Appreciating Poetry: Form

The form of a poem means the way in which it is structured, the number of lines  in a stanza or verse, the number of verses in the poem overall and so forth.  There are several aspects to bear in mind when considering the form of a poem.  The first one is to identify the form of a particular poem. The second is to  compare the form of the poem considered with the forms of other poems and the  third part is to consider whether the choice of form adds to the value and  pleasure of the poem and, if so, in which way.

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Appreciating Poetry: Introduction

Appreciating poetry is not a skill that comes to many people automatically – instead, it is something that requires a measure of effort and patience.  However, it is certainly worthwhile. Poetry, good poetry at least, can distil  knowledge of the world in a way that helps readers to realize that other people  have the same feelings and experiences that we do or else provides a spark of  inspiration to help us make sense of the apparently cruel indifference of the  universe – other forms of philosophy are available, of course.

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Appreciating Chinese Poetry

There are some barriers to appreciating Chinese poetry in translation. First, the Chinese language, composed of its many thousands of characters with only a limited number of sounds, contains many more rhymes than languages based on an alphabet with letters generally does.

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