LUMIERE ENGLISH ACADEMY: HOW TO READ POETRY

 

HOW TO READ POETRY

WHAT IS POETRY?

Reading and understanding poetry is not an exact science.  It cannot be taught the way two plus two equals four.  This is because poetry evokes a different response from every single person who listens to it, depending on each person’s experience.  It is our memories which shape this experience.

This phenomenon (fact) has been compared to a mental picture of a tree.  When a person who has been reared in a particular area hears the word “tree”, he visualises an image (gets a picture in his mind) of a tree as it grows in his home environment.  When an individual hears the same word, he sees a poplar, an elm or a birch tree in his mind’s eye, while another might immediately start thinking about evergreen fir trees.  

Similarly, the person who has been lovingly nurtured by caring parents throughout infancy, toddlerhood, schooldays, teenagership and beyond receives a different mental picture when hearing the words “father” and “mother” than does the child who has been raised in a difficult relationship.  

As a rule, our personal experiences and insights are often hidden from others.  When poets pick up their pens or seat themselves in front of the computer, they tend to share their life experience with others.  What literature students are mainly concerned with in the study of poetry is to reflect on the response poetry evokes from their minds.

During the thirteen or more centuries in which English poetry has been written in various forms, many rules and traditions were introduced to the writing of poetry.  These included rhyme and rhythm patterns and figures of speech.  These enhanced the quality of literature and made the writing of poetry a very difficult exercise indeed, calling for a classical education.  During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these began to disappear from the writings of some of our most celebrated poets and free verse made its appearance in our literature.  Nevertheless, it is posited (suggested) that no-one can regard himself as a bona fide (true) critic of literature who cannot tell poetic intention from meaning or fails to know the difference between a sonnet and a quatrain, a pentameter, a hexameter and an iamb. 

RHYME PATTERNS

WHAT IS RHYME?

Rhyme is the sound at the end of a poetry line, that is repeated in the line or lines following it.  Its main function is to tie verses together and it makes poetry easy to learn.

Example of  words that rhyme: ace/base/case/dais/face/gaze/haze/lace/mace/pace/trace/ways.

WHAT ARE RHYME PATTERNS?

Rhyming words can be put at the end sentences in various patterns.  We mark these with letters of the alphabet in alphabetical sequence, beginning with A.  The first word in the rhyming pattern is marked with an A.  The word that rhymes with it is again marked with an A.  When a different sound is at the end of a line that follows, that line is marked B, and so forth.  

In simple rhymes such as ballads, which are usually narrative poems (i.e. they tell a story), the pattern is sometimes ABCBDBEB.Mmore complex pattern is contained in the  Shakespearean sonnet, which has the following rhyme pattern:ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG

The following example of a Shakespearean sonnet will explain what is meant by these words.  Check the last word of each line and correlate it with the letter of the alphabet which follows it:

 

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,        A

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,                B

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun                A

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.                 B

All men make faults, and even I in this,                          C

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,                         D

My self corrupting salving thy amiss                              C

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:                       D

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,                         E

Thy adverse party is thy Advocate,                                 F

And gainst myself a lawful plea commence,                 E

Such civil war is in my love and hate,                            F

That I an accessory needs must be,                                G

To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.            G

 

FOR TEST PURPOSES:

QUESTION 1:  What are literature students mainly concerned with in the study of poetry?

ANSWER: In the study of poetry, literature students are mainly concerned with the response poetry evokes from their minds.

QUESTION 2:  Is the response poetry evokes from the reader’s mind the only concern of students of literature?

ANSWER:  No.

QUESTION 3:  What other considerations are important in the critical analysis of poetry?

ANSWER:  Other considerations which are important in the critical analysis of poetry include technical factors such as rhyme, rhythm, metre, form, intention and figures of speech

QUESTION 4:  In what way are technical aspects such as rhyme, rhythm, metre and figures of speech important in the study of poetry?

ANSWER:  Technical aspects such as rhyme patterns rhythm, metre patterns and figures of speech are important in the study of poetry insofar as they increase and enhance the impact poetry has on our minds. 

QUESTION 5:  What is a ballad?

ANSWER:  It is a  narrative poem.  This means it tells a story.

QUESTION 6:  What is rhyme and give an example?

ANSWER: It is the end of a word at the end of the line, whose sound may be followed at the end of the word of a line which follows it.  Example: wool, full.

QUESTION 7:  How do we mark rhyme patterns.

ANSWER: By inserting (putting in) a letter of the alphabet and repeating that letter each time the rhyming word is followed by one that ends on the same sound.

QUESTION 8:  What is a Shakespearean sonnet?

ANSWER:  It is a poem consisting of fourteen lines with the following rhyme pattern: ABABCDCDEFEFGG.

 

 Luky Whittle PhD