CHAPTER II

SUBJECT AND SPEAKER IN POETRY

Basic Competence : Understand the subject and speaker as the element of poetry.

Indicators : Understand the concept of subject and speaker in poetry

Analyze the subject and speaker in some poems

Materials

I. Figuring out Speaker in a poem;

In reading a poem, the first and most important question to ask your self is this : who
is speaking?? Who is the speaker in the poem??/. Speaker is known as persona. This is the
imaginary person who speaks the words in a poem. All poems have speakers. Speaker is the
person we are listening to . Speakers have personalities. They also have a point of view
from which they see the events they narrate. Speakers have attitudes toward themselves, their
subjects, and their audience.
Speaker is very often different with the poet. Persona that speaks in a poem is
not usually identical with the poet who writes it. Some reader make the mistake of assuming
that the poet himself is always the speaker of the poem unless otherwise specified.
Speakers are not always perfect, in fact they’re quite often flawed in interesting ways.
They may not know the whole truth, or they may be mistaken or they may have prejudices
that color what they tell you. Speakers are like people-most are reliable , but a few are not.
That is good reason to pay close attention to what you know about any speaker you encounter
in poem-and you find that attention adds to the richness of your reading experience.

As you read the following poem , you will notice –alerted by the quotation marks-
that the poem has two speakers; the poem is a tiny drama. The closing quotation marks at the
end of line 9 signal to us that the first speech is finished.

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 THE TELEPHONE

“When I was just as far as I could walk

From here today
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with head against a flower 5
I heard you talk
Don’t say I did not, for I heard you say-
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
“Do you remember what it was you said?”

“First tell me what it was you thought you heard”. 10

“ Having found the flower and driven bee away,

I leaned my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word-
What was it? Did you call me by my name 15
Or did you say-
Someone said ‘Come’- I heard it as I bowed.”

“ I may thought as much, but not aloud.” 18

“Well so I came.”

Suppose we ask :
- Who are these two speakers?
- What is their relationship?
- What’s goin on between them
- Where are they

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 Let’ put the question , and try to find out who are the speaker by paying attention to
some line. One speaker speaks line 1-9.11-17 and 19. The other speaks line 10 and 18. Can
you tell the gender of each speaker?, Certainly , probably or not at all , On what do you base
your answer? Now try to discuss with some friends
in a group and work on it .

II. Finding out the Subject in a Poem

The subject of a poem is the idea or thing that the poem concerns or represents.
Looking for the poem subject is natural. Almost all poetry has messages to deliver. But these
messages are sometimes hidden, and you have to read attentively to make them out.
Not all poems have a single subject . Some poems have many subjects, and some
have subjects that are not clear. Sometimes a poem subject is simply itself- the words in it
and their relation to one another. However, subject may sometime represents other idea,
telling that something represented in a poem is something else. The following poem may
represents one idea which is hidden or simply itself.

IT IS NOT GROWING LIKE A TREE (Ben Johson 1573-1637)

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be,

Or standing long an oak , three hundred years,

To fall a log at last , dry bald and sere

A lily of a day,

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night ;

It was the plant and flower of the light

In small proportion we just beauties see

And in short measures life may perfect be

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 Now try to have a nice discussion with some friends in a group to find out the subject
of the poem.

Assignment

MY PAPA’S WALTZ (Theodore Roethke)

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy

But I hung on like death

Such waltzing was not easy

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt

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Questions
1. Who is the speaker in the poem, What kind of person is he?
2. To Whom is he speaking?
3. What is the subject of the poem??
4. Do you find any central idea ?

WHEN I WAS ONE AND TWENTY

(AE Housman 1859-1936)

When I was one and twenty

I heard a wise man say,
‘ Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away
Give pearls and rubies
But keep your fancy free’
But I wa one and twenty,
No use to talk to me

When I was one and twenty

I heard him say again
‘The heart out of bosom
Was never given in vain;
“This paid with sigh a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two and twenty,
And oh , ‘tis true, ‘tis true

Questions :
1.What do you think of the wise man ‘s advice in the first stanza?
2. Would you have taken his advice??
3. What has happened to the speaker? Does he regret his decision?

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 CHAPTER III
TONE

Basic Competence : Understand the Tone as the element of poetry.

Indicators : Understand the concept of Tone in poetry

Analyze the Tone and the shifting of tone in some poems

Materials

Tone in Literature, may be defined as the writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his
subject, his audience or himself. It is the emotional coloring or the emotional meaning of the
work and extremely important part of the full meaning. In poetry tone is likewise important.
We have not really understood a poem unless we have accurately sensed whether the attitude
it manifest is playful or solemn, mocking or reverent , calm or excited.
A poem might be joyful, gloomy, bitter, celebratory, angry, ironic, distanced, intimate,
playful, and comic or anything. But the voices reflect the attitude toward a particular object
or situation. So, the study of tone in poetry examines those aspects of situation, language,
action and background that bring out the attitude of the speaker toward a subject. Tone is
emotional feeling atmosphere of the poem. Is it happy, sad, satirical or something else? Tone
tells you a lot about the poet’s feeling about poem’s subject and about his attitude toward the
audience and life in general.
Tone sometimes shifts in accordance with the attitude of speaker toward the subject.
The speaker often dramatically changed his/her tone to sum up the feeling of poem. The
following poem reveals the point :

THE VILLAIN

While joy gave clouds the light of stars,

That beamed where’er they looked;

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 And calves and lambs had tottering knees,
Excited , while they sucked;
While every bird enjoyed his song, 5
Without one thought of harm and wrong –
I turned my head and saw the wind ,
Not far from where I stood
Dragging the corn by her golden hair,
Into the dark and lonely wood . 10

The poem is concerned with nature , The tone is light and fanciful. In the first six
lines the language suggest joy and innocence. The last four introduces sinister . The speaker ,
on turning his head , sees a villain dragging a beautiful maiden toward a dark wood. But the
response of reader, perhaps is not horror since the speaker hass actually seen the wind
blowing through the wheat and bending its golden top s gracefully toward a shady wood.
The beauty of the scene has delighted him.

Assignment

1. MARK (Linda Pastan)

My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me

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I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.

Questions :
1. Who is the speaker in the poem, can you identify her?
2. In what kind of situation she lives?
3. Can you sense the tone of the poem
4. Is there any change of mood you can figure out along the poem?

2. Richard Cory (Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favoured and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,

And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine -- we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked and waited for the light,

And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.

Questions :

1. Who are the speakers in the poem

2. What is the subject in the poem??

3. How do they think of Richard Cory??

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