Analysis of poetry

[mountainboo]

I am currently studying poetry from the Great War, notably Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Although I find some of the poetry very haunting, I am struggling when it comes to the use of poetic devices such as rhyming scheme and the significance of alliteration etc. Why are these things important in poetry? TIA

[redman41]

If Rowanwitch was available this weekend mountainboo she no doubt would be able to help you out as she is very interested in Poetry and a good Poet in her own right.

[mountainboo]

Hopefully she will see this when she is available. Do you know when she will be back Redman?

[redman41]

Monday at the earliest mountainboo as I am keeping her hostage until then ! :-))

[mountainboo]

; ) Ok I will check again then

[boxtops]

For me, the pattern of the poem is important - I find blank verse hard - and there is something comforting about the rhythm of the various rhyming blocks. The use of alliteration is a clever tool to emphasise something, it rolls on the tongue, but it's only one such tool. There are many. I like Robert Frost - "Good fences make good neighbours".

[johnstuart]

The first thing to say is that 'poetic devices' are NOT important in poetry... the important thing is the poem, which is a subtle collection of language choices, put together by the writer and having an effect on the reader. Hopefully, the effect is powerful, or stimulating, or moving. Certain language uses can reflect familiar paterns, and it is good to know these and to notice them. Rhyme patterns and alliteration are among the oldest of these; they were originally used to create vivid sound effects and to make stories more easily remembered, when poems were recited and heard rather than read. It is good to notice when devices appear and are used but it is hard to explain the effect of these... it varies from one poem to another, and it is a mistake to go 'device hunting' as if that helps unpick the poem... but it is important to notice what is going on, even if you can't quite explain the effect. It's a good question, but you need to talk it through with your teachers!

[jno]

my very distant recollection of Owen's work is that he'd sometimes deliberately disrupt rhymes, which had the effect of making the poem sound abrupt and jerky, which when dealing with war (as opposed to say love poetry) sounded quite appropriate. Johnstuart's sort of right, it's best to see how you feel about the poem first before you start to unpick it to see how the poet has achieved the effect. But I wouldn't say you shouldn't do it at all (and neither will your teachers...)

[China Doll]

I've studied both. Do you want to give me which poems you're looking at and why you're strugging? (There's fairly obvious reasons for the 'why this is important' that you can just google if you were so enclined so if you explain the exact problem I will try and break it down a little if I can).

[mountainboo]

Thank you all. China doll, that's very helpful of you, thanks. My exam will be focusing on Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth", so any help with that will be much appreciated. I have understood the message and tone of the octet but I am finding the sestet hard to analyse. TIA

[China Doll]

The last six lines right? (Hey, it's been over ten years! ;0)

I'll have a read and see what I can come up with.

[mountainboo]

Yeah it is. That's great, thanks. Also, would you say that line 7 of the first part - "shrill" is onomatopoeia?

[China Doll]

Ok.... So as far as I remember the sestet changes the mood of the poem. In the octet part it's angry and loud and passionate. Everything makes a noise, the guns, the bells the choirs... It's chaotic and fast and as said, obviously the language (well to me at any rate) is angry.

In contrast the next six lines are sad and thoughtful and without any hope. You read them in a much slower way (did you read the poem outloud? Sounds silly but it helps sometimes). The words he's using seem longer so you have to slow when you read it which means you take in what he's saying more because it's not quite so 'dum, dum, dum' in its message but rather 'da dum, da dum, da dum'... If that makes any sense at all! The language is 'echoey' in a sense, the letter L draws out a word as does the haunting 'eyes' and 'goodbye' and 'minds' and 'blinds', personally I think there's alomst a tenderness to his rhyme in the sestet which isn't there in the octet. he only uses a full stop once before the end where he uses 2 before the end of the octet part... Again, hamering home a message rather than giving you time to slow down and take in the words and reflect.

I assume the use of a sonnet for the type of the poem he's writing you've already covered so I guess there's an element of the satiric in there too you've picked up on. The sonnet with a sestet is itallian in origin (I had to look that up!) and apparently Dante used them in his sonets which makes me wonder if that had anything to do with Owen's choice but that's just a thought knocking around in the back of my head, I have no idea whether it played any part.

Does any of what I said make sense or help at all or would you rather I focused on something else? Or give up completely! Lol