Poetry Test 1
Select individual images that demonstrate these three uses of imagery, and explain how they work.
Every line in "Morning at Night" by Robert Browning contains some image. The gray sea, the long black land, the yellow half-moon, the startled little waves with their fiery ringlets, and the blue spurt of the lighted march appeal to our sense of sight and convey shape color and motion. The warm sea-scented beach appeals to both the sense of smell and the sense of touch. The pushing prow of the boat on the slushy sand, the tap at the pane, the quick scratch of the match, the low speech of the lovers, and the sound of their hearts beating all appeal to the sense of hearing.
Explain the distinction between abstract statements and concrete, image-bearing statements, providing examples.
Imagery is an invaluable resource for poets because it evokes vivid experience, conveys emotion, suggests ideas, and causes a mental reproduction of the senses. Poets seek for image-bearing words in preference to abstract or non-image-bearing words. (Hummingbird example, "Meeting at Night" by Robert Browning, "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Spring in the Classroom" by Mary Oliver).
State the definition of poetic imagery.
Imagery may be defined as the representation through language of sense experience. 1. Visual imagery - suggests a mental picture, something seen in the mind's eye 2. Auditory imagery - represents a sound 3. Olfactory imagery - represents a smell 4. Gustatory imagery - represents a taste 5. Tactile imagery - represents touch (hardness, softness, wetness morning heat or cold) 6. Organic imagery - represents an internal sensation (hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea) 7. Kinesthetic imagery - represents movement or tension in the muscles or joints
Describe the uses of language: information, experience, persuasion.
Information is the most common use of language. It is the practical use of language that helps us with the ordinary business of living. For example, "I like this movie," or "George Washington was the first president of the United States." Short stories, plays, and poems exist to bring us a sense a sense and a perception of life, to widen and sharpen our contacts with existence. Their concern is with experience. We all have an inner need to live more deeply and fully and with greater awareness, to know the experience of others, and to understand our own experience better. Experience is the literary use of language, for literature is not only an aid to living but a means of living. Advertisements, political speeches, sermons, some poems, etc. use the instrument of persuasion, or argument.
Consider the difference between the means and the ends in determining the central purpose of a poem.
It is important to distinguish means from ends. In "Is my team plowing" by A. E. Housman a man speaks from the grave, but this does not mean Housman believes in immortality. The purpose of Housman's poem is to communicate poignantly a certain truth about human life: life goes on after our deaths pretty much as it did before - our dying does not disturb the universe. It dramatizes the irrational sense of betrayal and guilt that may follow the death of a friend. The poem achieves this purpose by means of a dramatic framework in which a dead man converses with his still-living friend. It is simply an effective means by which we can learn how Housman felt a man's death affected the life he left behind. The question "By what means is the purpose achieved?" is partially answered by describing the poem's dramatic framework (if it has any).
Differentiate between ordinary language and poetic language.
Ordinary language is used in everyday conversations. It is directed at the understanding of the listener. Poetic language is a more artistic form of ordinary language. It has four dimensions and is directed towards the listener's senses, emotions, understanding, and imagination.
Determine which ideas in this chapter are exemplified in the following poems.
- "Terence, this is stupid stuff" by A. E. Housman - it would be silly to assume that Housman himself ever got drunk at Ludlow fair and laid down in a muddy ditch on the side of the road. However, the poem reflects Housman's beliefs that people get drunk when they want to hide from the world. Poetry helps us face reality. Even reading depressing poems can help us prepare for the losses and problems we face in life. - "The Man He Killed" by Thomas Hardy - the speaker is a soldier who killed a man for the first time during the battle. He is not a career soldier and only enlisted because he was out of work. He is a working-class man who speaks a simple and colloquial language ("nipperkin," "list," "off-hand-like," "traps,"). He is a friendly man who enjoys a neighborly drink at the bar and will happily lend his friends money if they need it and he has it. He knows the struggles of being poor. If he were in any other situation, he would be mortified that he took a human life. He even struggles with it now. He is simple-minded, so he answers the question of "why" he did it with "because he was my foe." He never analyzes or thinks about why this man was his foe. Clearly, this poem is dramatic, and we don't need to know anything about Hardy's life to know it's dramatic. The purpose of this poem is pretty clear: to make us realize more clearly the irrationality of war. The confusion and puzzlement of the speaker may be our confusion and puzzlement. Even if we have a better answer than the speaker, we have a greater awareness, after reading the poem, of the fundamental irrationality in war that makes men kill other men who are supposed to be enemies but could be friendly in any other situation.
Determine which ideas in this chapter are exemplified in the following poems.
- "Winter" example already discussed - "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson - the point is not to inform us about the eagle. We experience how mighty and powerful. The eagle is called "lonely," which normally has a negative connotation, but it makes the eagle seem powerful, flying alone above the world. This poem also does not have a moral. There is no lesson to be learned. We simply get the experience of watching the mighty eagle from below and then at the same level as it. - "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams - a very short poem that says a lot through just 16 words. We learn that the poem describes how important a wheelbarrow is to farm life. It carries water to the crops and quenches the thirst of the animals. Without the red wheelbarrow, life wouldn't survive or flourish. It is very condensed, but it speaks volumes. We can imagine how the farmer would struggle without the wheelbarrow. We worry that he could lose his livelihood. We see how important the wheelbarrow is. Something that seems so unimportant is actually vital to the survival of the farm.
