Critical Appreciation of a Poem

Points to Remember While Doing Critical Appreciation of a Poem

When you have been asked to write a critical appreciation about a poem, whether it is a poem you have studied before, or a poem you have never seen before (an unseen poem), there are several points you must not overlook when writing an appreciation.

You should ask yourself the following questions:

What is the poem about? You should start by summarizing what the poem is about in 2 or 3 sentences as an introduction.

You should next discuss the theme of the poem – when writing about the theme, you have to mention what the central idea of the poem (or the extract) is?

Next, you should write about the moods and emotions expressed by the poet, through the persona (the voice speaking in the poem).

You should focus on how the persona is felling throughout the poem (or the given extract) and then you should also mention how the poem makes you feel – does the poem make you feel happy or sad, does it remind you of anything in particular, maybe your own experience, or some story or other poem you might have read about?

The feelings and the ideas in the poem, are all brought about through the effective use of words, carefully placed together to create sentences and stanzas. Therefore, it is very important to also write about the DICTION that the poet uses. How do the words used by the poet, make the poem a more effective poem?

If you mention all of the above points, you would realise that you already have written about 4 paragraphs, all focussing on different aspects of criticism.

However, another most important section of your critical commentary should focus exclusively on IMAGERY – the pictures that the poet manages to bring alive in your mind – the phrases or sentences, or even whole stanzas may be able to create a picture/image which you can visualise ever so clearly – this is an image.

Content: How do the tone of the speaker and the context of the work change your understanding?

1) Speaker:

Is the speaker the poet or a specific persona? How is the speaker involved in the poem?

Is the speaker an omniscient narrator or casual observer? Does the speaker refer to himself/ herself in the 1st person? Is the speaker from an identifiable time period?

How does knowing the historical context of the poem change your understanding of the speaker’s attitude?

2) Tone

How is the tone of the poem developed through the language used to create imagery? How does diction influence the understanding of the tone?

Does the tone change as the poem progresses?

Is it consistent at the beginning and ending of the poem?

3) Tension:

What is the conflict or point of tension in the poem? Is there an external or internal conflict?

Physical, spiritual, moral, philosophical, social, etc?

How is the tension in that conflict developed with poetic elements? Is it resolved? If so, how?

4) Context:

When was the poem written?

What were the historical, political, philosophical, and social issues of that time?

Does that change your understanding of the poem’s theme?

Did poets during that time period follow particular style?

Is the poem consistent with the literary conventions of that era? How is it inconsistent?

Language: How does the language and rhythm contribute to the meaning, purpose or emotional force?

1) Word Choice:

How would you characterize the poet’s word choice?

Is it formal, conversational?

Does the poet use a specific dialect for the speaker?

2) Meaning:

What are the connotations and denotations of particular words? Are certain words repeated?

Are they abstract or concrete, literal or metaphorical?

3) Rhythm:

Does the poem have an identifiable rhythm arranged in the meter (iambs, spondees, trochees, dactyls...)? How many syllables are in each line?

Does it follow a pattern?

What syllables are stressed and unstressed?

How does alliteration, assonance, or consonance enhance the rhythm and musicality of the poem?

Imagery: How does the imagery construct the poem’s theme, tone, and purpose?

1) Visuals and Sensory:

Are the images literal or figurative, abstract or concrete? What sensory experiences are evoked? Are certain images repeated?

2) Metaphor:

Does the poet use metaphors to make comparisons and express images or abstract ideas? Is there an extended metaphor?

What is the effect of the metaphors on the tone and theme of the poem?

3) Symbolism:

Are certain objects or actions developed in the imagery symbolic of an abstract idea? Do these symbols reoccur?

Do they help to create an allegory?

Form: How does the form of the poem correspond to theme and main idea of the work?

1) Structure: Does the poem follow a formal poetic structure such as a sonnet, haiku, sestina, ode, blues poem, etc.?

If so, what are the characteristics of that form?

How does it deviate from that form?

2) Stanza and Lines: Are stanzas and lines consistently the same length? Do they follow a particular pattern?

Are there any stanzas, lines, words, or that diverge from the pattern?

