Jerz: EL150 (Intro to Literary Study)


22 Jan 2007

How Does a Poem Mean?

In high school, you may have gotten credit for being able to paraphrase poems, in order to demonstrate that you understand the literal meaning of the content. But if the purpose of a poem is simply to communicate a message, why does the poet go to all the trouble to rhyme, to make classical allusions, to choose vivid images? Why didn't Emily Dickinson write,

Death really isn't all that scary. In fact, Death is like a classy gentleman who picks you up and takes you on the most important date of your life.

Why did she write this, instead?

Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
And when Edgar Allen Poe could have written,
Death always wins, so let's revel in the destruction.
why did he write:
Out--out are the lights--out all!
  And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall,
  Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
  Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
  And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
(These poetry selections are from "Because I could not stop for Death" and "Conqueror Worm.")

John Ciardi, author of the 1961 book How Does a Poem Mean?, identifies several levels in the understanding of poetry. The ability to paraphrase a poem and restate it in your own words is not literary study. In this class, instead of memorizing handouts that your teacher prepares for you, or looking up what SparkNotes says is important about a work, we will develop the ability to look carefully and closely at the actual words chosen by the author. We will look at concepts such as diction (word choice), metaphor, and rhythm. Once students can recognize these building blocks of poetry, according to Ciardi, they are ready for the next step -- the discussion of form.

Form in essence, is the way one part of a poem (one movement) thrusts against each other across silence. Any standard sonnet moves in one direction, then pauses (the pause is like a rest in music), then thrusts the final couplet against the first twelve lines, usually in a reversal. Whenever such a pause and counter thrust happens in a poem, something changes in the handling of the technical elements. If the student can be taught to identify such changes, he will have identified the poem in action. He will not need to fumble with "What does the poem mean?" He will, rather, have experienced it as a performance. He will have seen how it means.
If Ciardi had written that in the past few decades, his editor would have probably asked him not to use the masculine pronoun when referring to a general student. (See "Gender-Neutral Language.")

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