Studying poetry

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A poem makes its impact because of the special way in which the poet says what he has to say. It follows from this that we cannot just talk about the meaning of a poem, but that we must also look at its language and structure. Indeed, we are unlikely to grasp fully the content of a poem without considering its form. Unfortunately, examiners know all too well from the experience of reading hundreds of examination answers, technical analysis of poetry often amounts to little more than a rather pointless listing of the devices the poet uses, such as rhyme, alliteration and assonance. Study of form need not, however, be approached in such an arid way.

You can learn more about various different approaches to studying poets and poetry in:

How to Study a Poet by John Peck

Like other forms of literature though, there are many different types of poetry that have been produced in different eras. This section helps point you in the right direction whatever poetry you are studying.

• Modern poetry
• Romantic Poetry
• Chaucer

Modern poetry

Faced by a modern poem that we haven’t seen before, we may begin by posing the question, ‘What makes this piece of writing a poem?’ The ready answer is an obvious one, especially if you are a student, for the piece of writing will have been called a poem on the examination paper, or in the anthology in which it appears; or it may have been presented in the poetry class.[…] And yet, despite those reassuring contexts, both students and general readers time and again find themselves unconvinced that modern poetry really is ‘poetry’. Confronted by a ‘poem’ which does not rhyme, which does not have a regular metre and which therefore does not sound like a ‘poem’, how are we fully to accept that piece of writing as poetry?

Tony Curtis explores these issues in depth in How to Study Modern Poetry.

He also provides helpful critical readings of many of the major poems of the post-war years, by poets such as Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, R S Thomas, Dannie Abse and William Carlos Williams.

Romantic Poetry

“Romantic poetry deals with the tensions, hopes and fears of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as felt by a disparate group of men and women. How, though, do you approach a Romantic poem? What are useful ways to discuss Romantic poetry, and what if anything do the poets have in common?”

Find out more in Paul O'Flinn' s book How to Study Romantic Poetry.

Chaucer

Who or what is "Chaucer? “If you are just starting a Chaucer text, a quick answer to this question may help. Otherwise, you may see only the details in front of you and never see the whole picture. In fact, ‘Chaucer’ is a handy way of referring to a number of rather different things. It is convenient to distinguish four. First there is Chaucer the man, who lived and died in the late-fourteenth century: the courtier, soldier, diplomat, administrator, Knight of the Shire and, of course, poet. Secondly, there is Chaucer the works, the Chaucer we know from the things he wrote, the texts rather than the man. A third Chaucer is Chaucer the narrator, the image of himself that Chaucer chose to project in his poetry - a kind of amiable and artful mask ‘Chaucer the man’ put on when he appeared in his own works. And finally (alas!) there is Chaucer the exam.” [from How to Study Chaucer by Rob Pope, chapter 1]

Find out more about all of these Chaucer’s in How to Study Chaucer, in which Rob Pope helps students get to grips with Chaucer - all the way through from the first tentative encounters with the language to sophisticated critical and historical engagement with Chaucer's narrative art in context.