Poetry Analysis

I. Meaning

 Definition of Poetry: “Poetry is a disciplined,

compact, verbal utterance, in some more or less
musical mode, dealing with aspects of internal and
external reality in some meaningful way” (Raffel).

 Poetry consists of both literal and non-literal

(figurative or metaphorical) language. An example in
everyday language is “Let’s play tennis, and I’ll beat
you to a bloody pulp.”

“The Pasture” by Robert Frost

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long. You come too.

Poem appears to be literal, but there is a clear

metaphorical meaning.

“My Heart Leaps Up” by William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold

 A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

This poem clearly has a figurative meaning.

 Definition of Persona: “A voice or character

representing the speaker in a literary work.”

In poetry, it is easy to assume that the character and

the poet are one and the same, and therefore a real
person, which can lead to an inaccurate analysis of
meaning. A poem can be about emotions without
being about people actually having those emotions.

“I heard a Fly buzz when I died” by Emily Dickinson

I heard a fly buzz when I died;

The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
 I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.

Did this event literally happen to Emily Dickinson?

 Definition of metaphor: highly-focused, nonliteral

language that explains one thing by a reference to
something else. Metaphor is a poetic device which
universally and timelessly sits at the center of most
poetic expression.

Green grape, and you refused me,

Ripe grape, and you sent me packing.
Must you deny me a bite of your raisin?
(Anonymous)

“The Sick Rose” by William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
 Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

“Spilt Milk” by William Butler Yeats

We that have done and thought,

That have thought and done,
Must ramble, and thin out
Like milk spilt on a stone.

“The World Is Too Much With Us” by William

Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

II. Techniques
 Poetic Music: musicality is poetry’s bottom line.
There must be an organized rhythmic variety.

“To the Reader” by Denise Levertov

As you read, a white bear leisurely

pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods

lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read

the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark pages.

When read aloud, this poem shows delicacy of rhythm and

rhythmic variety. Repetition, alliteration, diction, and line
length are utilized to help create a specific meter and
musicality.

“Break of Day” by John Donne

'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?

O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise, because 'tis light?
Did we lie down, because 'twas night?
 Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither
Should in despite of light keep us together.

Light hath no tongue, but is all eye;

If it could speak as well as spy,
This were the worst that it could say -
That being well, I fain would stay,
And that I loved my heart and honour so,
That I would not from her, that had them, go.

Must business thee from hence remove?

Oh, that's the worst disease of love!
The poor, the foul, the false, love can
Admit, but not the busied man.
He which hath business, and makes love, doth do
Such wrong as when a married man doth woo.

The twisting, long-breathed complexity of Donne’s music

perfectly matches that of his thought.

 Contrast: Metaphor is a process of comparison while

contrast is the opposite, or dissociation. Both can be
illuminating.

“Woman’s Constancy” by John Donne

NOW thou hast loved me one whole day,

To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say ?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow ?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were ?
 Or that oaths made in reverential fear
Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear ?
Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose ?
Or, your own end to justify,
For having purposed change and falsehood, you
Can have no way but falsehood to be true ?
Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could
Dispute, and conquer, if I would ;
Which I abstain to do,
For by to-morrow I may think so too.

 Balance: Balance in poetry is not a substantive issue

but a technical one. Balance comprises of three
major components: continuity, consistency, and
appropriateness. It is a matter of functional
integration or mensura-things in the proper places
and order.

“Cherry-ripe” by Robert Herrick

CHERRY-RIPE, ripe, ripe, I cry,

Full and fair ones; come and buy.
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer: There
Where my Julia's lips do smile;
There's the land, or cherry-isle,
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.
 “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert
Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 Precision: precision is exactness rather than mere

correctness. Each word must do for the line, stanza,
and poem what is required. Diction plays a big role
in establishing precision.

“The Window” by Candice Ward

I sit on the inside of this window

 Doing piece-work: woodcut, quilt square,
the shape of things to come.

Next door, you putter,

running water. Soon you will bring me
coffee, years before I need it.

Outside in the twilight,

a child playing some street game
calls: come closer

as the bark on the tree

darkens with evening and the last
light empties from a curve of sky

I have been smelling coffee

all my life. Cold and so much
older when you bring me some,

I sit on the inside

of this window, close
as I can come.

Each word in this poem has multiple purposes and

meanings. Their combination is so precise that the loss of
one word would change or obscure the poem’s meaning.

 Obscurity: obscurity refers to poems whose meaning

is overly difficult or impossible to ascertain.
However, a difficult poem is not necessarily obscure.
Thorough analysis of meaning requires some research
of the poet, the time period, and subject.

“The Tiger” by William Blake

TIGER, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

 In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Knowing that this poem was written in England during its

Industrial Revolution clears up much of the obscurity.

III. Devices

 Rhyme: end, internal, and slant rhyme are an

integral part of a poem, truly organic and supportive
to its meaning.

“The Splendor Falls” by Lord Alfred Tennyson

The splendor falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, o hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

 Alliteration: the use of words beginning with the same

consonant sound.

 Repetition; Refrain: repetition of a single word,

phrase, or line; when it becomes a regularly repeated
feature of a poem, it turns into a refrain.

Astrophil and Stella, “#20” by Sir Philip Sidney

Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound: fly,

See there that boy, that murdering boy I say,
Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie,
Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.
So tyrant he no fitter place could spy,
Nor so fair level in so secret stay,
As that sweet black which veils the heav’nly eye:
There himself with his shot he close doth lay.
Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,
And stayed pleas’d with the prospect of the place,
While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:
But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,
And then I descried the glist’ring of his dart:
But ere I could fly thence, it pierced my heart.

