Poetry and Meaning

Poetry and Meaning

What affects the meaning?

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how rhyme and repetition has on a poem's meaning

• Analyze how tone can impact meaning

Form and Structure on Meaning

Have you ever been watching a film and noticed that the camera angle or the music for the scene influences the way that you understand what is happening? Scary music and certain camera angles tell you that the scene you are watching is a scary scene, for example.

Just like a scene in a film, the way that a poem is presented tells you what the poem is going to be about. It is like a shorthand, code, or clue to the content of the piece.

Form and Structure

Two things determine the form and structure of a poem: rhyme scheme and meter. Rhyme scheme is the pattern of the rhyming words at the end of each line and meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in each line. Each type of poem is going to use a certain rhyme scheme and meter, which can be clues to let you know the meaning of the poem.

The Song of the Old Mother by William Butler Yeats

I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blow

Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;

And then I must scrub and bake and sweep

Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;

The AABB rhyme scheme helps tie together the parts of each idea-starting the fire and cleaning all day.

Ending each line with a group of verbs (kneel and blow; flicker and glow; bake and sweep; blink and peep) suggest the day-in and day-out nature of the woman's work.

Poem's Meaning

The work of a mother is ongoing and difficult.

"Your Turn!!"

Directions: Find the rhyme scheme and repetition in the poem.

The Barred Owl by Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

What did you find?

Rhyme scheme?

Repetition?

Meaning?

Answers

Rhyme scheme: The AABB rhyme scheme is similar to a lullaby used to help a child fall asleep.

Repetition: Who cooks for you?

Meaning: Calming words are the best thing to ease a child's fears, but the reality of the owl's actions are unsettling.

Tone

Tone is the attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words, or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

Tone: Frost tells us about his past with a “sigh,” this gives the above lines an unhappy tone. This tone leads us into thinking that the speaker in the poem had to make a difficult choice.

The Road Not Taken

What is the tone?

Reflection on these past choices, and opportunities

What words or phrases or used to let you know?

""Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

"Your Turn"

Determine the Tone

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence

Piping down the valleys wild 

Piping songs of pleasant glee 

On a cloud I saw a child. 

And he laughing said to me. 

Pipe a song about a Lamb; 

So I piped with merry chear, 

Piper pipe that song again— 

So I piped, he wept to hear.

What is the tone?

What words or phrases or used to let you know?

Answers

*The tone of the poem is positive and pleasant.

*The poet uses phrases like “merry cheer” and “piping songs of pleasant glee”. Clearly, the narrator is happy.

*I feel happy too, when I read this poem. It makes me think of a young child laughing and playing to music.

Great Job!

Now go to Canvas and complete your Compare and Contrast Poetry assignment. Remember, look for rhyme scheme, repetition, and tone!