this structure: it is called the Shakespearean sonnet, and it is regarded as one of the stricter, more difficult forms. Frost is not writing a shapeless poem; he is writing within very strict rules, and in fact has raised the bar by making himself do it all in one sentence. The poem is single, long, graceful sentence that unfolds — in very relaxed, natural sounding way — within the strict boundaries of the Shakespearean sonnet form. Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, one of the best-known early Italian sonnet writers. ...

And — going back to the prose paraphrase — it describes a woman whose life unfolds in a very relaxed, natural way, within numerous strict boundaries. In the woman's character, as in the poem's form, one is not really aware that the boundaries are even there. The woman, like the poem, exists comfortably, naturally, easily within numerous limits and boundaries.

And this is the poem's great accomplishment: the form enacts the content; the language of the poem does what the language itself says. Though this analysis proceeded by temporarily separating form and content, the result of the analysis is the realization that in "The Silken Tent", form and content are truly inseparable: they are exact complements to each other. The effect of this poem, the work it is designed to do, is to create a sharp sense of pleasure and appreciation when one recognizes how skillfully and appropriately the poet has used the words.

In this case, a certain amount of critical terminology and analytic skill is necessary in order to appreciate the poem. If the reader does not know what a sonnet is, much less more subtle aspects of form such as enjambment, he or she will have no way to see what the poem does. He or she will have no way to "get the joke". In this case, poetry enjoyment is enabled by poetry analysis.

Tools for poetry analysis

Poetic forms

Poems can have many forms. Some forms are strictly defined, with required line counts and rhyming patterns, such as the sonnet or limerick. Such poems exhibit closed form. Others (which exhibit open form) have less structure or, indeed, almost no apparent structure at all. This appearance, though, is deceptive: successful open form poems are informed throughout by organic structure which may resist formal description but is nonetheless a crucial element of the poem's effect on the reading mind. Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, one of the best-known early Italian sonnet writers. ... This article is about the poetic form. ...

Closed forms

A poet writing in closed form follows a specific pattern, a specific design. Some designs have proven so durable and so suited to the English language that they survive for centuries and are renewed with each generation of poets (sonnets, sestinas, limericks, and so forth), while others come into being for the expression of one poem and are then set aside (Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a good example). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The sestina is a highly structured form of poetry, invented by the Provençal troubadour Arnaut Daniel the late 12th century. ... Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening was written in 1922 by Robert Frost, and was published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. ...

Of all closed forms in English prosody, none has demonstrated greater durability and range of expression than blank verse, which is verse that follows a regular meter but does not rhyme. In English, iambic pentameter is by far the most frequently employed meter. Among the many exemplary works of blank verse in English are Milton's Paradise Lost and most of the verse passages from Shakespeare's plays, such as this portion of a famous soliloquy from Hamlet: Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other persons named John Milton, see John Milton (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Paradise Lost (disambiguation). ... Soliloquy is an audible oratory or conversation with oneself. ... For other uses, see Hamlet (disambiguation). ...

To be, or not to be — that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep —

No more, and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,

To sleep — perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub.

Note that Shakespeare does not rigidly follow a pattern of five iambs per line. Rather, most lines have five strong syllables, and most are preceded by a weak syllable. The meter provides a rhythm that informs the line: it is not an invariable formula.

Rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter lines form the heroic couplet. Two masters of the form are Alexander Pope and John Dryden. The form has proven especially suited to conveying wit and sardonic humor, as in the opening of Pope's An Essay on Criticism. A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, particularly for epic and narrative poetry. ... For other uses, see Alexander Pope (disambiguation). ... John Dryden John Dryden (August 19 {August 9 O.S.}, 1631 - May 12 {May 1 O.S.}, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright, who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles...

’Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill

Appear in writing or in judging ill;

But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ offence,

To tire our patience, than mislead our sense.

