Commentaire du texte "Introduction to Poetry" en anglais

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a mouse in a poem and watch him probe his way out” are showing the importance of this idea. Holding up a color slide to the light helps us see it better and understand what it talks about, just like when we hold a poem to the light of our mind. Dropping a mouse into a poem directly compares it to a maze, showing sometimes the difficulty of understanding it completely but also all the mystery and the interest we can put in it.

Finally, all the images about exploration are linked to senses. “Press an ear” is hearing, “watch him” is sight, “feel the walls” is touch. All these images give a sort of third dimension to the poem, helping the reader to understand better what the teacher wants his students to do and in a second time his readers.

The third main theme of this poem is having fun with our understanding of poetry.

Here, the form of the poem has a lot of impact. It is a free verse poem, no rhyme and no meter. There are 7 different stanzas which is a lot for a poem and meter in only the 2nd stanza. The 2nd stanza presents an important sentence of the poem as it is alone but also has an iambic tetrameter “Or press and ear against its hive”. The absence of capital letters at the beginning of each line or of strict punctuation is also a good example. The author wants the poet to have as much fun as the reader about his poem. He doesn’t want them to be enclosed by strict rules and wants their imagination to become superior so it will give interesting images and feelings to the reader.

There is also an absence of real setting, switching from a class to a maze, a hive, a dark room, the sea and a torture room. This impression of travelling helps the reader having fun but also reminds the theme of exploration.

There is only one image on this theme in the poem, the one in line 9 and 10 “I want them to waterski across the surface of the poem”. This image has a lot of meaning. First, it refers to the first theme of the poem; education. Moreover, the sibilance in the 5th stanza gives a slippery sound to the poem, reminding the idea of floating and of waterskiing.

The enthusiastic tone emphasizes also on it.

But all this theme on having fun is contrasted to the main theme in the two last stanzas: bad interpretation of poetry.

All the poem has been concentrated on the author resolution to help his students having fun with the poem, its images and its meaning. But he describes his failure with two violent images in the two last stanzas. His students “tie the poem to a chair with rope”, “torture a confession out of it” and “begin beating it with a hose” to “find out what it really means”. Personification of poetry and violent images show how his students do the opposite of what he wants and how he is upset about it, the word “but” helping a lot in understanding it.

Moreover, there are alliterations in b, d and t showing the omnipresent violence in this poem.

To conclude, concentrating on a few different themes like exploration, education and understanding poetry, the author depicts the way he wants his readers and students to interpret poetry. He uses a lot of images and shows his enthusiasm about teaching poetry and how he is upset when it is misunderstood.

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