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Understanding Poetry
W(caps)hen you come in contact with a poem for the first time, you immediately form impressions which are built up gradually in your mind. And as you read, you come in contact with words that connect your mind with something, and such connectives force your mind to build impressions about the phrase, word, a letter, line, colon, or an alphabet. It could even be a dot or a mere space. Whatever it is, must never be overlooked or read in isolation of other words or things that make up the poem if you must give the correct impression or adequate judgment of the poem. When your emotion is triggered into action, you must not let it get cold so as to read the poem again and do not go into hasty analysis, prejudiced impressions, or judgment. As you read the poem the second time, you should take note of some strange or unfamiliar words so as to make them familiar. Poetry is unlike the novel genre; a poet may borrow concepts or words from other languages you are not familiar with, and this could be Greek, Latin, or French, as often seen in most English poems. When this occurs, simply leave your mind bare to be influenced by the poem so that you can understand it. It is necessary that you understand the poem before you can think of any judgment. You cannot assess or evaluate what you do not know. And to know the poem, you should keep your mind open as you read the poem.
It is when this is achieved that you, as the reader, can function as the critic of a poem. And to function adequately, you should make the concern of the poem clearer in your analysis. The poet's attitude should be revealed in the opinion that you have formed so as to give value to the themes of the poem. You may then embark on a third reading of the poem in a slower and careful manner. You will then find out that you will be able to read and comprehend the poem compared to the initially slow and unmusical pace with which you approached the poem. With your experience of the poem, you will be able to make general and believable statements about the poem or form a better, wiser, and considered opinion of the poem.
3.2 Meaning and Intention in Poetry
After understanding the theme of the poem, which is often in the categories of the main and sub-themes, you may then undertake a more careful line-by-line examination of the themes of the poem. This connects the reader to the poet's mind. You can then measure your observation of the verse against the poem. With such development, you can take care of the poet's own judgment of every line and verse of the poem. You must be sure that no unnecessary detail is allowed in the poem. You must guide yourself against prejudiced and reckless judgment. A strict sense of proportion will give a balanced evaluation of the poem. To achieve this, each verse of the poem must be judged in relation to the whole poem while trying to discover the meaning of a poem. In trying to discover the meaning of a poem, you must not allow prejudice to interfere with the meaning of the poem. Also, you must bring your power of imagination to the business of discovering all about a poem. It is when the meaning of a poem has been discovered in full that you will then know that you are working in empathy with the poet. There can be no good criticism of a poem without the critic first understanding the themes/perception of the poet. There can be no further criticism until you sustain what the poet is saying and why s/he is saying it and tell us if s/he is successful in his/her effort or not. A critic should be able to tell us if a poem has a universal/general or restricted/private appeal. The theme of a poem may be said to have a universal appeal if it affects all people but restricted if its appeal is only private.
The example of poems with universal appeal and the restricted, which we have treated in this module, are William Butler Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees his death" or "Sailing to Byzantium". These poems may at first look restricted but a deeper reading of the poems reveals their universal "applicability" considering their treatment of the subject of death. Also, Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock" that deals with the eighteenth-century person's manner and customs may initially sound restricted, but the poet deals with people's universal ideas of human motives, fooleries, action, and characters, and this makes the poem appeal to humanity of all ages. Some poems may be both universal and restricted in appeal. Among the poems treated in this unit, we may say that William Wordsworth's "I Traveled among Unknown Men" has a restricted appeal. Below are two groups of extracts from different poems; the first (A) has universal appeal while the second, (B), represents poetry with restricted appeal.
Poem (A) Ted Hughes' (1930-1998) Hawk Roosting
I sat in the top of the wood, my eyes closed
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection
My feet are locked upon the rough bark
It took the whole of creation
To produce my foot, my each feather
Now I hold creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –
The allotment of death
For the one path of my flight is direct
Though the bones of the living
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me
Nothing has changed since I began
My eye has permitted no change
I'm going to keep things like this
Commentary on Poem (A)
The Hawk in the poem is a symbol of the 20th-century political leader, a monarch, or military leader. He says his cannibalistic and oppressive characteristics are no "falsifying dream". He is cruel, savagery, and dictatorial. The Hawk, human species with oppressive motive, is bloodthirsty. He is a gladiator in the use of weapon and violence. Considering the thematic focus of the poem, it thus gives itself away as having universal applicability.
Poem (B) Emily Dickinson's (1830-1886) I'm Nobody! Who are You?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody Too?
Then theirs is a pair if us
Don't tell they'd advertise you now
How dreary to be somebody
How public like a Frog
To tell ones name the livelong June
To an admiring Body!
