An Introduction to Poetry

2008 Worldwide Hock

Objectives for today

Identify the basic definitions of

poetry
Explore some tactics for
approaching poetry
Practice responding analytically
to a poem

What is poetry?

Poetry
Poetry is Transfiguration, the transfiguration
of the Actual or the Real into the Ideal, at a
lofty elevation, through the medium of
melodious or nobly sounding verse.
-Alfred Austin

Poetry
A poem consists of all the purest and most beautiful
elements in the poets nature, crystallized into the
aptest and most exquisite language, and adorned
with all the outer embellishment of musical
cadence (fall or modulation of voice in music or
verse) or dainty rhyme.
-Grant Allen

Poetry
The art of poetry is simply the art of
electrifying language with extraordinary
meaning.
-Lascelles Abercrombie

Why study poetry?

Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our
quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.
William Butler Yeats

Poetry has a unique value to the examined life.

Provides greater awareness.
Deepens and broadens understanding.
Offers emotional and intellectual fulfillment.

Poetry Depicts Experience!

Beautiful or ugly
Strange or common
Noble or not
Actual or Imaginary

What others have said

Poetry lies its way to the truth.
John Ciardi

Poetry is the search for the inexplicable.

Wallace Stevens

All art is sensual and poetry particularly so.

-William Carlos Williams

Paint is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that

speaks.
-Plutarch

The Eagle
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

What is peculiarly effective about the expressions crooked hands, close

to the sun, ringed with the azure world, wrinkled, crawls, and like
a thunderbolt?
Notice the formal pattern of the poem, particularly the contrast of he
stands in the first stanza and he falls in the second. Is there any other
contrast between the two stanzas?

Studying Poetry
Vocis Poetica

Author
Speaker
Audience
Reader

Principia Poetica

Presentation
Experience
Truth

Where to Begin
S
O
A
P
S
T
o
n
e

peaker
ccasion
udience
urpose
ubject

Important Considerations
Tone/Speaker

Does the voice shift?

Is it intimate?
Is it overheard or projected to a calculated audience?

Important Considerations
Mood

What is the emotional atmosphere?

How is it established?
Does it shift?

Important Considerations
Form

Be alert to structure!
Note any traditional patterns.

Important Considerations
Verisimilitude

Does the poem offer a likeness to truth?

Responses may vary according to the reader (experience,
wisdom, willingness to suspend disbelief).

Important Considerations
Diction/Syntax

Consider the effects, success, impressions.

Do not merely describe!!!!!

Important Considerations
Syntax

Is it written in sentences or not? So what?

Consider the effects of punctuation.

Important Considerations
Rhyme and Rhythm
Are the rhymes internal, end, close/near/slant?
So what?

Is the rhythm regular or irregular?

So what?

Is the rhythm arbitrary or bound to the other effects?

Important Considerations
Imagery
Do not merely list images. Any moron can do that!!!

Does the poem depend on the images?

Is the poem conceptual or visual?
Does the poem develop through the images or the images
through the poem?

Be alert to synesthesia!

Important Considerations
Symbolism
Are there any intended symbols?

Concrete/Abstract?
Archetypal/Traditional/Literary?
Literal/Figurative?

Poetry goes deeper than outward experience.

Rocks make mountains, but are not the mountain scenery.

Lips meeting is a kiss, but do not define a kiss.