UnderstandingPoetry英语诗歌欣赏讲义.docxVIP

英语诗歌欣赏 I．INTRODUCTION （介绍） No one has adequately defined poetry. The poets speak abstractly and romantically when defining their domain. For example, Samuel Taylor Coleridge rather egotistically called poetry, “the best order.” T.S. Eliot spoke as an idealist when he explained poetry as “not the assertion that something is true, but the making of that truth more fully real to us.” The average reader sees poetry as, “the literature that is written in some kind of verse form..” Perhaps it is sufficient to say that poetry is literature that is not prose. Yet, most people recognize that some literature labeled poetry is not so and that some prose is poetic. Merely setting sentences in verse form does not make poetry. Therefore, poetry must have some requisites. Aside from the basic demand that poetry “say something,” poetry is characterized by the following elements: a musical effect created by rhythm and sounds, a precise and fresh imagery, and multiple levels of interpretation suggested by the connotation of the closer words and by allusions. A poem, however, should not be regarded as a marriage of technical devices and ideas. The devices should enhance or expose the poem’s meaning(s). But, for convenience’s sake, the elements of poetry will be focused on separately in the following so that the reader can devote his /her attention to the effects achieved by certain poetic conventions. II. THE MUSICAL EFFECT OF POETRY （音乐效果） Poetry has its roots in song. The earliest poetic forms were the epics and ballads sung by travelling bards and minstrels. Though no longer sung, poems retain their musical quality. This section deals with the elements of poetry, which create that musicality. A. Meter—loosely defined meter is the “beat” or rhythm of the poem. It is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables used in the poem. Meter is shown by a visual code. The accent mark ( / ) indicates the stressed syllable, the mark ( ) indicates an unstressed syllable. Certain combinati