Commentary on Poem (B)
The poem expresses personal opinion about the essence of being; he prefers to be a nobody. He is not interested in being famous, as self-advertised fame may be worrisome. The general concern of the poem reveals a restricted appeal. But Ted Hughes' poem has universal appeal, considering its thematic preoccupation. Apart from the task of determining the universality and restricted nature of any poem, determining the artistic merit of a poem can be done by investigating the poet's use of irony, symbolism, descriptive narrative, etc., that combines to make up the nature of the themes that are relevant to the poems.
3.3 Style and Poetry
This aspect is important to unraveling the meaning of poetry. To be able to appreciate style, one needs to take note of how the poet writes or its novel ideas while reading, just as Longinus rightly expressed: "threat judgment of style is the last and ripest fruit of experiences". Style in poetry should be seen as the practical and the functional aspect of poetry. A critic only needs to harmonize the task into the means by which s/he accomplishes it. You will be able to discuss the style of a poem if you are able to answer the following questions: Does the poet's expression conform with the goals s/he has set for him(her)self? The above question can be further expressed in simpler fashion as follows:
a. What is the poem saying?
b. What is the poet's reason for saying it?
c. Does the way s/he says or expresses it help or hinder his/her aim of saying it?
When these questions are answered creatively, you will be able to discuss the poet's style and arrive at meaningful and convincing judgment of a poem.
3.4 Tones reveal the Matter.
It is possible to infer the poet's attitude from his/her tone. As it is in the tone of the voice, style shows the tone of a poet which may be harsh or friendly, persuasive and may portray indifference, hostility, satisfaction, or disrespect. A poet's tone may reveal his/her feeling towards him(her)self about the subject or focus of the poem; its theme. It means the tone of a poet portrays his/her general attitude as maybe revealed when we read the poem.
3.5 Connotation as Suggestive
Additional meanings are often suggested when you read a poem in relation to its contextual appreciation. William Butler Yeats in his poem, 'Sailing to Byzantium', has used the word "Byzantium" not just to refer to the political or physical city of Byzantium, now named Istanbul. He has used the word, "Byzantium" to mean paradise. The use of word in poetry is often different from the denotative dictionary meaning and word order. Connotative words are meaningful but suggestive to give a poem a hidden but creative value.
3.6 Imagery
Poetry speaks in imagery, as it conveys experience in vivid picture. Images/imagery uses words to create sensory experiences that may be produced. Examples of sensational experience are visual imagery, sight/seeing, auditory imagery that relates to touch and tactile imagery indicates roughness or smoothness. Whatever may be the form of the imagery that a poet may adopt, s/he usually presents the real image that is conveyed or suggested. Poetic image may be based on any of the five senses.
3.7 Figures of Speech
A poem often speaks in figurative language. This depends on the poet's choice of a particular figurative and the purpose for which the poet has chosen to use it, as well as what s/he intends to achieve by using a particular figure of speech. Students of English literature should be familiar with numerous figures of speech and be well 'schooled' in the ability to detect such in poetry. Some common figures of speech that a poet may use to enrich his/her verse are simile, metaphor, litotes, antithesis, oxymoron, apostrophe, hyperbole, personification, synecdoche, metonymy, and symbol. They are numerous and are like the oil in the wheel of progress of poetry.
3.8 Sound as meaning in Poetry
In poetry, sound is not the same thing as noise. When poets combine the use of consonants, vowels, and rhythms to produce sound, the poet will be happy that by producing meaning from such combination and combination of words, communication is not just achieved, but the aesthetic essence of poetry is also realized. Sometimes, the sound that a particular poem gives may be mere onomatopoeic mimicry; such sounds may sometimes not give any immediate and clear meaning. Yet, the main rhythmical meaning it has gives some musical effects or qualities.
We may recall a practical example of how sound functions as meaning in poetry. In the year 2003, I was introduced to some Egyptian scholars as a writer and poet in Benghazi, a city in Libya. The Arab tribesmen, excited, recited a beautiful, rhythmical Ghazal Arab form of poetry and tasked me to recite a poem in my native Nigerian Yoruba language. I did render a short rhyme verse in my Ilaje – Yoruba variant dialect of coastal Ondo State, praising Igodo, an enchantingly beautiful female mermaid that myth says married Oranmaken, a coastal Ilaje ancestor who earlier held her hostage. In my chant, I had repeated “Igodo, Oranmaken”/ “Igodo Oranmaken”, forming a beautiful rhyme. The natives, though, had no idea of my coastal Niger Delta area verse, but were clapping, swinging, and repeating the rhyme as each urged the other person to chant on. They ended the repetition of the key words with “Ghazal astma kois, ghazal astma kois” in appraisal of a wonderful rhyme from a friend. In this case, the native Arabs have been won over by the sense of rhymed sound in my native poem. Like music, it gives them pleasure much as they could get from the native Arab Ghazal poetry. On that basis, we may say as important as it may be, meaning is of no consequence in poetry as any nonsense but lyrical poem can be pleasurable.
