Talk:Poetry analysis

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I think Poetry appreciation would be a better title. --Deb

It could be pasted in the article Poetry which is hmm... a little weak ?

Thanks for the links. I'll come back some more and work on this. I don't care for the Poetry appreciation name. I am planning to add more about scansion, etc. which will make this fit well under the given title.

What's all this about "valid articles"? The Wikipedia:Literature basic topics page, the only link to this new article, has not been changed since 21 Oct 2002, and no one has objected since to a potential article entitled "How to read a poem". Let us be patient and watch this article grow in length and depth. --KF 21:38 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

That's not about the content.

Ericd

Well, as I just tried to point out, there could be / may be / will be more content in the future. I consider it rather hostile towards newcomers to start picking on them the moment they have started to edit something. KF 21:54 Jan 17, 2003 (UTC)

At the very least, there needs to be a link from Poetry - otherwise potential readers will never find the article. Deb

I do not think poetry appreciation would be a better title, so I've created a page with that title that redirects to this article. A "valid article"?? Why in Hell not? Michael Hardy 19:30 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)

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What a fantastic idea for an article!

It will probably become the most beautiful how to's in the wikipedia.

How could it not?

I'm watch this kernal grow.

It's already a top three hit in the search engine. :-)

If it said 'poetry' it might rank high titts.

What a wonderful birthday present.

Truth is the enemy of power,

power is the enemy of Truth,

Writers and Artists can vanquish lies.

Against lies, Art has always won.

[User:[Two16]] : childern should eat poems. so too should dictators.

* * *

Who can translate the above for a simple soul such as myself? I don't seem to be particularly good at interpreting poetry, for I would read: My name is Two16. I'm better than the rest of you, and this is how I've acquired the right to be cynical. -- Am I mistaken? Can anyone help me out here? --KF 17:34 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe rename this "poetry reading", and discuss the practice of reading poetry in public as well as how to do it. more encyclopedic :-) -- Tarquin 17:51 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

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Poetry reading is usually a noun. There are going to be plenty of how to's in the pedia. There are many books which have been written with that title.

KF I have put a post on your page just before coming here. It reflects poorly on the demenour of wikipedians that new users feel that there is no gentle spirit here. You were right on the feeling of superiority; but, that is reserved for tyrants. The tyrants themselves are too dull to notice: they have no idea. The could not see the error of their ways but soon they shall.

All bracketed material is editor's commentary. _________________________________________________________________________________

What a fantastic idea for an article! (Unqualified approval)

It will probably become the most beautiful how to's in the wikipedia.(defends against those who might trample it.)

How could it not? (The best writers will all have interest)

I'm watch this kernal grow. (Like 'all your base are mine' . Kernal is comp sci. The allusion in Nature is seed.)

It's already a top three hit in the search engine. :-)(Its true! And there were writers who said no one would find it)

If it said 'poetry' it might rank high there too.(Practical advice)

What a wonderful birthday present.----- ( 2nd Wikipedian B.D. Jan 15)

(The next bit is a Revolutionary call to keyboards. It echos the ride of Paul Reveere and allude to your text. It shows the power of Language to the doubters. It is meant to give hope to any wikipedian who has had their view suppressed. It echos the reality of the wikipedia where refactoring of the talk pages insures that NPOV). It is instructive that all those people who hated what I posted were left stunned and silent for much comment. They couln't even find a npov fault in it. Any tyrant in the wikipedia is a Maroon

Truth is the enemy of power,

power is the enemy of Truth,

(echos the ride of Paul Reevere in Longfellow's poem)

Writers and Artists can vanquish lies.

Against lies, Art has always won.

(Lockdown Sv Rule)

User:Two16 : childern should eat poems. so too should dictators.

(There is a very famous childern's poem How to eat a poem. The final sentence simply means that whenever possible dictators should have to eat their words like the poem which follow does. The effect together was magnificeint. A very harsh poem was placed here afterwards. I removed it after several hours cause its purpose had been served. Writer and Artist can vanquish lies. Find it in the histories. I hope that this make up for any hurt you may have felt.)

First: do not harm the innocents. I am respectfully sorry.

I would just cut and paste the entire text of How to read a poem into the poetry article. --Uncle Ed _________________________________________________________________________________

What's the relevance of including an external link to the biography of Edward Hirsch?

