How to Appreciate English Poetry: Theme and Poetry
Needless to say, English poetry and Chinese poetry are different. Therefore, although many people say that they like a poem, they should really say that they appreciate it, especially in the case of an English poem. This is because many themes in English poetry are not necessarily pleasant or pleasant, but let you try to analyze them in order to understand the value conveyed by poets and appreciate them.
Needless to say, English poetry is different from Chinese poetry. Therefore, when many people say that they like poetry, they should actually say that they appreciate poetry, especially English poetry. This is because many themes in English poetry are not necessarily so pleasing to the eye; But they need to be analyzed by yourself to understand the value of these themes conveyed by the poet. So: appreciate.
Instead of wasting time and energy translating an English poem into complicated Chinese words and trying to appreciate it better, China people who study English poetry should concentrate on understanding the poem itself.
The first thing that China readers of English poetry don't pay enough attention to is that an English poem usually has a unique theme, which is the answer to the following question: "What is this poem about?" For example, the following poem by W.H. Auden, "Stop all the clocks and cut off the telephone", is a mourning poem. It mourns the death of a loved one.
Another feature of English poetry is that it is usually divided into sections. Today I'm going to use W.H. Auden's poem to prove the importance of Tanzan in an English poem. Let's start by reading this poem carefully.
Stop all the clocks and cut off the telephone.
By W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the phone,
Stop the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Quiet the piano, with the deep drums
Take out the coffin and let the mourners come.
Let the plane hover and moan overhead,
Scribbled the information that he was dead in the sky,
Tie a crepe bow around the pigeon's white neck,
Let the traffic police wear black cotton gloves,
He is my east, west, north and south,
My work week and Sunday are off,
My noon, my midnight, my conversation, my song,
I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.
No stars now: kick everyone out;
Put away the moon and tear down the sun;
Dump the ocean and sweep up the Woods;
Because nothing will end well now.
The first section includes scenes in the house and just outside the gate. In the second section, the speaker obviously went outside and entered a public space, where he could see the sky, pigeons in the square and people including the traffic police. The third section extends to four directions of space and time, in the form of day and night, as well as daily affairs such as work and rest. Finally, the last section transcends this world and enters the space where the stars, the moon and the sun are located. Note that when the poet mentioned the ocean and the forest, his thoughts came back to this world.
The process of the festival from the house to the street, to the vast world, to the space, and finally to the earth is like a funeral procession, except that this special part is incredibly extended to the space by the sad power of the poet. By paying attention to the development of the plot in the poem, readers will realize the meaning of the poem and feel the great loss and devastating sadness of the poet.