Review the four major contributions of figurative language.
1. Figurative language affords us imaginative pleasure. 2. Figures of speech are a way of bringing additional imagery into verse, of making the abstract concrete, of making poetry more sensuous. 3. Figures of speech are a way of adding emotional intensity to otherwise merely informative statements and of conveying attitudes along with information. 4. Figures of speech are an effective means of concentration, a way of saying much in brief compass.
Review the five preliminary suggestions for reading poems.
1. Read a poem more than once. 2. Get in the habit of using an online dictionary. 3. Read so that you hear the sounds of the words in your mind. 4. Always pay careful attention to what the poem is saying. 5. Practice reading poems aloud.
Explain how identifying the speaker and the occasion of the poem shows the dramatic quality of poetry.
A speaker who uses first-person pronouns is not always the poet. Poets put versions of themselves or their thoughts in their poems and present a person who is like themselves but is shaped to fit the needs of the poem. We must be careful identifying anything in the poem with the biography of the poet. However, sometimes events or ideas in a poem will help us understand some episodes in the poet's life. Knowledge of a poet's life may help us understand a poem. We may think of every poem as being to some degree dramatic (talking about the fictional character in a particular situation and not the person who wrote the poem).
Explain how words accumulate the connotations.
A word acquires it's connotations from its past history and associations and from the way and circumstances in which it has been used. (Ex - "home" - by denotation means only a p,ace where one lives; by connotation it suggests security, love, comfort, and family).
Demonstrate that ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings contribute to the richness of poetic language.
Ambiguity leads to extraordinary richness of meaning. Not all poems must have ambiguous language and multiple meanings to be rich in language. But having such language allows the poet to evoke many thoughts and emotions in us with just a few words.
Distinguish between connotation and denotation as components of words.
Denotation is the dictionary definition of the word. It is the more basic part of the meaning. Connotation is what the word suggests beyond what it expresses - its overtones of meaning.
Show how levels of diction may characterize the speaker in a poem.
Determining the level of diction in a poem may provide clear insight into the purpose of the poem by helping to characterize the speaker. Sometimes a poet may import a word from one level or area of language into a poem composed of mostly words from a different level or area. If this is done clumsily, the result will be incongruous and sloppy; if it is done skillfully, the result will be a shock and surprise and increment oof meaning for the reader. In fact, the many varieties of language open to poets provide their richest resource. Their task is one of constant exploration and discovery. They always search for the secret affinities of words that allow them to be brought together with soft explosions of meaning.
Explore the ways in which a word may have multiple denotations, and multiple connotations, showing that different denotations may have different connotations.
If we look up spring in the dictionary the word "spring," we will see that it has between 25-30 distinguishable meanings. It can mean (1) a pounce or leap, (2) a season of the year, (3) a natural source of water, (4) a coiled elastic wire, etc. The word has a variety of denotations, making it have a variety of connotations as well. We must be careful to define precisely by context which denotation is intended. However, poets take advantage of the fact that some words have multiple denotations by using it to mean more than one thing at a time. Edith Sitwell says in one of her poems, "this is the time of the wild spring and the mating of the tigers." She uses the word "spring" to denote both a season of the year and a sudden leap. She uses the word "tigers" instead of "birds" or "deer" because it has a connotation of fierceness and wildness that the others lack. The two denotations of "spring" are appropriately possessed of contrasting connotations: the season is positive in its implications, whereas a sudden leap in a line that includes "tigers" may connote the pouncing of a beast of prey. In "Mirror," by Sylvia Plath, the word "swallow" denotes both accepting without question and consuming or devouring, and so connotes both an inability to think and an obliteration or destruction.
Distinguish between language used literally and language used figuratively, and consider why poetry is often figurative.
Literal language means exactly what it says, while figurative language uses similes, metaphors, personification, and apostrophe tp describe something often through comparison with something different. Poems are analyzed more closely than other writing and people find figurative language in them which may or may not have been intended.
Consider how looking for moral instruction or beauty are limiting approaches.
Literature exists to communicate significant (because it is concentrated and organized) experience. It's function is to allow us to imaginatively participate in it. It allows us, through imagination, to live more fully, more deeply, more richly, and with greater awareness. It does this in two ways: broadening our experience or deepening our experience. Broadening makes us acquainted with a range of experience with which in the ordinary course of events we might have no contact. Deepening our experience makes us feel more poignantly and more understandingly the everyday experiences all of us have, and it enlarges our perspectives and breaks down some of the limits we may feel. Not all literature has a moral or lesson, and not all of it is beautiful. Some of it is both, some of it is neither. It is wrong to expect all literature to have a lesson or to be beautiful, or to have both. For example, Shakespeare's "Winter" describes the cold and unpleasant life of winter in the 16th century. While there are some pleasant parts of the poem, such as Tom bringing logs in for the fire, a lot of the details of the poem talk about the more negative side of winter, such as Dick the shepherd blowing on his fingers to warm them up and Marian's nose being red and raw from the cold weather. This poem also has no moral.