Some few in that, but numbers err in this,

Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;

A fool might once himself alone expose,

Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

Fourteen lines of iambic pentameter arranged in a more elaborate rhyme scheme form a sonnet. There are two major variants. The form originated in Italy, and the word derives from "sonetto", which is Italian for "little song". The Italian sonnet or Petrarchan sonnet follows a rhyme scheme of ABBA ABBA CDE CDE, ABBA ABBA CD CD CD, ABBA ABBA CCE DDE, or ABBA ABBA CDD CEE. In each of these, a group of eight lines (the octave) is followed by a group of six (the sestet). Typically, the octave introduces a situation, idea, or problem to which the sestet provides a response or resolution. For example, consider Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Sound of the Sea". A Petrarchan sonnet, also called the Italian sonnet, is a sonnet comprising an octave and a closing sestet. ... A Petrarchan sonnet, also called the Italian sonnet, is a sonnet comprising an octave and a closing sestet. ... For other uses, see Octave (disambiguation). ... [[]]A Sestet is the name given to the second division of a sonnet, which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeeded by a sestet, of six lines. ... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet whose works include Paul Reveres Ride, A Psalm of Life, The Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline. He also wrote the first American translation of Dante Alighieris Divine Comedy and was one of the five members...

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,

And round the pebbly beaches far and wide

I heard the first wave of the rising tide

Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;

A voice out of the silence of the deep,

A sound mysteriously multiplied

As of a cataract from the mountain's side,

Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown

And inaccessible solitudes of being,

The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;

And inspirations, that we deem our own,

Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing

Of things beyond our reason or control.

The octave present the speaker's experience of the sound of the sea, coming to him from some distance. In the sestet, this experience mutates into a meditation on the nature of inspiration and man's connection to creation and his experience of the numinous.

English has (proportionally) far fewer rhyming words than Italian. Recognizing this, Shakespeare adapted the sonnet form to English by creating an alternate rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The poet using this, the English sonnet or Shakespearean sonnet form, may use the fourteen lines as single unit of thought (as in "The Silken Tent" above), or he may treat the groups of four rhyming lines (the quatrains) as organizational units, as in Shakespeare's Sonnet 73: Shakespeares sonnets comprises a collection of 154 poems in the sonnet form by William Shakespeare, published in 1609 under conditions that cannot be judged too clearly; above all, there is a mysterious dedication in front of the text wherein a certain Mr. ... The Shakespearean sonnet, also called the Elizabethan or English sonnet, is a sonnet comprising three quatrains and a final couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. ... A quatrain is a poem or a stanza within a poem that consists of four lines. ...

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth steal away,

Death's second self, which seals up all in rest.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

In lines 1-4, the speaker compares his time of life to autumn. In lines 5-8, the comparison is to twilight; in lines 9-12, the comparison is to the last moments of a dying fire. Each quatrain presents a shorter unit of time, creating a sense of time accelerating toward an inevitable end, the death implied in the final couplet.

At the "high end" of closed forms are the sestina and villanelle. At the "low end" are forms such as the limerick, which follows a metrical pattern of two lines of anapestic trimeter (three anapests per line), followed by two lines of anapestic dimeter (two anapests per line), followed by one line of anapestic trimeter. (The beginning of the metrical foot does not have to coincide with the beginning the line.) Any poem following this metrical pattern would generally be considered a limerick, however most also follow an AABBA rhyme scheme. Most limericks are humorous, and many are ribald, or outright obscene (possible rhymes that could follow an opening like "There once was a man from Nantucket" are left as an exercise for the reader). Nonetheless, the form is capable of sophisticated and playful expression: Look up Villanelle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the poetic form. ... There once was a man from Nantucket is the opening line for many limericks and is among the most familiar opening lines in poetry. ...

Titian was mixing rose madder.

His model posed nude on a ladder.

Her position to Titian

Suggested coition

So he nipped up the ladder and had her.

