HI FANTASTIC READERS ! WELCOME TO ANOTHER INTERESTING SECTION OF THE BLOG , “POETRY”, ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GENRES OF LITERATURE WHICH GIVES US IMMENSE PLEASURE TO READ AND HAS THE POTENTIAL TO ESCORT US TO THE BLISSFUL STATE OF ECSTASY IN AN INSTANT.
Let us know the various famous definitions of a poetry given by famous poets. In the words of Percy Bysshe Shelly ,“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.” He further says, “Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.” He means to say that poetry has the capability to make emotions happy by beautifying the various moments, situation and memories.
How is a poetry composed or created? So, to know its answer we should know how famous poets would compose it . No, it wasn’t created in a few minutes or hours. Romantic poets who were lovers of Nature’s beauty would stroll in woods, mountains , valleys and fountains to observe them keenly. At that time, they’d feel delighted and enchanted by the glory of Nature. After coming back to their place of shelter they wouldn’t pen it down immediately. They wrote it after some days when they recollected their past experiences of strolling in Nature and by being overwhelmed by the emotions they had felt at that time in a state of extreme peace. These experiences have been well said by famous Romantic poet ‘William Wordsworth’ ,” Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
Now Let us know the dictionary meaning of the word POETRY . Oxford learner’s Dictionary defines poetry as a piece of writing in which the words are chosen for their sound and the images they suggest, not just for their obvious meanings. In fact, we can say that Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language. It is in verse form that is bound by different literary devices like rhyme scheme, metre, figures of speech and imagery . It has a particular theme , mood and tone in which it is composed.
A poem is not as obvious as a prose. In a prose , most of the times (except in the case of fictional stories) everything is a clear statement, well reasoned and straightforward. But in a poem the meanings are hidden behind imageries and analogies. The readers need to know a liitle about the background of the poem .
Let us analyze the following piece of creation . It is a famous poem ” STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING” written by Robert frost , the very famous American poet.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
In this poem , the speaker (the traveller ) is riding on a horse and moving through a dense forest when snowfall begins and it adds to the beauty of natural scenery. The traveller has to travel far to reach his destination but he is enchanted by the beauty of the forest and the sudden snowfall which makes it even more appealing. The rider or speaker stops his horse to admire the beauty of Nature. In the lines, “Whose woods these……with snow” , the poet or speaker says that he knows the owner of this area of forest through which he is passing lives in the village. So it is a relief that he would not question or doubt why the speaker is passing his time in a property that belongs to him. It means the speaker has no fear and he can go on admiring the the beauty of trees and snowfall. This is the explanation of first stanza.
The poet further says in next stanza that his little horse thinks that it is strange that the traveller wants to stop at such a place where there is no farmhouse nearby to rest. It is extremely cold and dark and the traveller wishes to stop between the dense forest and the frozen lake. So the horse rings his bell to ask if he has been stopped by mistake. The traveller says that the place is so peaceful that apart from the sound of horse bells there is only the sound of breeze and that of falling snowflakes.
Now coming to the use of literary devices in first stanza, the words ‘know’ . ‘though’ and ‘snow’ rhyme with each other. let us give them rhythm pattern ‘a’ . The word ‘ here’ does not rhyme with any of the words in the same stanza. It can be assigned rhyme pattern “b” . So the rhyme scheme of the first stanza is a, a, b, a. The words like ‘woods’ , ‘house’ , ‘village’ , ‘snow’ help you to visualize these things which adds to the beauty of poem . So the poet has used “Visual Imagery” as a literary device. There is “ Auditory imagery” in the words like “a shake” and ” the sweep of easy wind and downy flake” . In the phrase ‘ His house ‘ there is repetition of consonant sound ‘h’ . So there is use of Alliteration ( a figure of speech). The words like ‘ whose ‘ and woods also have Alliteration.
Now let us analyze and understand the metrical composition of the stanza. The metrical composition is ” Iambic Tetrameter” . It refers to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The word “tetrameter” simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs. (tetra means ‘four’)
Whose woods| these are| I think| I know
His house| is in | the vil| lage though
He will | not see | me stop| ping here
To watch | his woods| fill up| with snow.
The tone of the poet is contemplative . And the mood is of hope , positivity and happiness.
