Why I won't analyse poetry on a discussion forum anymore
1) Because it always gets into a binary I'm right - you're wrong argument. A pissing contest in other words.
2) Because there are no agreed criteria between people here about how to do the analysis.
3) For instance: should a free verse poem be analysed according to the rules of rhyme and meter? Of course not. But then what criteria do we pick?
4) Because people don't actually read the words on screen, they read what they want to see. When I put up The Red Wheelbarrow by W C Williams, I insisted several times that it was one part of a much longer sequence; but nobody took any notice or even investigated the context for themselves. Which leads to:
5) Analysing individual poems in isolation as if they came out of the ether, without reference to their context or history of reception seems pointless to me.
6) Analysis is ok if you're in an environment where people are willing to learn something and are willing to discuss in an open way. When people come to a discussion with already-formed opinion (whether 'rhyme bad' or 'rhyme good' for instance) and only want to defend their corner of the playpen, discussions get stymied and cliched.
7) I don't think a discussion forum is a good place for an open discussion like that.
8) I think one's reason for liking a poem are often mixed and very personal. Some aspects are beyond analysis: I love Frank O'Hara's The Day Lady Died partly because it reminds me of Billy Holliday's music, for instance.
9) What am I doing this analysis for? To persuade you that my taste is better than your taste? That your love of Betjemen is mistaken? That free verse is better than rhyme? What would the point of that be? Again, it becomes an assertion of superiority: I'm more sophisticated than you? Do I really think that?
10) Personal analysis of favourite poetry is a good thing, and it might be a good thing for the site to include a section on that sometime in the future.
2) Because there are no agreed criteria between people here about how to do the analysis.
3) For instance: should a free verse poem be analysed according to the rules of rhyme and meter? Of course not. But then what criteria do we pick?
4) Because people don't actually read the words on screen, they read what they want to see. When I put up The Red Wheelbarrow by W C Williams, I insisted several times that it was one part of a much longer sequence; but nobody took any notice or even investigated the context for themselves. Which leads to:
5) Analysing individual poems in isolation as if they came out of the ether, without reference to their context or history of reception seems pointless to me.
6) Analysis is ok if you're in an environment where people are willing to learn something and are willing to discuss in an open way. When people come to a discussion with already-formed opinion (whether 'rhyme bad' or 'rhyme good' for instance) and only want to defend their corner of the playpen, discussions get stymied and cliched.
7) I don't think a discussion forum is a good place for an open discussion like that.
8) I think one's reason for liking a poem are often mixed and very personal. Some aspects are beyond analysis: I love Frank O'Hara's The Day Lady Died partly because it reminds me of Billy Holliday's music, for instance.
9) What am I doing this analysis for? To persuade you that my taste is better than your taste? That your love of Betjemen is mistaken? That free verse is better than rhyme? What would the point of that be? Again, it becomes an assertion of superiority: I'm more sophisticated than you? Do I really think that?
10) Personal analysis of favourite poetry is a good thing, and it might be a good thing for the site to include a section on that sometime in the future.
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 10:57 am
Steven, this is a very interesting breakdown of why and how discussions on poetry analysis breakdown and I will add it to my own surveys. I would add that for myself personally that critical analysis of poetry may be useful for identifying what makes poetry work or what universal or subjective meaning we might construe from reading it. Aside from that constructive criticism and in-depth analysis should enable us to enjoy and appreciate the value of poetry in our lives even more and develop our intuitive and discriminative mind in terms of understanding what it means, or why we take such great pleasure in it.
Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:17 pm
The forum on "writyeoutloud" does not permit the subtleties of face to face communication. The discussion module is v. primitive and consequently one has to be extremely careful how one is inclined to phrase one's arguments without causing offence.
In his amusing satire of contemporary poets Samuel Butler wrote in his Metaphysical Sectarian:
He was in Logick a great Critick
Profoundly skilled in Analytick.
