The speaker of the poem is most likely the poet herself, as she uses the pronoun "I" and discusses her personal experiences. Throughout the poem, the poet employs a variety of literary methods. For example, imagery is employed frequently as the author describes what she sees and hears as the storm approaches. Also, parallelism is used where like words or phrases are repeated to give emphasis to what is being said.
To identify the speaker, the reader or listener must do more than simply hear the poem's voice. Other characteristics of the poetry, such as the context, structure, descriptive details, metaphorical language, and rhythms, should be examined to assist discover the speaker's identity. For example, if the poem is written in first person present tense, it can only be spoken by its author.
Poetry is defined as "the art of producing poems." This means that before you can identify what kind of speech is being made in a poem, you have to understand what a poem is. Poems are often thought of as free-flow compositions that lack a clear structure or form, but this is not true. Even though the beginning and ending of a poem are usually distinct, many other elements can be found throughout these sections of text.
For example, certain words or phrases may be repeated at specific points within the poem to provide emphasis, such as when speaking with someone new. These repetitions help us connect with the poet/speaker, since we know that he or she is able to recognize important details in his or her own work.
In addition to these explicit indications that a poem is being spoken, there are several other factors that should be taken into account when trying to identify the speaker.
The speaker and the addressee; the narrative and the narrator Every poetry has a voice, which may be referred to as a speaker (or, in some cases, speakers, if there is more than one person speaking the poem). This voice tells the story by singing it, using iambic pentameter or another verse form, and adding descriptive phrases such as "she said" and "he cried". The speaker is usually identified within the poem by either first name (e.g., Homer) or pseudonym (e.g., Virgil), but sometimes by appearance (e.g., "the poet stood before us").
Narrators are also used in poems that aren't considered fiction. For example, historians use narrators to describe events that didn't occur in real life (such as Caesar's battles or Martin Luther King Jr.'s marches). Narrators can also be used to explain how things work (such as Mr. Burns explaining nuclear power to Senator Lardbody) or why things happen (such as President Obama explaining his decision on Syria).
Many poems have more than one narrator. For example, two people might tell a story about what happened at a party through their different perspectives - one person might be describing what she saw, while someone else might be describing what he heard.
The poem's speaker is an unknown narrator, although his viewpoints are quite similar to Hughes's. As a result, the reader may envision Hughes himself as the speaker. Hughes writes in the first person, both from his own and the musician's point of view. Thus, the narrator is also Hughes or one of his characters.
He begins by describing how he has been all over Europe, with no place to go:
I'm tired, I'm weary, I'd like to be done/ With this traveling life for me/ There's no use in trying, no hope that anyone knows/ What it is I've tried to do.
Then, he adds:
But if you listen close you can hear/ Some symphonies still being written out on the road.
This last line suggests that even though the narrator has traveled across Europe, he has not yet finished writing about his experiences. As a result, he may have found a new place to go.
Hughes wrote the poem while riding through Europe on his way back home to America. The blues was then a popular music style among black Americans, so the narrator may have been using his experiences as the basis for his poems.
Poetry, like fiction, has a speaker—someone who serves as the poem's voice. Often, the poet is the speaker. At times, the speaker can adopt a persona—the voice of someone else, including animals and inanimate things. Political leaders, philosophers, and other people important to history are often given voice by poets.
In "The Owl," John Keats creates a speaker who adopts an owl as his mascot: "An old man owl, who with his head bare/Of its black cap turned up at the back,/Was nodding over his own chest." This metaphor suggests that the old man is thinking deeply about something he wishes to express. Like many poets, Keats used language poetically, which means he wanted to use all his senses when writing poetry. In this case, the poet wanted his audience to imagine an old man looking at himself in a mirror while listening to owls hooting outside his window at night.
This poem is about grief. The speaker is mourning the loss of a loved one, so you can assume that what he is feeling is pain and loneliness. He also seems confused about why death has come for his friend. Perhaps this mystery lover has been hiding somewhere in the shadows, waiting for the right time to reveal himself or herself to the poet.
Dickinson's poems, like most lyric poetry, identify the speaker in the first person, "I." Dickinson informed a reader that the "I" in her poetry does not always refer to the poet: "When I identify myself, as the Representative of Verse, it does not imply me, but an assumed person" (L268).
Dickinson used the first person to convey the idea that her poems were coming from someone else. This other person was usually a young girl who knew what it was like to be a child and could understand their feelings. The "I" in the poems also had a voice, so to speak, which made it possible for children to connect with her work.
In addition to being a speaker, the "I" in Dickinson's poems also represents verse. She explained that "Verse is the only language that can express the soul" and that "no other means exist of communicating the fullness of our thoughts or feelings." Thus, the "I" in Dickinson's poems is both the speaker and the verse they are composed of.
Children today may not know how important poetry is to art, but adults still value its role in creating understanding and inspiring change. Poetry is a way for people to express themselves creatively and openly. Without poetry, certain things would remain hidden inside us that might hurt us or others. For this reason, poetry is essential for human growth and development.
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