A poem has to be concise - if it takes longer to explain a piece that it does to read it, then it is not poetry.
A poem also has to be artistic - language use has to be clever, for the lack of a better word. More often than not, there are multiple meanings embedded in poetry.
Connotation v. denotation:
- connotation: feelings/emotions evoked by certain words
- denotation: literal “dictionary definition” of a word
For example, the two words “fat” and “plump” mean very similar things, but “fat” is far more negative than “plump.”
This leads us to the two types of connotation:
- honorific - words with a positive effect
- perjorative - words with a negative effect
Here is another way to look at connotation and denotation that we didn’t touch on in class:
Concreteness v. abstraction:
This one is pretty self-explanatory. Concreteness is how specific language is while abstractness is how… not specific it is. Sometimes, vagueness adds to a piece of literature. The example we used in class was the string of words “clothes, pants, jeans, Levi’s.” These words go from very abstract to very concrete.
Precision:
How “full” a word is. A author can deliberately use ambiguous words to hide or delay information.
Words like “great” or “cool” are empty - they hold little true meaning.
Elevative v. colloquialism:
How elevative a word is cannot be precisely defined. Instead, it can be represented as a continuum ranging from slang to epic diction. Most literary work falls in the middle of this spectrum.
Dialect, jargon, etc:
There isn’t too much to be said about this.
Dialect is the specific word usage of a particular region
Jargon is technical or specialized language
Diction is the choice of words in a piece; see previous day.
Imagery is, well, imagery.
Imagery appeals to the senses.
Analysis of poem "Hidden Meanings"
At first, we beat around the bush and talked about the superficial meanings in the poem - the fairy tales, the imagery, etc. It wasn’t until about halfway through class that all the inappropriate aspects of the poem started surfacing. I found it interesting that Dabney portrayed men being subjugated by women in his poem, reversing the long-established gender stereotype. However, we never really got into why Dabney chose to portray these fairy tales in the way he did. Was he perhaps traumatized as a child, or is he just a dirty, dirty man?
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