speaker

intro

• Poems come to us as the expression of an individual human voice.

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• The speaker of a poem is the voice of the imagined human.
• Remember: do not confuse the speaker and the poet!

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• The auditor of a poem is the "listener" or "receiver" of the poem.

narrative poems

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• In narrative poems, the speaker may act as a narrator.

"In a Prominent Bar in secaucus one day"

• Let's listen to this poem first.

question

• What is the "plot" of this poem?
• What are your initial impressions of this poem?

question

• How is your impression of "the lady in skunk" shaped by both her words and the narrator's?

dramatic monologues

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• In dramatic monologues, the speaker is engaged in a conversation, sometimes with only him/herself.

"Soliloquy of the Spanish cloister"

• Again, we will listen for the speaker and what he (in this case) has to say.

Question

• What are your initial impressions of this poem?
• What do you think of this speaker?

question

• How would you characterize this speaker?

question

• How would you characterize this speaker?
• Why is this character ironic?

lyric poems

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• It is especially difficult to separate the poet from the speaker in a lyric poem.

"Death of a young son by drowning"

• The speaker of this poem is based on a frontier woman who lived in 19th century Canada.

question

• Is it important to know that this speaker is based on a historic figure?

question

• What are your initial impressions of this poem?
• How is this speaker different from the other two?

Analyzing speakers

start here first

• Who is speaking?
• What do we know about him or her?
• What kind of person is he or she?

A few more poems

Which ones?

• "A Certain Lady"
• "Home Burial"
• "next to of course god america i"
• "We Real Cool"

situation and setting

introduction

• Questions about the speaker lead to questions about the situation.
• You should wonder "to whom is the speaker speaking?" and
• "where and when is this happening?"

Elements of setting

• spatial setting--where/place
• temporal setting--time. That is, date or era or season or time of day

why this matters

• temporal or spatial setting often influences our expectations

but

• Not all poems have an identifiable situation or setting

practice

• Look back at Hardy's "The Ruined Maid."
• What is the situation?
• What is the setting?

Two Poems

Let's listen

• "Daystar" by Rita Dove
• "To a Daughter Leaving Home" by Linda Pastan
• How would you summarize each?

Questions

• What is the situation in the Dove poem?
• What is the situation in the Pastan poem?

question

• How does the situation affect the reading and your response to the poems?

question

• How important is the setting in each of these poems?

carpe diem poems

Let's Listen

• "The Flea" by John Donne
• "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell

Questions

• What are your initial impressions of these poems?
• What "day" do the speakers want the auditors to "seize"?

setting

notes

• A poem's setting often draws on common notions of a particular time or place.

examples

• Garden of Eden
• Spring or autumn or winter

allusion:

• a reference to something outside the poem that carries a history of meaning and strong emotional associations

Let's listen

• "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

questions

• What is going on here?
• When is this happening?
• Why is the setting so critical to understanding this poem?