Open forms

In contrast, a poet using open form (sometimes called "free verse") seeks to find fresh and uniquely appropriate form for each poem, letting the structure grow out of the poem's subject matter or inspiration. A common perception is that open form is easier and less rigorous than closed form (Frost likened it to "playing tennis without a net"), but such is not necessarily the case (skeptics should try playing tennis without a net): success with the open form requires great sensitivity to language and a particular type of adaptable understanding. In the best open form poems, the poet achieves something that is inaccessible through closed form. As X. J. Kennedy has said, "Should the poet succeed, then the discovered arrangement will seem exactly right for what the poem is saying" (582). Free verse (also at times referred to as vers libre) is a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be...

Walt Whitman was an important innovator of open form, and he demonstrates its merits in "A Noiseless Patient Spider". Walter Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. ...

A noiseless patient spider,

I marked where on a little promonotory it stood isolated,

Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need to be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Long, rolling lines — unified, held together like strong cords, by alliteration and assonance — partake of the same nature as the spider's filaments and the soul's threads. Two balanced stanzas, one describing a spider, the other the speaker's soul, perfectly frame the implicit comparison, with neither being privileged over the other. Just as the spider and the soul quest outward for significance, the two stanzas throw links to each other with subtly paired words: isolated/detached, launched/fling, tirelessly/ceaselessly, surrounding/surrounded. As Alexander Pope said so well, in the best poetry, "The sound should be an echo to the sense". Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words, for example Do you like blue?. Here the oo sound is repeated within the sentence. ...

Imagery and symbolism

Most poetry can be read on several levels. The surface is not necessarily the essence of the poem although in some cases (notably, the works of William McGonagall) there is little beyond the immediate. Allegory, connotation and metaphor are some of the subtler ways in which a poet communicates with the reader. William Topaz McGonagall (1825–September 29, 1902) was a weaver, actor, and poet. ... Allegory of Music by Filippino Lippi. ... Connotation is a subjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in a language, i. ... This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. ...

Before getting seduced into explorations of subtle nuance, however, the reader should establish the theme of the poem. What is the 'story' that is being told? Not the literal story but the heart of the poem. For example: Another tells of a buried child; The Destruction of Sennacherib tells of the last days of the Assyrian king; The silken tent compares a woman to a tent. Part of this involves recognising the voice of the poem (who is speaking), and the rest of Kipling's "six honest serving men": the events in the poem; when these occur; where is the 'speaker' and where do the events occur; why does the speaker speak? William Harmon has suggested that starting an analysis with: "This poem dramatizes the conflict between …" is a key technique. This article is about the British author. ... See also Just-so story for anthropological sense Wikisource has original text related to this article: Just So Stories The Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. ... William Harmon William Harmon is James Gordon Hanes Professor of the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, author of five books of poetry and editor of A Handbook to Literature. ...

George Herbert in his poem Jordan (I) asks if poetry must be about the imaginary. The poem opens: For other persons named George Herbert, see George Herbert (disambiguation). ...

Who sayes that fictions onely and false hair

Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie?

Is all good structure in a winding stair?

May no lines passe, except they do their dutie

Not to a true, but painted chair?

He was railing against the prevalent enthusiasm for pastoral poetry above all other forms (as becomes apparent in subsequent verses). Curiously, this verse uses metaphors to challenge the use of indirect approaches to their subject. False hair and a painted chair are decorations of the mundane. The winding stair is obstructive concealment of meaning. Herbert is criticising the overuse of allegory, symbolism or elaborate language. For other uses, see Pastoral (disambiguation). ...

For most poets—even the plain-speaking Herbert—metaphor is the fundamental means of communicating complexity succinctly. Some metaphors become so widely used that they are widely recognised symbols and these can be identified by using a specialist dictionary.

Allegorical verse uses an extended metaphor to provide the framework for the whole work. It was particularly prevalent in seventeenth century English but a more recent example is Charles Williams' The Masque of the Manuscript, in which the process of publishing is a metaphor for the search for truth. Allegories are usually readily apparent because of the heavy use of metaphor within them. (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... Charles Walter Stansby Williams (September 20, 1886 – May 15, 1945), was a British writer and poet, and a member of the loose literary circle called the Inklings. ...