He could distinguish and divide
A Hair twixt South and South-West side:
On either which he could dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
I also came across Empson's interesting analogy where criticism by poets is concerned:
"They are the more willing to admit this because they are usually appreciative critics, persons of an extreme delicacy of
sensibility who have to guard this delicacy in unusual ways. A first-rate wine-taster may only taste small amounts of wine, for
fear of disturbing his palate, and I dare say it would really be unwise for an appreciative critic to use his intelligence too freely ;
but there is no reason why these specialised habits should be imposed on the ordinary drinker or reader. Specialists usually
have a strong Trades Union sense, and critics have been perhaps too willing to insist that the operation of poetry is something
magical, to which only their own method of incantation can be applied, or like the growth of a flower, which it would be folly
to allow analysis to destroy by digging the roots up and crushing out the juices into the light of day. Critics, as barking dogs on this view, are of two sorts : those who merely relieve themselves against the flower of beauty, and those, less continent, who afterwards scratch it up. I myself, I must confess, aspire to the second of these classes ; unexplained beauty arouses an irritation in me, a sense that this would be a good place to scratch; the reasons that make a line of verse likely to give pleasure, I believe, are like the reasons for anything else; one can reason about them; and while it nay be true that the roots of beauty ought not to be violated, it seems to me very arrogant of the appreciative critic to think that he could do this, if he chose, by a little scratching."
In his amusing satire of contemporary poets Samuel Butler wrote in his Metaphysical Sectarian:
He was in Logick a great Critick
Profoundly skilled in Analytick.
He could distinguish and divide
A Hair twixt South and South-West side:
On either which he could dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute.
I also came across Empson's interesting analogy where criticism by poets is concerned:
"They are the more willing to admit this because they are usually appreciative critics, persons of an extreme delicacy of
sensibility who have to guard this delicacy in unusual ways. A first-rate wine-taster may only taste small amounts of wine, for
fear of disturbing his palate, and I dare say it would really be unwise for an appreciative critic to use his intelligence too freely ;
but there is no reason why these specialised habits should be imposed on the ordinary drinker or reader. Specialists usually
have a strong Trades Union sense, and critics have been perhaps too willing to insist that the operation of poetry is something
magical, to which only their own method of incantation can be applied, or like the growth of a flower, which it would be folly
to allow analysis to destroy by digging the roots up and crushing out the juices into the light of day. Critics, as barking dogs on this view, are of two sorts : those who merely relieve themselves against the flower of beauty, and those, less continent, who afterwards scratch it up. I myself, I must confess, aspire to the second of these classes ; unexplained beauty arouses an irritation in me, a sense that this would be a good place to scratch; the reasons that make a line of verse likely to give pleasure, I believe, are like the reasons for anything else; one can reason about them; and while it nay be true that the roots of beauty ought not to be violated, it seems to me very arrogant of the appreciative critic to think that he could do this, if he chose, by a little scratching."
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 04:57 pm
There is a problem with the metaphor which people use, that analysis of poetry is dissecting it and thereby ruining it. I remember students making this complaint when I was studying stylistic analysis at university.
The problem is that the poem itself is still complete and can be read and enjoyed after the analysis has taken place.
I found that I enjoyed the original poem more after I had analysed it. Why? because stylistic analysis brought out several meanings within a poem which were not obvious at first reading.
Writing a poem is not an analytical effort. It is about synthesising ideas. A great many impressions about our world can co exist in our minds and when we sit quietly and allow our minds to bring thoughts together into one production many different ideas crowd in.
A focus on an aspect of nature, or an event in our lives, might draw in emotional responses to other things going on for us. The vocabulary we choose may carry more meanings that we realise at first. What is the significance to us of a subject that we choose to write about? How are we feeling about it?
Even the way we use syntax can carry meanings that satisfy us as we write, but we are not sure why. We may make lists of objects in our lives, and slip in something contrasting. What is that contrast and why did we choose it? We may use verbs which could be applied to a dangerous or combat situation, which dramatise a much less dangerous event. What does it tell about our feelings.
