Interpreting Poetry

INTERPRETING POETRY

WHAT IS POETRY?

Poetry is often considered mystical or spiritual.  It has been called “the most intimate and volatile form of literary discourse” that can deepen “our capacity for personhood, our achievement of humanity.”  Poetry also “conveys heightened forms of perception, experience, meaning, or consciousness in heightened language.”  (Brogan, 938) As a “heightened mode of discourse,” poetry exhibits “intensified speech” by using conventions that are considered defining characteristics. (Hirsch, 27)

ELEMENTS OF POETRY

DICTION

                Diction refers to the poet’s choice of words.  Poets are sensitive to the subtle shades of meanings of words, to the possible double meanings of words, and to the denotative and connotative meanings.  Poets often choose words that contribute to the poem’s meaning on both a denotational and a connotation level.

Denotation:  the object or idea that the word represents; the dictionary meaning

Connotation:  the subjective, emotional association that a word has for one person or a group of people.

Wordplay:  double meanings and puns.

SYNTAX

                Syntax is sentence structure, the way words go together to make sentences. Poets often invert the normal word order so that they can make a sentence rhyme, to fit a metrical pattern, or to emphasize an idea.  Further difficulties arise because sentences are so long that we forget how they begin.  Another challenge occurs when words are left out or marked by eccentric punctuation.

Independent clauses:  simple sentences

Complex sentences:  sentences containing independent and subordinate causes.  Subordinate clauses begin with relative pronouns (that, what, which, who), subordinating conjunctions (because, since, although, whereas, once, wherever, etc.) and prepositions.

CHARACTERIZATION, POINT OF VIEW, PLOT, SETTING AND THEME

                Poetry shares many elements with other genres such as drama and fiction.  Many of the questions you ask yourself with short stories and novels you can apply to poetry.  Poems do not always offer a “story” in a conventional sense, but action may be implied, a place or time may be important, and characters may dramatize the key issues of the poem.

Point of View

                According to T.S. Eliot, in any poem there is always a speaker, “I” of the poem.  The first voice is the voice of the poet talking to himself (or to nobody).  The second voice is the voice of the poet addressing an audience, whether large or small.  The third is the voice of the poet when he is saying, not what he would say in his own person, but only what he can say within the limits of one imaginary character addressing another imaginary character.  (Eliot, 96)

Steps for interpreting these aspects of a poem:

1.     Paraphrase the poem.  This helps you understand every sentence or, at least, the major sections of the poem.

2.     Identify the speaker of the poem.  Underline the words and phrases that help characterize the speaker and bring out the speaker’s concerns.  Describe in detail the traits of the speaker and of any other characters in the poem.

3.     Describe the situation of the poem:  where is the speaker? What time of day is it? What season of day is it?  What historical occasion is the speaker writing about? 

4.     List the external and internal conflicts of the poem.

5.     Stat the issues that concern the speaker.  Explain the speaker’s ideas.  Note any changes in the speaker’s mood or ideas as the poem progresses.

6.     Describe the speaker’s tone (angry, lyrical, hopeful, bitter, sarcastic, sorrowful, etc.).  Note any changes of tone.

7.     Is the poet’s attitude different from the speaker’s attitude?

8.     Relate the poem’s title to its themes.

9.     Explain any allusions in the poem.

IMAGERY

Descriptive Language

                Imagery represents the descriptive passages of a poem.  Imagery causes the reader to become experientially involved in the subject matter of the poem.  The poet often uses descriptive imagery to underscore other elements in a poem, such as tone, meaning, and characterization.  All of the senses can be engaged (touch, visual, motion, sound, thermal/temperature)

Figurative Language

                 A second consideration about imagery refers to the muse of language that is a conscious departure from normal or conventional ways of saying things.  “Rhetorical” figures of speech refer to unusual rearrangements of normal word order done convey a specific idea or image.