The symbolism used in a poem may not always be as overt as metaphor. Often the poet communicates emotionally by selecting words with particular connotations. For example, the word "sheen" in The Destruction of Sennacherib has stronger connotations of polishing, of human industry, than does the similar "shine". The Assyrians did not simply choose shiny metal; they worked to make it so. The word hints at a military machine.

Other tropes that may be used to increase the level of allusion include irony, litotes, simile, and metonymy (particularly synecdoche). In linguistics, trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i. ... Ironic redirects here. ... In rhetoric, litotes is a figure of speech in which a speaker, rather than making a certain claim, denies its opposite; for example, rather than call a person attractive, one might say shes not too bad to look at. Litotes can be used to weaken a statement — Its... A simile is a comparison of two unlike things, typically marked by use of like, as, than, or resembles. Common examples are Curley was flopping like a fish on a line(extract of Mice and Men) etc. ... In rhetoric, metonymy is the substitution of one word for another word with which it is associated. ... Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which: a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, or a term denoting a thing (a whole) is used to refer to part of it, or a term denoting a specific class of thing (a species...

Meter and rhyme

English language poetic meter depends on stress, rather than the number of syllables. It thus stands in contrast to poetry in other languages, such as French, where syllabic stress is not present or recognized and syllable count is paramount. This often makes scansion (the analysis of metrical patterns) seem unduly arcane and arbitrary to students of the craft. In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... In literature, meter or metre (sometimes known as prosody) is a term used in the scansion (analysis into metrical patterns) of poetry, usually indicated by the kind of feet and the number of them. ...

In the final analysis, the terms of scansion are blunt instruments, clumsy ways of describing the infinitely nuanced rhythms of language. Nonetheless, they provide a tool for discerning and describing the underlying structure of poems (especially those employing closed form).

The terms fall into two groups: the names of the different feet, and the names of the varying line lengths.

The most common feet in poetry written in English are the iamb (weak STRONG), the anapest (weak weak STRONG), the trochee (STRONG weak), and the dactyl (STRONG weak weak). The iamb and anapest are known as rising meters (they move "up" from weak to strong syllables); the trochee and dactyl are falling meters (they move "down" from strong to weak). Less common, but frequently important for the variety and energy they bring to a line, are the monosyllabic foot (weak) and the spondee (STRONG STRONG). A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ... A dactyl (Gr. ... Look up Spondee in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The terms for line length follow a regular pattern: a Greek prefix denoting the number of feet and the root "meter" (for "measure"): monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, and octameter (lines having more than eight feet are possible but quite rare). In poetry, a monometer is a line of verse with just one metrical foot, exemplified by this portion of Robert Herricks Upon His Departure Hence: Thus I Passe by, And die: As one, Unknown, And gone. ... In poetry, a dimeter is a metrical line of verse with two feet. ... In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line - example: When here the spring we see, Fresh green upon the tree. ... In poetry, a pentameter is a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet: Be what you can if thus your heart so deem, For more the man will less the foible seem. ... Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ... Heptameter is one or more lines of verse containing seven metrical feet (usually fourteen or twenty-one syllables). ... Octameter in poetry is a line of eight metrical feet. ...

Another useful term is caesura, for a natural pause within a line. A caesura, in poetry, is an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. ...

Meter and line length are not formulas for successful lines of poetry. They are rough forms of notation for the many satisfying and variable rhythms of language. Slavish adherence to meter produces doggerel. Skillful poets structure their poems around a meter and line length, and then depart from it and play against it as needed in order to create effect, as Robert Browning does in the first line of "My Last Duchess": Doggerel describes verse considered of little literary value. ... Robert Browning (May 7, 1812 – December 12, 1889) was a British poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. ...

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall.

The opening spondees, which throw the iambic line out of pattern, gives the Duke's words a certain virulent energy: he's spitting the words out.