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I think "how-tos", especially of this sort, are by their nature too POV to be considered encyclopedic. There are certainly no widely agreed upon facts about how to read a poem. It doesn't hurt to give a historical treatment of how various well-known authors and scholars in the field have suggested reading poems, of how schools have taught it, and perhaps of prime examples. However, every statement should be qualified somehow, not delivered as fact, and the article title must be a noun. This is essential; a noun title, such as "Interpretation of poetry", says that this is an article about interpretation of poetry, while "How to read a poem" suggests that this is a how-to delivering subjective impressions of how a poem should be read, instead of objective impressions of the topic. Derrick Coetzee 10:19, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to be loosening its restrictions on non-noun titles with its series of "How-to"s. But, I think the subject of reading poetry is a little simple. That is, to me, anyone who can read can read poetry. I think the article should be on analyzing (or appreciating) poetry, which is a much more complex and deep activity. Even an article on analyzing poetry, though, should be found in Wikibooks and not here. LockeShocke 22:25, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Article name

Is Reading poetry less contentious? --Theo (Talk) 19:40, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Good work with the improvements, by the way. Filiocht 08:46, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

• A title Art of poetry might cover the subject and has a familiar ring for some. --Wetman 09:00, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  I think either would be preferable to the current title, but Reading poetry conveys more straightforwardly what the topic is about. — Matt Crypto 09:04, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Art of poetry is much wider; maybe the real problem is that this article really does not know what it wants to be about? A plan might be:
    • Intro: what makes a poem (sound patterning, compression, etc)
    • Overview of simile, metaphor, imagery and symbolism
    • Overview of rhythm, rhyme, assonance, alliteration, eye rhyme, etc
    • Different 'schools' of poetry:oral, classical, romantic, modernist, etc and how they vary in their use of the above elements
    • Poetry in different cultures
    • Sample 'readings' of, say, a sonnet and a haiku (to keep it short)

What does anyone think of this idea? Filiocht 09:14, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

Your proposal makes a lot of sense to me. I will await other views before being bold, however. --Theo (Talk) 11:43, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And upon relection, I realise that we have to be very careful not to cover the same ground as Poetry. I am sure that there is an independent article here but I cannot define it clearly. It is about interpreting poetry by analysis and declamation but it is not (and possibly should not be) a tutorial (a How to … article).

Agreed, but the Poetry article doesn't really explain these terms, it links to them. Nominating for Wikipedia:Literature collaboration of the fortnight Filiocht 12:30, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)

Also, Filiocht, do you remember that Poetic diction page that you dropped into our laps, Geogre's and mine, a ways back, and went gallivanting off while we did a braindump on it? It's notably incomplete and unbalanced, and the usual bad things (meaning Eurocentric), but it covers some of the same ground as what you outline above. Altogether, it makes my brain hurt to think about how to organize information over a set of poetry articles. However painful, maybe that needs to be our starting-point? Bishonen | Talk 15:44, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite

I may have taken "be bold" too literally (I'm new). I rewrote the page completely, in response to comments on "Pages needing attention". I had planned to cover specific aspects of poetry analysis as suggested above by Filiocht, but after writing a description of the process, and then wikifying that, I found that most of this material (overview of symbolism, overview of meter, etc.) are already well covered in other articles (Poetry is a featured article). So, instead I described the process of analyzing poetry, through specific examples, that I hope will show the reader what poetry analysis is and how to use the information in these other articles. In short, I thought that, yes, the page did need major work, and, no, I shouldn't re-invent a bunch of wheels. I am very open to making what I put up into an Overview section, and following it with separate sections on more specific topics, but my sense is that we may find that these separate sections already well covered in some cases (metrics and scanscion, for example) or in others should be given their own articles (such as schools of poetry). BradGad 09:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is such merit in the material that BradGad proposed that I have 'rescued' it to /Draft so that it can be reworked and merged into the main article. The subpage can be deleted once the redrafting is complete. --Theo (Talk) 12:12, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

—and then I merged it all myself. --Theo (Talk) 19:05, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Page organization

There is good material on this page, but its current organization strikes me as haphazard. What would folks think of the following organization, with "Overview" being mostly what is now in "Close reading"? The idea would be that the Overview gives readers an idea of what poetry analysis is, why it might be worthwhile to undertake, and how to go about it, and the subsequent sections would provide critical tools and concepts that readers would need to undertake poetry analysis on their own.

