Key Takeaways:

At first, I didn’t really like reading and analyzing poetry because it seemed really hard to understand how to pick apart the words and meaning. Now, however, I feel more confident because I understand all the different aspects that make up a poem, and how specific things can make meaning.

John Lenard’s lectures were really interesting to watch because he gave a very methodical approach to analyzing poetry, and explain how the poet’s choices are deliberately done to get some reaction from the reader and influence the message. He also pointed out several areas from which we can analyze the language used, such as diction, rhyme, register, syntax, lineation, punctuation, and meter.

However, from my CAT #2 paper (on Larkin’s “Love Songs in Age” poem), I learned that not only do you have to focus on the analysis, but you also have to emphasize the literal meaning. I also learned that picking the best structure to answer a certain question is really important to not limit the discussion of what is actually going on. First, focus on the literal meaning, what is the narrative that the writer is telling, and then deepen the understanding by going into the analysis of particular parts. Sometimes, it is better to have a structure of each paragraph going through stanza by stanza, not device by device. This not only limits what we can say about it but also when we do go broader from the device makes it seem unorganized.

So if we had the 1st paragraph talking about the first stanza, there would be: the literal meaning of the stanza, then analysis of the devices given by the question, and how this deepens our understanding. In paragraph 2 we would do the same for the second stanza, but also develop the ideas that we put out in the first paragraph so there is a sense of flow and build-up of meaning (the paragraphs should be organized in such a way that one adds to the other, not where you could re-arrange them and it would be the same thing – the first one has to set the ground for the second one in which you push further to extend what you said – mention how the narrative develops and connect back to the first stanza)

Focusing on Larkin’s poetry made me understand how by consistently reading a writer’s work, there are several things that you pick up on, that have made their world original and ‘branded’. So from Larkin’s poetry, the tone throughout his works was very similar, and one thing I learned from John Lenard’s lectures is to always think critically about the author’s choices – so if one of Larkin’s poems doesn’t follow his usual patterns, why has he done this, and what effect does this have on the reader?