 Allusion: a literary device that stimulates ideas,

associations, and extra information in the reader's
 mind with only a word or two. Allusion means
“reference.” It relies on the reader being able to
understand the allusion and being familiar with all of
the meaning hidden behind the words.

Swell me a bowl with lusty wine,

Till I may see the plump Lyaeus swim
Above the brim:
I drink as I would write,
In flowing measure, filled with flame, and spright. (Ben
Jonson)

Lyaeus is another name for Dionysus or Bacchus, the god

of wine and intoxication. The allusion, in combination
with visual detail, enhances meaning.

 Onomatopoeia: poetic device by which sound is used

to communicate sense. For example, the word
“gargle” sounds like the sound that is made and heard
when exhaled air is forced through a liquid held in the
back of the mouth, with the head tilted back.

From An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense;

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
 The line too labors, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

This poem uses onomatopoeia to explain how it should be

properly used and not over-used.

IV. Shapes and Structures

 Couplets: a two-line form, usually rhyming AA. The

length of the line varies; however, the length of both
lines is generally the same. A heroic couplet requires
both that the lines be of uniform length (pentameter)
and that the sense of the couplet be contained within
the two lines themselves without spilling over to the
next lines. A poem may be made up of one couplet or
many.

I never dared be radical when young

For fear it would make me conservative when old. (Robert
Frost)

If all you boast of your great art be true,

Sure, willing poverty lives most in you. (Ben Jonson)

 Quatrain: the basic four-line form is usually more

than two couplets joined. The rhyme scheme may be
changed to ABAB, ABCB, or ABBA. Some do not
rhyme at all. Each line is usually four to five metrical
feet, and all lines are the same length.
“Holy Thursday” by William Blake

Is this a holy thing to see,

In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reducd to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song!

Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor,
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine.

And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns
It is eternal winter there.

For where-e'er the sun does shine,

And where-e'er the rain does fall:
Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

“Bitter-Sweet” By George Herbert

Ah, my dear angry Lord,

Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;

 I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.

 Ballad and Hymn: both or folk forms that are meant

to be sung rather than read, which probably accounts
for their regular rhythm (four metrical feet then three)
and the perfect rhyme of their even-numbered lines.

Hark, hark! The lark at heaven’s gate sings,

And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise;
Arise, arise! (William Shakespeare)

What I can do–I will-

Though it be little as a daffodil-
That I cannot-must be
Unknown to possibility- (Emily Dickinson)

 Sonnets: all sonnets have fourteen lines, are closely

rhymed, are written in lines of five metrical feet, and
have internal divisions. The sonnet or sonetto is
Italian in origin, so its basic format complements the
structure of the Italian language. One of the most
common is the Petrarchan sonnet, which has a rhyme
scheme of ABBAABBA CDCDCD. The English
 versions are chiefly the Spenserian and
Shakespearean. In the Shakespearean sonnet, there
are four basic sections instead of two: three
quatrains, each separately rhymed, and a concluding
couplet, also separately rhymed. The rhyme pattern is
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 Limerick: a five-line form written in anapestic feet,

the first, second, and fifth lines being three metrical
feet in length, the third and fourth lines being two
metrical feet. The rhyme scheme is AABBA. Virtually,
all limericks are humorous; many are bawdy.

There once was a man named Bright,

 Who exceeded the speed of light,
He’d go on his way
At the first light of day
And return on the previous
night.

There was a young belle of Old Natchez,

Whose garments were always in patchez,
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes
She drawled, When Ah itches, Ah scratches! (Ogden Nash)

 Free form poems are not formless but do not follow

the traditional forms.

“Like They Say” by Robert Creeley

Underneath the tree on some

soft grass I sat, I

watched two happy

woodpeckers be dis-

turbed by my presence. And

why not, I thought to

myself, why
not.

Enjambement: meaning that runs over one line or a

couplet to the next line or couplet without interruption.
 Concrete poetry is a form in which shape and visual
effects are more important than traditional notions of
meaning.

silencio silencio silencio

silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio
silencio silencio silencio
(Eugen Gomringer)

There are several other forms of poetry which include:

ballade, monologue, dialogue, rondeau, sestina, song, etc.

V. Metrics

Musicality and metrics, although related, are not the same

thing, the former having to do with rhythm, word
groupings, and word choice, and the latter having to do
only with conventional patterning of lines. English is an
accentual language, while French and Spanish are syllabic,
so metrics are based on the accented or stressed sounds
within a line. By far, the English language lends itself to
iambic meter. In fact, it is difficult to find poetry written in
the other types. One exception is the limerick which is
anapestic.

 Metrical foot: for English poetry, is defined as one

stressed syllable and the number of unstressed
syllables, from zero to four, that surround the stressed
 syllable. No foot has more than one stressed syllable.
` = stressed, ~ = unstressed. Natural reading stress
does not determine which syllables are stressed. The
analysis is made one foot at a time relative to the all of
the syllables present in the particular foot, so the same
syllable of the same word could be stressed or
unstressed in different feet. Confusing!

~ ` = iambic
` ~ = trochaic
~ ~ `= anapestic
` ~ ~= dactylic

There are, in theory, no limit to the number of metrical feet

per line, but in practice, the maximum is pretty much eight.
The conventional names are monometer, dimeter, trimeter,
tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, septameter, and
octameter. The metric analysis of a poem in referred to as
scansion. Metrical feet are indifferent to word division or
punctuation, so a poem’s scansion can be difficult to
determine. It is more of an art than a science.