Did you know that Poetry is considered to
be the highest form of art.
Like music, good poetry is entirely subjective,
placing beauty in the eye of the beholder...
Or is it?
Hi, I’m Vlad from EssayPro, and for this
video, our expert writers at EssayPro prepared
an in-depth exploration of Poetry Analysis
Essay Writing.
There are many kinds of poems coming from
all over the world. For example, we have:
Sonnets
Limericks
Nursery Rhymes
Flows of Consciousness
Haikus
etc.
These poems have different values, forms and themes. In fact, did you know that
Eastern and Western cultures have very different approaches to poetry?
But despite all the differences, there are
still patterns and principles that all poems share.
What Is Poetry Analysis?
Poetry analysis is the process of investigating
the form, content, structural semiotics and
history of a poem in an informed way.
It gives you the toolkit you need to understand, appreciate and experience a poem to the fullest
extent, even if it doesn’t really fit your style.
This is the same as learning to appreciate
classic music groups like The Beatles.
You may not like how they sound, but when you dig deeper into their history and learn how
they changed popular music forever, you’ll
be able to appreciate them, regardless of
your musical taste.
Poetry can be analyzed objectively, just like
the Beatles.
To understand poetry, you need to look deeper and understand what happens between the lines of a poem;
what is the poet trying to communicate?
The first rule of thumb is paying attention
to the Visual and Emotional Imagery of a poem.
Poets often use imagery to give the poem a
setting.
But Imagery can also create emotion and support
the theme of the poem. For example, a dark
blue room is a gloomy environment, while a white room may signify tranquility, or conjure up
the feeling of being in a calm and safe
location, such as a hospital.
Here’s an analysis of the imagery used in
Down By The Salley Gardens by WB Yeats:
W.B. Yeats’s “Down By the Salley Gardens”
is set in a garden of willows. In Yeats’s
homeland of Ireland, willows are a very common
tree and they’re often used for roofing
material. In the poem, the two lovers are
in a garden of willows (often described as
“weeping” because of their downward facing
branches), and the narrator looks back retrospectively
at the love he has lost. The ending of the
poem ties into the imagery of a weeping willow,
because the narrator is “full of tears”.
Poetry also uses Symbols which help convey
imagery or mood. A skull may symbolize death
while a baby flower gives the feeling of new
life and nature.
These symbols can get more complicated depending
on the era of the poetry and the individual
poet’s style. A flower in a WB Yeat’s
poem is a clear sign of romance, while a flower
in an Edgar Allen Poe’s poem will have a
much darker undertone, for example, it may
symbolically imply the tragedy of lost love, lingering in the narrator’s consciousness, forever.
Poetic symbols are fun to analyze in a poetry
analysis because they are open to a variety
of interpretations. Keep your eyes peeled
for these symbols because they are very important
to grasping the entirety of the poem as a
whole.
Poets love to be indirect. They will try to
trick you with their writing, or lure you
into some kind of twist.
That is why they say that the last line of
the poem is the one that gives everything
away.
Pay attention to the poet’s voice and tone.
Are they angry? Happy? Resentful? Regretful?
Understanding the poet’s mood will help
you get what the poet is trying to say.
Another thing that often gives the poem away
from the beginning is its Form.
If you see four-bar verses in a poem with
an A B A B rhyme scheme, then you can immediately
tell that it’s a nursery rhyme.
But poems can go from nursery rhymes to complex flows of consciousness with barely any rhyme or structure.
Poets like Shakespeare even use poetic form
to satirize and mock trendy and overused poetic
styles. Here’s a brief analysis of sonnet
130, focusing on its form.
In sonnet 130, William Shakespeare makes fun
of conventional love sonnets of the English
Renaissance. Poets like Philip Sidney often
compared their lovers to goddesses, like Venus,
and talked about them in grandiose metaphors.
To contrast this, Shakespeare focuses on the
humanity of his lover, “My mistresses eyes
are nothing like the sun ; Coral is far more
red than her lips’ red.” The poet does
this to parody poets like Sidney, and show
that he loves his mistress for her imperfections,
not for her godly qualities.
To understand why the poem used this specific
form, look at the history behind the poem.
Is this a Romantic Era poet? A Symbolist?
Is this one of the Russian Modernist poets
writing Soviet propaganda? Or is this a 1920s
Harlem Renaissance poet, who’s words are
drenched in oppression, poverty, and jazz.
Each of these poets will give different form
and structure to their writing, and the possibilities
for interpretation are endless.
Find Your Own Meanings
Poetry analysis is not limited to the things
mentioned above. After all, it’s your ideas
that matter the most.
Treat each poem individually. Learn about
the poet and what they were trying to say.
How does the poem make YOU feel?
A poetry analysis essay can focus on one or several of the elements we’ve described above.
The WB Yeats poem focuses on the imagery of
the salley gardens, and how it blends into
the character’s retrospective mood.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 is much more concerned
with form and symbolism, and how they’re
both used to parody English renaissance poets.
Both of these observations can be used as thesis statements and explored in-depth in an essay.
Poetry analysis falls under the same essay
structure as all other academic essays.
This means: an Introduction with a hook and
a Thesis, Body paragraphs explaining your
findings, and a Conclusion wrapping things
up and offering your final thoughts.
To avoid boring you to death, we have a separate
video dedicated to Essay Structure and formatting,
which you can find down the link in the description
or by clicking here.
So to recap:
Poetry Analysis is an educated investigation
of a poem.
Pay attention to the Visual and Emotional
Imagery of a poem, and note the use of Symbols,
they are important.
Focus on the voice and tone to get the mood.
Identify its form and structure to get its
genre.
And finally, write the thesis.
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Leave a comment below with your favourite
poem, and tell us why it is your favourite;
what made it so special?
Anyways, guys, thanks for watching, and I'll
see ya guys on the next video!
Peace
