What is poetry ? [ top]

Every man is a poet when he is in love. Plato ( 427-347 B.C.) Poets were the first teachers of mankind. Horace (65-8 B.C. ) Poesy... is an art of imitation... a speaking, with this end--to teach and delight. Philip Sidney (1554-1586) the best words in the best order. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 1772-1834) What is Poetry? The feeling of a former world and future. Lord George Byron (1788-1824) A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822) Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. Mattew Arnold (1822-1888) the clear expression of mixed feeling. W.H. Auden ( 1907-1973)

--cited from An Introduction to Poetry and Criticism 237-41.

 

How to read a poem ? [ top]

-- cited from Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry 20-1

1. Read a poem more than once. 2. Keep a dictionary by you and use it. 3. Read so as to hear the sounds of the words in your mind. 4. Always paay attention what the poem is saying. 5. Practice reading poems aloud.

Four meanings of a poem: [ top]

-- cited from " four meanings of a poem " in Literary Terms : A Dictionary

1. Sense what is said or itmes referred by a poet in poem. 2. Feeling the poet's emotional attitude toward items in poem. 3. Tone the poet's attitude toward his works or his audience. 4. Intention the poet's purpose ( conscious or unconscious )