How can I better understand poetry?
I'd like to read some works like 'Paradise Lost', but I feel that I'd just be wasting my time as I won't understand them, and in turn, appreciate them.
The closest thing to resembling poetry that I've read, and isn't the King James Bible or Quran, is Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.
>>7783816
Read the following:
Ted Hughes; Dylan Thomas; Seamus Heaney; John Berryman.
For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell
The Truth the Dead Know by Anne Sexton
Farm Implements & Rutabagas in a Landscape by John Ashbery
Emperor of Ice-Cream & Snowman by Wallace Stevens
Ezra Pound & T.S. Eliot
Hart Crane
This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin
The Waking by Theodore Roethke
>>7783827
Thanks anon. Are these all fairly simple/easy to understand poems?
At what level would you say 'Paradise Lost' is at? How long would it take me to reach that level?
You can just read PL desu. It's Heroic verse, aka it does not ryhme, it just sounds good.
The punctuation is good enough if you can't understand a part read it out loud and you will understand.
It's also a great read. Go read it now.
>>7783837
Paradise Lost isn't especially difficult. You'll have a much harder time with Pound and Eliot.
Still, I never felt that Paradise Lost was the best place to begin with poetry. When it comes to poetry, I find it better to start with something more fairly modern and then work back to the older classics.
>>7783838
Thanks anon. How can I make sure I can get myself a good physical version?
I downloaded an EPUB version from Project Gutenberg, and I had a look at the online version. The EPUB version was horrendous, with weird spelling and apostrophes making words smaller than they should be. Whereas the online version was fine, almost like if not modern English.
Is that just the way it was written originally, and the other version is revised?
>>7783846
I see, thanks anon.
>>7783816
I'm reading PL now, have an interest after reading Lucifer and Sandman.
>>7783848
Yeah there are lots of old spellings, but desu is not something to worry about. You can either understand from context or look up the words.
The vintage press version is good, and contains paradise regained as well.
>>7783854
Thanks anon. Just one more question. I'm looking at the Penguin Classics version of the book, and it's 512 pages, whereas the Harper Collins version is 192 pages and includes Paradise Regained.
That's a big difference in pages, it can't just be font-size, can it?
As for the Vintage Press version, do you know what website I could get that from?
Thanks.
>>7783866
Just type "paradise lost vintage classics" in Google, you should get an Amazon link, it's got a snake on the cover.
The penguin book im assuming probably has 300 pages of foot notes. I don't think you need to bother with that on your first read. In fact I'd advise you don't. Just relax and read the poem.
If you want some in-depth analysis, read some essays. If you're in university, take a class. T.S. Eliot has some fine and accessible essays on poetry to get you started. Here's a link to one that I read during my undergrad that stuck with me:
http://www.bartleby.com/200/sw5.html
However, the only way to git gud at reading poetry is to read poetry. You can't expect to dunk if you've never picked up a basketball or expect to last more than a few minutes if you're still a virgin, so why should you expect to appreciate poetry right out. Your apprehension is justified, but ultimately gets in the way. Don't worry about whether or not you're reading well. Start out by just reading.
The start with the Greeks meme is actually accurate, but only applies to people who already know how to read -- and by "know how to read" I don't mean "connecting meaning to words", I mean in-depth close reading and analysis, developing an aesthetic, behind able to connect themes not only within the text, but across texts as well, in addition to other such things.
Material of the caliber of /lit/ starter guides and the material you'd expect to read in a high school or freshman English course is what you'll want to approach first. I'll throw you a bone and give you a quick list of poems to read and enjoy. Don't just think about whether you like these poems or whether they're good or bad, but rather think about what makes them good or what makes you dislike them. What techniques does the poet apply? Does the poet use rhyme? Is the poem metered? Does the poem use aliteration, assonance, consonants? Are the lines enjambed? Why? What sorts of references and illusions does the poet bring up? Why are those important? Why did the poet choose this title, if the poem is titled? Is this poem a straight-forward parable, or are the metaphors extended farther? What other tools does the poet use?
