This document provides an overview of poetic techniques used to analyze characterization and voice in poetry. It discusses examining who is speaking in the poem and to whom, as well as tone of voice. The summary also touches on poetic devices like imagery, metaphor, rhythm and rhyme that contribute to character and perspective. Location is also noted as important context for understanding voice. An excerpt from a poem is then analyzed as an example.

1. Poetry Across Time: Character and voice
Key
Language: connotation, imagery, metaphor, simile
Structure and form: stanzas, type, patterns, contrast, juxtaposition
Poetic methods: alliteration, caesura, assonance, rhythm, rhyme
Character and voice: who is speaking and to whom? Tone of voice
Links: comparisons to other speakers, methods and themes
Benevolence to the rest of
the natural world – sign of Importance of location in many of the C&V
man and nature being at poems.
odds. Title is evocative of a pre-Christian Britain
steeped in pagan mythology and superstition.
Pun on the phrase
‘rough and ready’? The River God
Of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire Four adjectives with
unattractive connotations –
Enjambment = juxtaposition with ‘beautiful’
I may be smelly and I may be old, subject matter.
inability to
separate
Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools,
Voice – vindictive,
internal But where my fish float by I bless their swimming
takes pleasure in
conflict & And I like the people to bath in me, especially women. the killing
rivers flow But I can drown the fools (sadism).
Who bathe too close to the weir, contrary to rules.
Eccentric and
And they take a long time drowning whimsical yet
As I throw them up now and then in the spirit of clowning. disruptive and
Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow, spiteful.
O I may be an old foul river but I have plenty of go.
Repeated
‘beautiful’ Once there was a lady who was too bold
suggests lack She bathed in me by the tall black cliff where the water runs cold,
of eloquence – So I brought her down here Allusion to the underworld and Hades.
and simple To be my beautiful dear.
world view.
Oh will she stay with me will she stay Use of question
This beautiful lady, or will she go away? = self-doubt and
Structure: single She lies in my beautiful deep river bed with many a weed uncertainty.
stanza = river To hold her, and many a waving reed.
shape and stream Deliberate
Oh who would guess what a beautiful white face lies there phonic echo
of consciousness.
Waiting for me to smoothe and wash away the fear of ‘raving’.
She looks at me with. Hi yih, do not let her
Structure cyclical – Go. There is no one on earth who does not forget her
returns to the start Now. They say I am a foolish old river Repetition gives a
like the water But they do not know of my wide original bed sense of desperate,
cycle. unhinged lonely voice.
Where they lady waits, with her golden sleepy head.
If she wishes to go I will not forgive her.
Keyword: Extended metaphor. The feelings and thoughts of the river are all congruent with
Smiths’ depression and insecurity as well as her fear of mortality.
Interpretations of the poem:
• An extended metaphor describing the experience of being a river in the first person as a way of exploring
issues of depression and loneliness.
• A general commentary on how we hurt the ones that we love.