Figurative Language

Tropes (literally “turns”) extend the meaning of words beyond their literal meaning.

Similes:  Using comparative words (like or as), a simile makes an analogous connection between two items.              

Metaphors:  Generally, a metaphor is any analogy which shows similarity between things that are basically different.  Specifically, a metaphor is a type of figurative language that assumes a connection or comparison without using like or as.

Personification:  A more indirect analogy, personification bestows human characteristics to any inanimate object, animal, or abstract quality.

Extended Metaphor:  When a poet carries out a singular analogy throughout an entire poem, he has written an extended metaphor.

Questions to ask about Imagery:

1.     What senses does the poet appeal to?

2.     What analogies does the poet imply or directly state?

3.     Why does the poet use these particular images and analogies?  How are they significant to the meaning, tone, and effect of the poem?

Analyzing Descriptive Language.

1.     Mark the descriptive images.  For each image, name the sense appealed to.  Characterize the dominant impression these images make.

2.     Explain the relationship of descriptive images to the speaker’s state of mind.

3.     Describe how the descriptive images create a sense of the time of day and season of the year.

4.     Note any progression in the descriptive images; for example, from day to night, hot to cold, soft to loud, color to color, slow to fast.

5.     Explain how the descriptive images help create atmosphere and mood.  Slow movements, for example, are conducive to melancholy, speed to exuberance and excitement.

Analyzing Figurative Language

1.     Mark the similes in the poem.  Underline or circle the words that signal the comparisons (words such as like, as similar to, resembles.)  Explain the implications of the analogies (that is, what they contribute to the meaning of the poem.

2.     Mark the metaphors in the poem.  Explain the implications of the analogies.

3.     Mark any personification in the poem.  Underline the words and phrases that make the personification clear.

4.     Poets often use analogies to help make an abstract quality, such as “love” or “beauty” or “courage.”  Name the abstract quality the poet wants to clarify and the object the poet is comparing it to.

5.     List the senses appealed to in each analogy.  Describe the dominant sensory impression created by the analogies.

Symbolism

Symbolism appeals to poets because symbols are highly suggestive.  A symbol is an object that represents an abstract idea or ideas.  The most powerful symbols are those that do not exactly specify the ideas they represent and carry meaning on multiple levels.

THE SOUND OF POETRY:  MUSICAL ELEMENTS

Rhythm:  One of the most naturally pleasing elements of poetry, rhythm “creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and difference.  It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe.  It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves.  It differentiates us; it unites us to the cosmos.” (Hirsch, 21)

Meter:  All human speech has rhythm, but poetry regularizes that rhythm into recognizable patterns.  These are called meters.  Metrical patterns vary depending on the sequence in which the poets arrange the accented (á) and unaccented (ă) syllables.  The unit that determines that arrangement is the foot; a foot is one unit of rhythm.

                Here are the most used metrical feet:

                iamb:  ă á (an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable)

                trochee:  á ă

                anapest:  ă  ă  á  (think ¾ time)

                dactyl:  á ă  ă  (think ¾ time)

                spondee:  á á

Measuring Meter:  The most utilized metrical pattern in English poetry is accentual-syllabic, a pattern based on the number of stresses and the number of syllables per line.  The best known pattern is iambic pentameter, which consists of five stresses (iambs) and ten syllables.  The following are the names of accentual-syllabic line lengths:

                monometer (one foot)

                dimeter (two feet)

                trimeter (three feet)

                tetrameter (four feet)

                pentameter (five feet)

                hexameter (six feet)

                heptameter (seven feet)

                octameter (eight feet)

Scanning is a process where you mark accented and unaccented syllables with symbols.

WORD SOUNDS

Devices using word sounds:

Onomatopoeia:  the use of words that sound like what they mean (“buzz,” “boom,” “hiss,” “pop,” etc.)

Alliteration:  the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or at the beginning of accented syllables.

Assonance:  the repetition of vowel sounds followed by the different consonant sounds.