Most of these poems are in the public domain and all of them can be found for free online. None of them are longer than fifty lines. One of them is only two lines long. Starting with the poem that made me realize what poetry could do:
William Ernest Henley -- Invictus
Percey Bysshe Shelley -- Ozymandias
Carol Anne Duffy -- Prayer
Ben Jonson -- On My First Sonne
John Milton -- On His Blindness
Ezra Pound -- In the Station of the Metro
Theocritus, translated by John Dryden -- Amaryllis
Emily Dickenson -- Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Seamus Heaney -- Mid-Term Break
William Wordsworth -- We Are Seven
>>7783880
Once you've read through those and probably a few other poems, preferably selected on your own, start with the Greeks. Pick up some Sappho, starting with Hymn to Aphrodite; read your way through Homer (Fagles is a good translation if you're not experienced with poetry, though some people have very valid criticisms to his translations;) read a bit of Alcaeus, some Pindar, and then move on to the Romans, maybe some Arabic poetry if you're so inclined (here's a great New Yorker article on modern Salafist poetry, which features some of the strongest voices writing today in any language: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel), and then move on to the medieval/Renaissance Italians and finally onto early modern English poetry (Middle English is probably a bit outside your purview for now).
Milton is the kind of poet that anybody can read and love, but I'd still recommend some prep to get the best possible experience. Before you approach Paradise Lost (and when you do, you're in for a treat), you'll want to have read your Bible, be intimately familiar with Macbeth, and have a good understanding of the political situation of republic England. You'll probably also want to familiarize yourself with the life and works of Bunyan, Marston, and Dryden, who were contemporaries of Milton and were concerned with a lot of the same issues as he was. You should probably read Robert Burns' Address to the Deil, Shelley's Milton, and Blake's Romanticist commentaries on Milton. I would highly recommend the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye for more in-depth analysis. Append your reading of Lost with Regained for best results.
When you do finally read Milton, don't stop reading him after you finish the twelfth canto. Paradise Lost is the sort of work that demands to be reread again and again, and you'll most likely want to.
Have fun on your journey to reading the best English poet.
>>7783880
I just realized I included Amaryllis on this list, which, while short, is 127 lines.
>>7783878
Ah, found it, thanks anon.
>>7783880
>>7783882
Wow, thank you for the help anon, I really appreciate this. I'll definitely check those poems out and see where I can go from there.
Thanks for the info on preparing for Milton too.
>>7783889
No problem. Milton's my favourite, so I'm always excited to see somebody interested in him.
>>7783816
man just read the wiki
random lists of what people think you should read aren't going to help
4chanlit.wikia.com/poetry
I mean, this guy >>7783827 is telling you to start with ezra pound, a poet who tells you himself in his own essays that you need to know poetry first to understand his poetry and the poetry he endorsed.
protip my friend, don't listen to /lit/ when they talk about poetry. this board is clueless.
>>7784009
I'm seeing a kind of paradox here.
>>7783827
>Ezra Pound
No one should read that hack
>>7784009
>man just read the wiki
>random lists of what people think you should read aren't going to help
Do you not see how this is a contradiction?
>>7783816
How did you find Romeo and Juliet?
Just get a big anthology of poetry with a wide selection and dip in and out. See what you like. It's too broad and subjective for there to be any single one starting point.
It took me years to be able to read poetry. I can't explain why it clicked, but it did. I was just reading Browning and it just hit me, I felt the poem even as I was understanding the techniques.
I think trying to write poetry is the best way to understand, but only if you try to make something good.
>>7784394
The last line always makes me laugh though.
>>7784460
It was okay. I studied the play in my last year of high school English, so there was a lot of analysis of the themes and characters, more than I would if I were to read something on my own, but it gave me a good understanding of it.