Gerard Manley Hopkins took this idea of poetric energy through departure from meter to its extreme, with his theory and practice of sprung rhythm, an approach to poetry in which the language constantly frustrates the reading mind's expectation of a regular meter. The Best ideal is the true/ And other truth is none. ... Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. ...

Sound, tone, diction, and connotation

Analyzing diction and connotation — the meanings of words as well as the feelings and associations they carry — is a good place to start for any poem. The use of specific words in the poem serve to create a tone — an attitude taken towards the subject. For example, consider the words "slither" and "sneak." When used in a poem, the words conjure up images of a snake. The sibilant s sound reinforces the image. The connotations of the words suggest something surreptitious and undercover. From the tone, one can infer that the author is suspicious or fearful of the subject. This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ...

A detached tone, or an opposite tone than the reader would expect, are sometimes purposely employed to elicit more of a response. In the opening lines of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", T. S. Eliot quickly sets a certain tone, and then creates effect by juxtaposing it with a very different tone: Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ...

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table

Visual and concrete poetry

Poets such as E. E. Cummings experiment with punctuation and the words' layout on a page. In doing so, they venture into a realm of poetry that really cannot be read aloud: it can only be experienced through the eye. E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), popularly known as e. ...

Approaches to poetry analysis

Schools of poetry

For main article see List of poetry groups and movements.

There are many different 'schools' of poetry: oral, classical, romantic, modernist, etc and they each vary in their use of the elements described above. This is a list of poetry groups and movements that have pages in Wikipedia. ...

Schools of poetry may be self-identified by the poets that form them (such as Imagism), or defined by critics who see unifying characteristics of a body of work by more than one poet (for example The Movement). To be a 'school' a group of poets must share a common style or a common ethos. A commonality of form is not in itself sufficient to define a school; for example, Edward Lear, George du Maurier and Ogden Nash do not form a school simply because they all wrote limericks. Ezra Pound, one of the prime movers of Imagism. ... The Movement was a term coined by J. D. Scott, literary editor of the Spectator, in 1954 to describe a group of writers including Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Donald Alfred Davie, D.J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings and Robert Conquest. ... Edward Lear, 1812-1888 Eagle Owl, Edward Lear, 1837 Another Edward Lear owl, in his more familiar style Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, a form which he popularised. ... Self portrait of George du Maurier George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a British author who was born in Paris, France. ... Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet best known for writing pithy and funny light verse. ...

Schools of criticism

Poetry analysis is almost as old as poetry itself, with distinguished practitioners going back to figures such as Plato. At various times and places, groups of like-minded readers and scholars have developed, shared, and promoted specific approaches to poetry analysis. For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ...

The New Criticism dominated English and American literary criticism from the 1920s to the early 1960s. The New Critical approach insists on the value of close reading and rejects extra-textual sources. The New Critics also rejected the idea that the work of a critic or analyst is to determine what author's intended meaning (a view formalized by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley as the intentional fallacy). The New Critics prized ambiguity, and tended to favor works that lend themselves to multiple interpretations. New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the early twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969. ... In literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. ... William Kurtz Wimsatt, Jr. ... Monroe Curtis Beardsley (1915-1985) was an American philosopher of aesthetics. ... The intentional fallacy, in literary criticism, is the assumption that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. ... Look up ambiguity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Reader Response developed in Germany and the United States as a reaction to New Criticism. It emphasises the reader's role in the development of meaning. Reader Response is a primarily German and American literary theory that arose in response to the textual emphasis of New Criticism of the 1940s through 1960s in the west. ...

Reception aesthetics is a development of Reader Response that considers the public response to a literary work and suggests that this can inform analysis of cultural ideology at the time of the response.

Reading poetry aloud

Poems may be read silently to oneself, or may be read aloud solo or to other people. Although reading aloud to oneself raises eyebrows in many circles, few people find it surprising in the case of poetry.