Consonance:  the repetition of final consonant sounds that are preceded by different vowel sounds.  Consonance is the opposite of alliteration which features initial consonance sounds.

Rhyme:  the repetition of accented vowels and the sounds that follow.  There are subcategories of rhyme:

                masculine rhyme:  the rhymed words end with a stressed syllables.

                feminine rhyme:  the rhymed words end with one or more unaccented syllables

                internal rhyme:  the rhymed words are within the line

                end rhyme:  the rhymed words appear at the ends of lines

                approximate rhyme:  the words are close to rhyming

Analyzing Word Sounds

1.     What sound devices does the poet use?

2.     Why does the poet use them?

3.     How do they establish the poem’s tone, atmosphere, theme, setting, characterization, and emotional qualities?

4.     Underline instance of alliteration, assonance, and consonance in the poem.  Explain the relationship between these devices and the sense of the lines where they occur.

5.     Circle rhymed words.  Explain similarities and contrasts the rhymed words underscore.

6.     Circle words that have meaningful attractive sound qualities.

7.     When the sounds of a poem are harsh and grating, the effect is called cacophony.  When they are pleasing and harmonious, the effect is called euphony.  Underline instances of cacophony or euphony.

8.     Describe any sound devices in the poem that catch you by surprise.

STRUCTURE

Structure is the way the whole poem is organized and put together.  Poets give structure to their poems in two overlapping ways:  by organizing ideas according to a logical plan and by establishing a pattern of units. 

Lines:  Poetry is organized in lines while prose is divided into paragraphs. They use various criteria for choosing line lengths.  The best known criterion is meter – the number of feet per line.

Enjambment:  A decision poets face is whether to end-stop or encamp their lines.  Enjambment is the continuance of a phrase from one line to the next so that there is no pause at the end of the line.  An end-stopped line has a definite pause at the end.  Enjambed and end-stopped lines create different effects.  Enjambed lines read more naturally, like someone speaking.  Even in poems with end-rhymes, when you read aloud a poem with enjambed lines you don’t hear the rhyme.

Blank Verse:  A line form that is always enjambed is blank verse.  The sentences run from line to line as if the lines don’t exist.

Stanza:  Stanzas in a poem typically resemble one another structurally.  The have the same number of lines, length of lines, metrical patterns, and rhyme schemes.  They are physically separated by a space.  Poems with stanzas are strophic; those that don’t are stichic.

Rhyme scheme:  Any pattern of end rhyme is a traditional method of organizing stanzas.  Rhyme scheme refers to that pattern.  Poets can create any rhyme scheme, but they often work instead within the confines of already established poetic structures.

The Sonnet:  The most famous fixed form in English, sonnets consist of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. A Shakespearean sonnet rhymes abab/cdcd/efef/gg and has a structural division of three quatrains and a couplet.  A Petrarchan sonnet rhymes abbaabba in the octave and cdecde in the sestet.  Each kind of sonnet has a turn, a point in the poem at which the poet shifts from one meaning or mood to another.  The turn in the Shakespearean sonnet occurs between lines 12 and 13.  In the Petrarchan sonnet the turn occurs between the octave and the sestet.

The Ballad:  Defined as “a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story,” (Abrams, 18), ballads feature intense conflicts, emotional and melodramatic narratives, and are condensed retelling of portions of the whole story.

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Abrams, M.H.  A Glossary of Literary Terms.  7^th ed.  Fort Worth, TX:  Harcourt Brace College        Publishers, 1999.

Brogan, T.V. F. “Poetry.” The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.  Ed. Alex

Hirsch, Edward.  How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry.  San Diego:  Harcourt,             1999.

Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan.  Princeton, NJ:  Princeton UP, 1993.

Eliot, T. S. “The Three Voices of Poetry.”  On Poetry and Poets.  New York: Octagon Books,           1975,      96 – 112.