3) Rhyme Scheme: Does the poem follow an identifiable rhyme scheme corresponding to a specific poetic form? What kind of rhyme is used internal or end rhyme, slant or true rhyme, etc.?

Is it consistent or scattered throughout?

If not, where does the rhyme change or appear and why? What is the overall purpose or effect of the rhyme scheme?

Syntax: How do the poet’s syntactical choices change or expand the ideas in the poem?

1) Enjambment: How are lines broken?

Are they broken before a grammatical or logical completion of a thought to create an enjambment? Or are they end-stopped, breaking after the completion of a sentence or other grammatical pauses? How does the use of enjambment create a duality of meaning in the lines?

2) Verbs: Are the verbs active or passive? What tense does the poet use? Is it consistent? How does tense consistency (inconsistency) affect the passage of time within the poem?

3) Sentence Structure: Does the poet use complete sentences, fragments, or a combination of both? Is there a pattern?

How do the poet’s sentence choices contribute to the understanding of the poem?

Within the sentence, is the word order natural or grammatically irregular?

4) Punctuation: How is punctuation used or not used?

Is it consistent with grammatical conventions?

What effect does the punctuation create on how the poem is read? How does it affect the speed?

Where are the pauses?

Does the poet use italics, bold fonts, dashes, or any other uncommon fonts or punctuation devices? If so, why?

Pay attention to the following Basic Literary Devices

1. Alliteration: The repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words; or a series of words that begin with the same sound.

2. Allusion: A reference (often indirect) to something outside of the work, often recognised through the use of another author’s words.

3. Assonance: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in nearby words. Example: “Above and around”.

4. Connotation: Connotation is the suggested or implied meaning brought about (aroused) by a word. For example, consider the colour ‘ red’ – ‘red’ denotes a particular colour, but also has the connotation of irritation or anger in certain contexts.

5. Consonance: The repetition of identical consonant sounds in nearby words. Example: The sweet smell of success.

6. Diction: Diction refers to the writer’s choice of words, including the range of vocabulary, and the style of use.

7. Imagery: Words or phrases that appeal to the senses. Imagery is sensory detail (appealing to the senses) in a literary work.

8. Metaphor: A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares unlike things by saying that one thing is the other. Something is compared to something else without the use of the words ‘as’ or ‘like’. Often forms of the form “to be” verb are used, such as “is” or “was” to make the comparison.

9. Onomatopoeia: The use of the words which imitate sounds. Onomatopoeia is the use of a word or words formed by imitating the sound of the thing represented, where the sound suggests the meaning.

10. Oxymoron: A figure of speech combining contradictory words, usually for descriptive purposes.

11. Pathetic Fallacy: When the weather reflects the mood or sentiment of a person or situation.

12. Personification: A figure of speech which endows animals, ideas, or inanimate objects with human traits or abilities.

13. Rhyme scheme: The sequence in which the rhyme occurs. The first end sound is represented by the letter ‘a’, the second end sound is represented by the letter ‘b’ and so on.

14. Simile: A comparison between two objects using a specific word or a comparison using the words “like” or “as”. A simile is a figure of speech which, like a metaphor, compares unlike things in order to describe something.

EXAMPLE

Critical Appreciation of the Poem ‘London’ by Blake

London
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. 
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls, 
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear 
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