The rhyme effect of sound in poetry has been expressed by the founder of the literary movement called lettrisme. The French poet, Isidore Isou, states that poetry can be written in words and letters /xy//xyl//prpalidryl//iznglotrpylopwi/. A combination of denotation and connotation make letterist poem emotionally satisfying. The Arab natives must have been impressed by the smooth, easy flowing nature of my short verse that sounds to them like music. It then means that humanity derives pleasure from rhyme, especially when a verse comes up naturally to give pleasure. Poetry should be lyrical to give pleasure, as songs affect the soul.
3.9 Rhythm
In poetry, rhythm has a powerful effect. There is usually a series of reverence in poetry to achieve a rhythmical effect. A verse may be organized by a poet to achieve rhyme without necessarily repeating words or lines of the verse. Sometimes, the first word, line of a verse may be repeated by a poet to create rhythmical effect. We may consider the examples of the following English poetry:
Consider below the opening lines from Thomas Gray's 'Elegy':
The cur few tolls the knell of part ing day
The low ing herd wind slow ly o'er the lea
The plowman homeward plods his wear y way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me
Also consider the lines from Coleridge's Christabel:
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light and hanging so high
On the top-most twig what looks up at the sky
We can see the poet's repetitive use of words to achieve stresses and pauses (rhyme effects) in the lines of the poem. In poetry, stressed and unstressed syllables, apart from the song-like effects they give, re-enforce meaning.
A rhythm is often produced by a series of recurrences. In poetry, different recurrent sounds are possible, as in recurrence of stresses and pauses. The accent/stress with more breath and emphasis with a louder/higher in pitch or more prolonged in duration than other syllables is the stressed syllable. The unstressed syllable takes less breath, weak force and or less emphasis.
3.10 Symbol
Symbols are part of the language of poetry. Symbols are ensigns, representations, often a visible emblem, identity or mark. The flag of a nation, for instance, is an emblematic representation of the nation; so also is the international passport of a nation that gives away its carrier or bearer's country of origin. But in poetry, symbols do not have a long established or conventional meaning. In poetry, symbols are often interpreted in association with the reader's own experience of reading and the poet's direction as a guide. The reader's ability to identify and interpret a poem provides a concrete and valuable entrance into the poet's world. Such entrance, if discovered, reduces the poem from its 'complex height' to an interesting prose.
3.11 Style:
Every poet has a specific way or pattern of writing. A reader should strive to be familiar with everything in a poem. The word or line that strikes your mind in a poem may be the poet's own pattern or style of expression. The 'carriage' and language of expression, whether simple or difficult, style of punctuations or emblematic as in the poetry of George Herbert or any other poet may help the poet to achieve a height or emotional satisfaction. Also, the total absence of punctuation, ellipsis, even a mere space in poetry may be the poet's own choice of expression to attain poetic leisure and emotional obligation or style. A poet may choose a style to revolt against a preceding age, and this diction must be judged against the background or purpose. For instance, poetry after the Restoration was the Augustan, Gothic, Romantic, Age, the Victorian, twentieth century, and the contemporary period up to the present. Every age is valued for its stylistic experimentation and poetic purpose.
3.12 Poetry and Translation
Some poems are translated from their original country home into the English language. In such poems, readers are often confronted with investigating what gets lost, understated, and overstated and or exaggerated in the process of translating the poem from foreign language into the recipient's national language. This task follows after the reader identifies a poem as translated or the nativity/original language in which a poem has been crafted. The practice of translating a poem is as old as the art of poetry, so it's not a novel development. These could be the reason it is important for a reader or an analyst of a translated poem to believe that reading a poem that is translated is looking for what gets lost in translation. This is because most translators may save a part of their originals of the great poems in foreign languages to create a gap in the translation process. In most cases, where the translator of a poem could not find a suitable lexical item to replace a word, words, concepts or phrase, they may add or create a poem of their own to replace what is lost. In this case, the translator may decide to use the denotations s/he values and depart from the original. Therefore, the currency of the contemporary practice of practicing translation poetry in world literature may have its own difficulties, yet we do not have to overlook the aesthetics of imagining and reasoning and or philosophising by demystifying a foreign (translated) poetry as a recipient of foreign culture. The English writer, Ezra Pound, translates the song of a Chinese peasant in The Classic Anthology Defined by Confucius:
Yaller bird, let my corn alone,
Yaller bird, let my crawps alone,
These folks here won't let me eat,
I wanna go back whaar I can meet
the folks I used to know at home,
I got a home an'I wanna gotgoin:
Also, the Chinese Classical poetry, Lipo's 'Drinking Alone' that was originally written in Chinese characters, enjoys phonetic transcription. Understanding the poetry of other translation into English language (translated poetry) will enhance our sense of language and cultures of other lands. To explore the poetry of other cultures will broaden our vision of humanity. Human achievement in poetic translation strengthens our sense of words. English may hold one of the great traditions of poetry in the world considering her culture of poetry and literature of over six centuries of literary culture evident in the efforts of some English literary exponents like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Keats, John Keats, and William Butler Yeats, among others. Still, to rely only on the poetry of English is to know only a fraction of world poetry. This is because English is the first language of about seven percent of world populace of over 400 million people. English is spoken from London to San Francisco, Vancouver to Nassau, and Cape Town to Sydney and so on.
