Wednesday, March 20, 2013

When thinking/talking/learning about poetry, we need to get a few things going in our brains to think differently.

We need to be able to read words that we may not know and we need to be able to think about what different lines or phrases or words COULD mean.

This is not the most obvious way of thinking. 

We are back to INFERRING and INTERPRETING and considering POSSIBILITIES.

We need to know the difference between CONNOTATION and DENOTATION.

Denotation is what something actually means on the surface. The simple, obvious, one-level meaning.

Connotation is the underlying meaning, the symbolic meaning, the layers beneath the obvious. More complex, more cultural, or experience-based, or something else.

You need to be able to break down the meaning of something into these TWO layers.

The crucifix (the cross) - a torture device to hang someone up and kill them. (denotation)

The crucifix (the cross) - what is the connotation? the meaning is much more loaded, and is tied to Christianity, Jesus, sacrifice, sin, etc.

When we read poems, we need to be able to find the CONNOTATIONS for the key words and phrases that we see.

There is a link between CONNOTATION and SYMBOLIC VALUE.

A “thing” in a story, poem, song, play, etc can REPRESENT something else, that is often more complex, larger, more of an idea, etc.

There are often BIG IDEAS hidden in the words and images and phrases we see in poems. It can be a good idea to DIG IN and try to find out what these big ideas are.

We need to be thinking - “WHAT COULD THIS MEAN?”

And then, we need to find EVIDENCE to prove our opinion.