William Blake who lived in the latter half of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth century was a poet, a philosopher, a radical, an artist, and a great thinker; who was able to bring about remarkable results with the simplest of means in all of his work. He wrote his poems with deep personal emotions but if we look further and ignore the prophetic qualities we discover a further intended meanings of a strong political and social level. He was a critic of his own era but his poetry also strikes a chord in ours. He was one of several poets of the time who restored emotion and feelings into poetry, and so was one of the first romantics. Blake lived during a period of intense social changes, the industrial revolution, the French revolution and the American revolution all happened during his lifetime. Blake was witness to the transformation of a agricultural society to an industrial society, which is where the basis for some of his poems stand. As an example, we may look towards William Blake's London from his songs of experience, here Blake comments on a city he both loves and hates, it shows his disapproval of changes which occurred in his times. Blake describes the woes that the Industrial revolution and the breaking of the common mans ties to the land results in. He uses many methods to gain the perfect description of how he saw industrial London but the most outstanding method is his use of imagery. His first use of imagery is the first and second lines of the first stanza, he uses the words charter'd streets and charter'd Thames. A charter is a legal document which gives legal powers to the council of a town or city which allows them to be able to create there own laws within the boundaries of that place. The imagery suggests that not only do the streets of London have to follow the rules but that the River Thames has to be regulated as well. The lawmakers have tamed and controlled a free flowing river. This use of imagery emphasises that everything in the city including natural forces are enslaved by the city. In the next line, Marks of weakness, marks of woe, there could be a play on words, Mark means both to see or to notice but then again there could be another meaning; like a physical mark upon someone's face like a sign of grief or misery. The use of the word mark I think, is deliberately repeated to sound like the blows of a hammer. Blake uses this imagery to emphasise the pain which industrial London is enforcing on the poor, physically and mentally. The use of mind-forg'd manacles in line 8 is used to describe why the people are so unhappy, this is because they are not free as there lives are being controlled by oppressive or restrictive ideas within their own minds and created by the minds of others. Also by using the manacle the word sounds heavy, just like their plight. Black'ning Church appalls is a vivid and chilling image. The church could be blackened literally because of the soot from London's chimneys, or it could be because the sun is setting and the outline of the church can be seen in the fading light. Blake's use of Black'ning could be symbolic; the church which should be a source of moral warmth and light, is seen as cold and dark. There could be another meaning to the word appalls like a pall over a coffin so it is used to emphasise that the church ignores what it doesn't want to see. Another shocking and surprising image is Runs in blood. This is where the wounded soldier's blood is running down the walls of the rulers for which he has been fighting, so it emphasises the fact that the poor were being blocked out by the government with no means to live, and many to die. The youthful harlots curse is a contradicting image which makes you think how could a harlot be youthful? It shows that even children were subjected to the crimes of London. The curse could be seen in two ways, it could be that she is literally swearing but it could also mean that the unhappy girl is cursing or blaming the hard, cold world she is living in. the most powerful use of imagery in this poem to me is the oxymoron, blights with sighs the marriage hearse, and image in which opposites collide with one another. A hearse, a vehicle for carrying the dead to the grave being used for marriage. Sighs are also more likely to be heard at funerals than marriages, but here Blake mixes the two together. At one level it could be that Blake is arguing that it is wrong for prostitution to exist in the same society as a respectable legal marriage. At another it could be that he is suggesting that men do go to prostitutes where marriage is cold and unloving, or where sexually repressed. Yet, at another level , blight can mean diseased, and in the eighteenth century STD's were common, and could be fatal. The hearse could be a real one. In whatever context it was written it is a particularly strong line which symbolizes the death or wrong doing in industrial London. Blake uses much imagery of darkened things to stress how bleak and gloomy life is, with no light at the end of the tunnel. The rhythm of the poem is very slow and pounding which emphasizes the darkness of London and the pace of London at the time. The punctuation in the poem increases the slowness, which enhances the effect of being trapped in a world and there being no way to escape. The rhyme scheme is constant throughout the poem which adds to the constant pounding which is also achieved through Blake's use of iambic pentameter. His repetition of the word every in the second stanza seems to stress the pounding of the poem further. Blake's use of imagery, repetition, punctuation and rhyme all work together to produce a powerful work of art in my eyes. It shows how times really were in London and how it was impossible to break out of the manacles which society had set for the poor. London and many of Blake's other works with a similar theme, particularly those from songs of experience strike a particular nerve for those who are living in a society where the cost of living compared with income is steadily increasing, where diseases are becoming increasingly common, and where the public is becoming increasingly disillusioned about the reliability and trustworthiness of politicians. Poems like London are those which can still be applied to cities today, which seem to be rapidly desensitizing itself to the marks of weakness, marks of woe which we are well accustomed to seeing on faces of passers by today.

Thanks.

Anil S Awad

English Net Consultant

anilawad123@gmail.com

9922113364/9423403368