Poetry As A Way Of Saying Analysis

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The thought provoking essay “Poetry as a Way of Saying” by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, provides an educational direction for a reader’s comprehension and understanding of the “naturalness” of poetry. They claim in this critical text that “mere immersion does little good unless the reader is making, however unconsciously, some discriminations, comparisons, and judgements” and that “by trying to understand the nature and structure of poetry. . .readers may accelerate and deepen the natural and more or less unconscious process by which they enlarge their experience of poetry” (16). As illustrated in “Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night,” by Dylan Thomas, the raw power and emotion that he uses to deal with death is quite the opposite …show more content…
. . points to… the ‘naturalness’ of poetry” (2-3). It is important that the reader recognizes and connects to this naturalness so that they can accurately experience the emotion and passion of the poem. A close study of “Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night” and “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” shows the reader there are very little similarities between each poem’s verbal structure. In Dickenson’s poem, she has sprinkled her rhyming words throughout the poem in no particular order; however, this informal “sound” yet important choice of words seems to tie it all together. For example, she put “Me” at the end of line two and “Immortality” at the end of line four rhyme, “Civility” on line eight and “Eternity” at the very end of the poem (Madden 1253). Whereas, in Thomas’s poem, he uses a more intricate and mathematical rhyming scheme. For example, the first and third line of each stanza ends with rhyming words, “night,” “light,” “right,” and “flight” (Madden 1182). Also, the middle line of each stanza rhymes with all the other middle lines throughout the poem, “day,” “they,” “bay,” “way,” and so on (1182). This strict form, also known as villanelles, creates an easy sound to follow and gives the poem a very controlled yet urgent feel. Both types of rhyming schemes, even though completely different, deliver to the reader the emotion that the narrators are trying to

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