3460 Session 2: Ways of Reading

1
3460 Session 2 Ways of Reading

• Session Aims
• Introduce close reading of poems
• Introduce formal analysis of poems
• Form
• Metrics
• Rhyme
• Fields of meaning
• Poetic devices
• Ruben Darío, Yo persigo una forma

2
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Form
• What is on the page?
• How is it organised or divided up?
• Verses
• Lines
• Line length
• Note you do not even need to understand the
  words yet.

3
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Metre
• How long are the lines?
• Read the poem out loud
• Does it move quickly or slowly?
• Does it have a regular beat or not?
• Count the syllables
• Remember elision of final/initial vowels
• Final stressed syllable one syllable count
• Count the stresses
• Accented words, nouns, pronouns and verbs
• How are they distributed?

4
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Rhyme
• Compare last two syllables of lines
• Spanish assonance counts as rhyme
• What patterns can you detect?

5
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Syntax
• How are sentences organised?
• How do they relate to the lines of verse or
  verses?
• Is the syntax straightforward, or more complex
  than everyday speech?

6
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Lexical
• Describe the register (implicit social and
  intellectual level) of the language
• What groups or fields of related words can you
  detect? Can these be divided up at all?

7
3460 What to look for in a poem?

• Poetic devices
• Use of e.g.
• metaphor
• metonym
• synecdoche
• allusion
• symbol
• imagery,
• synaesthesia
• hyperbaton
• Etc

8
3460 Darío, Yo persigo

• What more can you say about the poem now?
• For next week
• In groups, choose one of the essays (Barthes,
  Calvino or Todorov)
• Read it carefully, discuss it and be prepared to
  answer the following questions
• What is the pieces basic argument?
• What examples does the piece give?
• Do you agree with the author? Why?