Review the four dimensions of experience that poetry involves.
Poetic language is used to communicate experience, so it must be directed at the whole person, not just at one's understanding. It must involve not only our intelligence, but also our senses, emotions, and imagination. To the intellectual dimension, poetry adds a sensuous dimension, an emotional dimension, and an imaginative dimension.
Explore the ways in which the context will determine which denotations and which connotations are relevant in a poem.
Poets seek to use the most meaningful words, and these vary from one context to another. Usually, poems are pitched in one key. In Emily Dickinson's "There is no Frigate like a Book" and in Thomas Hardy's "The Man He Killed ," the words are chosen from quite different areas of language, but both poets chose the most meaningful words for their own poetic context. Dickinson used words with romantic connotations ("frigate" - exploration and adventure; "coursers" - beauty, spirit, and speed; "chariot" - speed and the ability to go through the air as well as on land). Hardy used simple, colloquial language because the poem's speaker was a working-class man.
Relate imagery to its uses in conveying emotion, suggesting ideas, and mentally evoking sense experience.
Robert Browning's "Meeting at Night" is about love. Specifically, how everything is beautiful when you're in love, the small things become important, and your loved one becomes the most important person in the world. His poem doesn't actually say any of this, and doesn't even say the word love at all. His business is to communicate experience, not information. He does this in two ways. First, he presents us with a specific situation, in which a lover goes to meet his love. Second, he describes the lover's journey so vividly in terms of sense impressions that the reader virtually sees and hears what the what the lover saw and heard and seems to share his anticipation and excitement.
Define the figures of comparison (simile and metaphor; personification and apostrophe), and rank them in order of their emotional effectiveness.
Simile and metaphor are both used as a means of comparing things that are essentially unlike. The only distinction between them is that in simile, the comparison is expressed by the use of some word or phrase, such as like, as than, similar to, resembles, or seems. In metaphor, the comparison is not expressed but is created when a figurative term is substituted for or identified with the literal form. Personification consists of giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, an object, or a concept. Apostrophe consists of addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and alive and could reply to what is being said. 1. Metaphor 2. Simile 3. Personification 4. Apostrophe
Define the figures of congruence or correspondence (synecdoche and metonymy).
Synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant) are alike in that both substitute some significant detail or quality of an experience for the experience itself.
Explore the concept of a "central purpose" of a poem.
The purpose may be to tell a story, to reveal human character, to impart a vivid impression of a scene, to express a mood or an emotion, or to convey vividly some idea or attitude. Whatever it is, we have to determine it for ourselves and define it mentally as precisely as possible. We can fully understand the meanings and functions of poems by relating the various details in the poem to the central purpose or theme of the poem. Then, we can begin to assess the value of the poem and determine whether it is a good one or a poor one.
Show that specificity in an image contributes to its sharpness and vividness.
The sharpness and vividness of an image depends on how specific it is and on the poet's use of effective detail. For example, the word "hummingbird" conveys a more definite image than "bird" does, but "ruby-throated hummingbird" is sharper and more specific. To represent something vividly, a poet does not need to describe it completely. One or two especially sharp and representative details will often serve, inviting the reader's imagination to fill in the rest. Alfred, Lord Tennyson in "The Eagle" gives one visual detail about the eagle. He says the eagle "clasps the crag with crooked hands," and it is a short, but memorable and effective detail. In Mary Oliver's "Spring in the Classroom," it does not say why the students grow to hate their teacher,but through a series of contrasted images leads us to feel their frustration and desire.
Explain the distinctions between poetry and other imaginative literature.
There is no sharp distinction between them. Their difference is one of degree. Poetry is the most condensed and concentrated form of literature. It is language whose individual lines, either because of their own brilliance or because they focus so powerfully on what has gone before, have a higher voltage than most language. Poetry is language that grows frequently incandescent, giving off both light and heat.
List the steps in paraphrasing, and help create paraphrases of several poems, showing how paraphrase helps to clarify the theme.
To paraphrase a poem means to restate it in different language, so as to make its prose sense as plain as possible. It may be longer or shorter than the poem, but it should contain all the ideas in the poem in such a way as to make them clear and to make the central idea, or theme, of the poem more accessible. Paraphrase retains the speakers use of first, second, or third person, and the tenses of verbs. Paraphrase should strive for plain, direct diction, but it is not necessary or possible to avoid using some of the words in the original. It does not maintain the length and position of poetic lines. A paraphrase is only useful if you understand that it is the barest, most inadequate approximation of what the poem really "says." After paraphrasing, you should see how far short of the poem it falls, and why. The poem should say things more memorably and it's words should have a greater impact. A paraphrase may also fall short of revealing the theme of a poem. When stating a theme, be careful not to phrase it as a moral or lesson - use "a person may" instead of you shouldn't.