Of course another criticism of analysis is that the critic is trying to dig into the psyche of the poet, like a counselling session. I think that a critic has to justify what they say about a work in terms of how the matters they raise explain some of the undefineable aspects of the work.
I agree this forum is a difficult place to have these conversations, as people react quite critically and as Steven said, in a Black/white way.
The problem is that the poem itself is still complete and can be read and enjoyed after the analysis has taken place.
I found that I enjoyed the original poem more after I had analysed it. Why? because stylistic analysis brought out several meanings within a poem which were not obvious at first reading.
Writing a poem is not an analytical effort. It is about synthesising ideas. A great many impressions about our world can co exist in our minds and when we sit quietly and allow our minds to bring thoughts together into one production many different ideas crowd in.
A focus on an aspect of nature, or an event in our lives, might draw in emotional responses to other things going on for us. The vocabulary we choose may carry more meanings that we realise at first. What is the significance to us of a subject that we choose to write about? How are we feeling about it?
Even the way we use syntax can carry meanings that satisfy us as we write, but we are not sure why. We may make lists of objects in our lives, and slip in something contrasting. What is that contrast and why did we choose it? We may use verbs which could be applied to a dangerous or combat situation, which dramatise a much less dangerous event. What does it tell about our feelings.
Of course another criticism of analysis is that the critic is trying to dig into the psyche of the poet, like a counselling session. I think that a critic has to justify what they say about a work in terms of how the matters they raise explain some of the undefineable aspects of the work.
I agree this forum is a difficult place to have these conversations, as people react quite critically and as Steven said, in a Black/white way.
Mon, 5 May 2014 11:38 am
That last sentence is why a discussion forum is a bad place for analysis of poetry.
One ends up disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. While there are general principles, there are no absolutes and people approach poetry from a wide variety of angles.
Black/white, right/wrong arguments are what discussion forums all to easily fall into.
One ends up disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. While there are general principles, there are no absolutes and people approach poetry from a wide variety of angles.
Black/white, right/wrong arguments are what discussion forums all to easily fall into.
Tue, 6 May 2014 11:36 am
Mr Murdoch, it would seem you are ready to offer defensive argument before you have even heard the original thesis. Perhaps that is one of the hurdles faced by so-called 'academic analyses', resulting in a real loss of their potential value because they fall upon deliberately deaf ears.
Stephen, surely you will give some viability to the body of thought which believes a poem should have its own life, divorced of personality or history. It's an ancient concept which hangs on relentlessly, structured by scholarship or not.
If only the word 'critic' could be replaced. IMO, by careless, targeted usage over the centuries, it has become pejorative and snottily self-fulfilling. As has 'analysis'. Maybe that should go too; leave such words to empirical pursuits, not poetry, or ART in general.
Well, that was a mouthful. Must have been waiting to jump out for ages.
Stephen, surely you will give some viability to the body of thought which believes a poem should have its own life, divorced of personality or history. It's an ancient concept which hangs on relentlessly, structured by scholarship or not.
If only the word 'critic' could be replaced. IMO, by careless, targeted usage over the centuries, it has become pejorative and snottily self-fulfilling. As has 'analysis'. Maybe that should go too; leave such words to empirical pursuits, not poetry, or ART in general.
Well, that was a mouthful. Must have been waiting to jump out for ages.
Sun, 25 May 2014 03:32 pm
Cynthia - I'm not averse to criticism. I just don't think a discussion forum is the place to do it. Neither do I think much of the so-called conflict between rhyme and non-rhyme.
Tue, 27 May 2014 11:08 am
Laura Cookson
I think if you're analysing something then you do tend to find things you disagree with and it's sometimes hard not to take it personally when someone dislikes something you yourself love.
And online there's no way to see body language, sarcasm is hard to interpret and something as simple as an exclamation mark can come across as quite agressive.
And online there's no way to see body language, sarcasm is hard to interpret and something as simple as an exclamation mark can come across as quite agressive.
Wed, 4 Jun 2014 02:22 pm