1. Poetry analysis
2. Overview
3. Tools for poetry analysis
   1. Poetic forms
      1. Closed forms
      2. Open forms
   2. Imagery and symbolism
   3. Meter and rhyme
4. Approaches to poetry analysis
   1. Reading poetry aloud
   2. Poetry in different cultures
5. References
6. External links

Obviously this is not exhaustive, but it does seem to me to be an extensible and maintainable structure. BradGad (Talk) 21:48, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Excellent structure ... much more coherent and fluid than my reworking of Filiocht's suggestion. Go for it! --Theo (Talk) 22:06, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have removed the See Also section because all those articles are already wiki-linked into the body of the article. --Theo (Talk) 08:57, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Article size

Although we have exceeded the 32KB guideline, I think that we should keep working at the current level until the article stabilises. We may then see enhancing ways to reduce the article size by moving some material into other articles. We risk losing coherence if we chop up the article now. This is a complex subject and may not be suited to a 32KB limit. --Theo (Talk) 09:10, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No chopping! I'll just paste in my recent message on the subject on BradGad's page:

Hey, BradGad, this is just to chime in with Theo, on whose page I happened to notice your posts about article length: ignore the 32 k guideline! It doesn't have the support of the community any more. Nobody invokes in on WP:FAC, for instance, the way they did a few months ago, that battle has been won. If anybody tells you different, please come to me for ammunition, I have some very telling FAC discussions I could point them to. Great work on the Poetry analysis! --Bishonen | Talk 12:47, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback! :) On the speedy deletion draft thing... Does that just take care of itself? Do you admins do the deleting? BradGad (Talk) 17:56, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We what? Nobody here but us chickens, Brad. :-) But yes, I believe adding the deletebecause tag is all you need to do. It's supposed to catch the attention of a speedyhunting admin, who will proceed to make a judgement call to either delete the page or remove the tag. If I've understood it. Bishonen | Talk 19:16, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I expect that that nice Mr. Filiocht will do it when he arrives in the morning! [Hint to Filiocht] --Theo (Talk) 22:22, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The big picture

I feel that what we are missing here is a section on analysing the big picture: What is the 'story' that is being told? Not the literal story but the heart of the poem. For example: Another tells of a buried child; The Destruction of Sennacherib tells of the last days of the Assyrian king; The silken tent compares a woman to a tent. In a sense, this about the 'theme' of a poem. It also embraces the voice of the poem (who is speaking), and the rest of the of Kipling's 'honest serving men': the events in the poem; when these occur; where is the 'speaker' and where do the events occur; why does the speaker speak? William Harmon has suggested that starting an analysis with: "This poem dramatizes the conflict between …" is a key technique and it fits into this big picture approach. [And now I find that Harmon is a red link, so I should explain that he is Professor of English at University of North Carolina, author of five books of poetry and editor of A Handbook to Literature.] My problem is that I cannot see how this fits in the existing article structure. Harmon's dramatic conflict approach feels like a school of criticism (does anyone know its name?) but the overall concept feels like a subsection of the Overview (which feels like a form of bloat).--Theo (Talk) 15:01, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have now moved this into the Imagery and symbolism section and expanded that. --Theo (Talk) 13:25, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Excellent article!

Someone should nominate this for featured article. Revolución 02:52, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

We are the only someones here, Revolución. There is nothing to stop you nominating the article; indeed, I encourage you to do so. I already have an FAC in train, which is why I am not being bold myself. --Theo (Talk) 11:23, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Enneameter & Decameter

This article links to monometer through octameter, and then says that those with more than 8 are quite rare. How common, to be exact, are those with 9 or 10?? Georgia guy 00:53, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Without surveying the entire canon of poetry it is impossible to be exact. I am unaware of any poems using anything more than eight feet but I do not read much experimental poetry and scansion is not always on my mind. --Theo (Talk) 06:52, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Schools of poetry

Filiocht has suggested that ==Schools of poetry== and ==Schools of criticism== should be our next area of focus. The more I thought about the former, the more convinced I became that it should be a separate article linked from here and Poetry, at a minimum. So I synthesised List of schools of poetry. It needs expanding, tidying, and, more pertinently, a summary should be written in the section here. Precis is not my strength so would someone else like to have a crack at that? --Theo (Talk) 23:31, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds more like a textbook than an encyclopedia

This article has a lot of great content, but the form and tone are of a textbook. The reader is carefully led through many examples. I would suggest lots of work to tighten up the article and remove the "teacher's voice", as outlined by the item "Page organization" above. NuclearWinner 21:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

In addition, there are way too many dashes in the article. Wikipediarules2221 07:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section needed

(No comment required) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.241.232.122 (talk) 06:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism?

The introduction to this article is eerily similar to this site http://languageisavirus.com/poetry-guide/poetry_analysis.html 58.174.96.47 (talk) 11:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

That site uses material from WP ... if you scroll down to the bottom you'll see the disclaimer. Eniagrom (talk) 22:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)