In fact, many poems reveal themselves fully only when they are read aloud. The characteristics of such poems include (but are not limited to) a strong narrative, regular poetic meter, simple content and simple form. At the same time, many poems that read well aloud have none of the characteristics exhibited by T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi", for example. Poems that read aloud well include:

• "The Frog", by Hillaire Belloc
• "One Art", by Elizabeth Bishop
• "The Tyger", by William Blake
• "Meeting at Night", by Robert Browning
• "She Walks in Beauty", by Byron
• "The Song of the Western Men", by Robert Stephen Hawker
• "November in England", by Thomas Hood
• "Dream Variations", by Langston Hughes
• "The Jackdaw of Rheims", by Thomas Ingoldsby
• "To put one brick upon another", by Philip Larkin
• "Paul Revere's Ride", by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• "Adventures of Isabel", by Ogden Nash
• "Nothing but Death", by Pablo Neruda translated by Robert Bly
• "A Small Elegy", by Jirí Orten translated by Lynn Coffin
• "Ozymandias", by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• "Sea Surface Full of Clouds", by Wallace Stevens
• "Silver", by Walter de la Mare
• "How to Tell a Story", by Robert Penn Warren
• "On Westminster Bridge", by William Wordsworth

Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (July 27, 1870 - July 16, 1953) was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. ... Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979), was an American poet and writer. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Tyger William Blakes original plate for The Tyger. ... William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, visionary, painter, and printmaker. ... Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Hebrew Melodies/She walks in beauty Wikisource has original text related to this article: She walks in Beauty She Walks in Beauty is a poem written in 1814 by Lord Byron. ... Robert Stephen Hawker (3 December 1803 - 15 August 1875), was an English poet, antiquarian of Cornwall, Anglican clergyman and reputed eccentric. ... Thomas Hood Thomas Hood (May 23, 1799 - May 3, 1845) was a British humorist and poet. ... Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. ... The Ingoldsby Legends are a collection of myths, legends, ghost stories and poetry supposedly by Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappington manor, actually a pen-name of Richard Harris Barham. ... Richard Harris Barham (December 6, 1788–June 17, 1845), English novelist and humorous poet, better known by his nom de plume of Thomas Ingoldsby, was born at Canterbury. ... Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL, (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist and jazz critic. ... Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the penname and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and communist politician Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto. ... Robert Bly (born December 23, 1926 in Madison, Minnesota) is a poet, author, and leader of the Mythopoetic Mens Movement in the United States. ... OZYMANDIAS I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. ... Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 – July 8, 1822; pronounced ) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the English language. ... Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was a major American Modernist poet. ... Walter John de la Mare, OM CH (April 25, 1873 – June 22, 1956), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and The Listeners. He was born in Kent (at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton[1] - now part of the London Borough... Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic, and was one of the founders of The New Criticism. ... William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 – April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads. ...

Poetry in different cultures

This article is focussed on poetry written in English and reflects anglophone culture. Other cultures have other poetic forms and differ in their attitudes towards poetry.

Further reading

• Olderr, Steven. Symbolism: A Comprehensive Dictionary (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1986) ISBN 0-7864-2127-4
• Olderr, Steven. Reverse Symbolism Dictionary: Symbols Listed by Subject (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1992) ISBN 0-7864-2125-8

References

• Auden, W.H. and Norman Holmes (Eds.) Restoration and Augustan Poets: Milton to Goldsmith. (New York: Viking Press, 1950) ISBN 0-14-015039-0
• Cummings, E. E. Complete Poems: 1913 — 1962. (New York: Harcouth Brace Jovanovich, 1968). ISBN 0-15-121060-8
• Harrison, G. B. (Ed.). Shakespeare: The Complete Works. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968) ISBN 0-15-580530-4
• Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999) ISBN 0-15-100419-6
• Kennedy, X. J. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Drama, and Poetry. (4th ed.) (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1987) ISBN 0-673-39225-2
• Roberts, Edgar V. & Henry Jacobs (Eds.). Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing 6th edition. (Upper Saddle Creek, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000) ISBN 0-13-018401-2
• Wallace, Robert. Writing Poems. (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1982) ISBN 0-316-91996-9

External links

• Glossary of Poetry Terms