Tone Speaker 文学原理教程.pptVIP

Tone Speaker Tone ---- The implied attitude of the author toward his theme or his subject. Reading / Hearing a poem Hearing the voice of its speaker Catching its tone and feeling Understanding ultimately its meaning Tone is an abstraction we make from the details of a poem’s language. ① The use of meter rhyme or lack of them; ② The inclusion of certain kinds of details exclusion of other kinds; ③ Particular choices of words sentence pattern; ④ Particular choices of imagery figurative language. The tone of a poem can be describe as: ---- Cold / Eager / Uncertain / Boastful / Protesting / Cynical / Resigned / Ironic (More important persistent) Tone is the emotional coloring of a poem: ① To recognize the tone is to adjust the reader’s relation with the poem and / or with the poet; ② Failure to determine the tone accurately leads to misunderstanding of its poem. A Blade of Grass (Brian Patten) You ask for a poem. I offer you a blade of grass. You say it is not good enough. You ask for a poem. I say this blade of grass will do. It has dressed itself in frost, It is more immediate Than any image of my making. You say it is not a poem. It is a blade of grass and grass Is not quite good enough. I offer you a blade of grass You are indignant. You say it is too easy to offer grass. It is absurd. Anyone can offer a blade of grass. You ask for a poem. And so I write you a tragedy about How a blade of grass Becomes more difficult to offer, And about how as you grow older A blade of grass Becomes more difficult to accept. Brian Pattens A Blade of Grass has a tone of sad acceptance toward the loss of childlike wonder that could have accepted the blade of grass; it mourns the adult loss of the ability to find the beauty in a blade of grass. POINT OF VIEW IN POETRY POET The poet is the author of the poem. SPEAKER The speaker of the poem is the “narrator” of the poem. Speaker ---- the person who speaks in or narrat