We will appreciate the needful beauty of reading the perspectives of foreign poets/poems in translation if we look at for instance, Chinese literature that has the oldest and uninterrupted literary tradition in the world. Poetry, an important part of the Chinese literature, spans over 3400 years. And more than a billion people speak one of the Chinese dialects while they all read the same written language.
The Sonnet
A Sonnet is a poem that is usually fourteen lines long. We wish to discuss some patterns of English poetry, paying specific attention to the Petrarchan and Shakespearean patterns of fourteen lines.
3.13.1 Petrarchan Sonnet
The Petrarchan sonnet has a different design compared to the Shakespearean sonnet. The former has a rhyme scheme that differentiates it from the Shakespearean sonnet, though noticeable areas of relativity are number of lines and metre. William Wordsworth's Sonnet, “Milton” is an example of the Petrarchan form.
Petrarchan Sonnet
Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower
Have forfeited their ancient English dower,
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
An give us manners, virtue, freedom, power
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart: c
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; d
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart c
Rhyme scheme/abbaabbacddece/
3.13.2 Shakespearean Sonnet
Unlike in the Shakespearean Sonnet in which the turning point of the poem is sustained in the Octave or Octet (The first Eight lines) and the next sixth (Sestet) lines. The pause has its position changed frequently between Octave and Sestet, sometimes appearing in the middle of the ninth line or beginning of the tenth. The Octave has a rhyme scheme of /abbaabba/ to give and strengthen unity of tone to its first Eight lines to help develop the themes of the poem. Other variants of the Sestet rime-scheme commonly found are /cdcdcd/ or /cdecde/ or any variation of these. The Miltonic sonnet introduces a change in the rime scheme of the Sestet to achieve a new rime- scheme/melody in the second half of his sonnet as in the Petrarchan.
Below is an example of Shakespearean Sonnet – William Shakespeare
Shakespearean Sonnet
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme
But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time When wasteful war shall status overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry
Nor marshis sword nor wars quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory
Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom
So, still the judgment that yourself arise
You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes
Rhyme scheme /ababcdcdefefgg/
3.14 Forms of Poetry
Form is the general idea of a poem or its design or configuration of the parts of a poem. A poem , particularly English poem, should have a form; lines of a poem may be of a particular length, hexameter, and broom straws. The closed form of a poem follows a particular pattern, “pentameter” or hexameter. A poet seeks to discover a novel and individual arrangement of words in every poem and does not use rhyme scheme or any basic metre, but sustains the reader's attention in another aesthetic form with keen awareness that agrees with the poet's thematic concern (an open form).
3.15 Evaluating Poetry
After you have made an attempt to understand the poem, its meaning, theme literary quality of expression, you should read the poem again for evaluation. You can then make your final impression or outcome of your findings about the poem, clear to your reader in an objective manner and try to avoid any prejudice. Reveal the outcome of your survey of the poem clearly and in vigorous and individual form, based on the aesthetic reality of the poem you are considering. The following stages may be considered as you go through the critical process:
What is the meaning of this poem?
What is the poet's intention?
Does his/her style conform with his/her intention?
What is the poet's impression on me?
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
1a. What is meant by meaning and intention in English poetry?
b. Differentiate between Petrarchan and Shakespearean Sonnet
c. What is your impression of poetry and translation?
4.0 CONCLUSION
In this unit, we have discussed meaning and intention in poetry, how best to approach a new poem, poetic translation, style and tones in poetry, imagery, figures of speech, poetry and forms, sound in poetry, the sonnet, rhythm, symbol, saying and suggesting in poetry, diction, sound as meaning as well as general evaluation of poetry.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, you have learnt:
- Meaning and intention in poetry
- How best to approach a new poetry
- Poetic translation
- Style and tones in poetry
- Imagery
- Figures of speech
- Poetry and its forms
- Sound as
meaning in poetry
- The sonnet
- Rhythm
- Symbol
- Diction
- Connotation as suggestive in poetry
- General evaluation of poetry
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