Poetic Style and Genre in Poems

The willingness to use appeal in literary works has remained the defining characteristic that distinguishes modern literature writers from literature writers who are communicating to a particular audience. While a wide variety of literary works, such as songs, novels, plays, and many other types, are important, poems have continuously been linked through the use of similar styles and genres in the depiction of different themes of interest. Richard Fanshawe's A Great Favourite Beheaded, W. H. Auden's In Memory of W. B. Yeats, and Paul Durcan's The Death by Heroin of Sid Vicious are three poems that demonstrate this aspect. Each of the three poets communicates to the audience in a characteristic persuasive and narrative style that is further built through the use of figurative sounds that portray the poets’ prowess in composition.

One district feature that is apparent in the three poems is the use of a narrative approach in the description of the specific stories that each of the authors wanted to portray. The narrative style constitutes a technique in writing in which the author uses appears to narrate a story to the listener or the reader to gain an understanding of the story theme. In “A Great Favorite Beheaded,” Sir Richard Fanshawe describes a story of the death of a prominent person whom the world had known for over ten years. The description of the death through the knife takes the fork of the description of biography of a famous person’s death which the author capitalizes on to get the audience into understanding the theme of the poem. The technique is further depicted in the poem by W. H. Auden “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” where the poet narrates a story in memory of a deceased W.B. Yeats. The author begins the poem by stating “He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted” (Auden 1). The narration technique makes it seem as if the author seeks to make the reader understand what the poem is about by beginning to narrate the manner in which W. B. Yeats died. The last common feature that connects the three poems is the use of a narrative technique in the composition of the poem the Death by Heroin of Sid Vicious. Again, the poet uses a similar approach to that is utilized by W. H. Auden when he begins the poem by stating “At daybreak—in the Arctic fog of a February daybreak” (Durcain 1). It is clear that when the audience first reads the title of the poem, they would become interested into knowing what caused the death. The poet cooperates by beginning the poem by narrating the events that ensued that day when he sates when transpired at daybreak all through the end of the fateful day.

It is also worth noting that the three poets further create a parallel in their works by considering the tone of the poems. A common feature that a reader would relate to after reading the three literatures is the concept of sadness and death which the poets want the audience to share in with them. The three authors evoke deep emotions in the manner in the way they describe the cause of death of the subjects in the poems. An important clue that a reader would relate to in getting to know the tone that Fanshawe uses is the consideration of the statement, “The common pity to his vertues payes, Adorning an Imaginary vault, Which from our minds time strives in vaine to raze” (6-8). The poet creates the effect of a somber mood by mentioning that the readers’ minds are all stricken by the loss of a great person. The element of getting the attention of the reader through the use of the appeal to their sympathetic impulses is thus unique style that creates a tone of a somber mood. Lastly, it is also common that the disheartening mood that is illustrated in the last poem by Paul Durcan when the author states that many did not make it through the journey though the unborn managed to overcome all odds. The statement, “to the forest edge, but many of us did not “creates an effect where the reader will end up becoming sad that many of those who were with the poem did no manage to stay alive through the journey. Overall, therefore, the mood of sadness and a tone that creates sorrow and grief is a key linking feature for the three poems that is relevant in the stylistic analysis of the three works.

It is further important to focus on the word choice as a method of concentrating the reader on the arguments at stake in the composition of the three genres of literature. The assessment of word choice is, however, relevant only when making comparisons or a relation to the theme that is in the story or the general argument that the author is making in the literature. It is thus apparent that in the poem “A Great Favorite Beheaded,” Fanshawe’s maintains weight by considering to opt for words that easily make the reader get the impression that he is talking about death. Words such as beheaded, haplesse, bereave, life, and fate makes the reader immediately to infer that the theme of the poem constitutes an unfortunate incidence. Likewise, it is apparent that a similar stake is utilized in the writing of the poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats.” Auden selects words such as death, memory, disappeared, mourning, dead. Silence, empty, and many other words of grief when writing his poem and which create the impression of bereavement. The last poem that further illustrates this concept of relevance of word choice in all three poems is Durcan’s usage of utterances that built on the theme of death. However, in this case, phrases are relevant with the notable example including the statements, “make it” and “broke for cover” (Durcan 9). It is thus apparent that from a critical perspective, all the three poets consider the need to remain relevant in the way in which they want the reader to understand the theme of love by choosing the appropriate words and phrases.

The assessment of the composition of the three poems further creates the effect of the relevance of the subject matter. All the three poems are about the demise and memory of particular individuals that seem to be important to the poets. In the poem by Durcan though, the people being referred to have died are important to the poet and whom the author is remembering through a poem. The plot of each creates an effect where the reader is given a progressive review of what transpired before death or the state of affairs following the demise of the particular individual or group of people. The former element of the plot is applicable in the assessment of the poem by Fanshawe and Durcan because it is possible that if it were a film, it would be easy to show how the deaths occurred. The subject matter thus remains in both poems and can be illustrated easily through a different medium. The poem by Auden, however, is not appropriate for filming because while the subject matter remains to be the concept of death, it would only be applicable to feel the events that ensued through filing the life that W. B. Yeats lived. Nevertheless, in all the three cases, it is apparent that the authors’ themes of death in various capacities can be illustrated through filming and thus help maintaining the appropriateness of the subject matter.

Another significant feature that stands out is the genre in which the three works are portrayed that can be perceived as the patterns of poetry. The use of rhyme, form, stanza, words, and many other aspects of interest that create repetition are all common in the three selected poems (Wesling 310). An example of a significant genre in poetry that is used in all the three poems is the concept of enjambment, where the grammatical structure is not finished towards the ending sentence and instead appears to run to the next line (Poetry). In the poem by Fanshawe, for example, the sentences, “The bloudy trunck of him who did possesse / Above the rest a haplesse happy state” depict enjambment (1-2). Just as the author starts the narration, the poet breaks the sentence and proceeds with the story in the following sentence. The enjambment is also identified in the poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” when the poet states, “To find his happiness in another kind of wood/ And be punished under a foreign code of conscience” (Auden 20-21). The breakage effect ensure that the reader can only understand the initial point by proceeding to the following line of the poem. Lastly, it is worth noting that enjambment is also pertinent in the poem by Durcan when considering the sentences, “The barbed wire and some of us made it/ To the forest edge, but many of us did not” (Durcan 9-10). It is apparent, therefore that the three poets use the aspect of enjambment in the composition of the three poems as a technique to show their fluency in the usage of language and composition of sentences (Poetry). It is critical to highlight, however, that while there are other applicable figurative elements such as rhyme and consonance, the enjambment feature is more apparent in each of the three poems

In summary, it is critical to emphasize that in the assessment of the poetic style and genre, all the three works constitute relatable parallels that the reader can consider to be significant in the illustration of the arguments. The most apparent technique is the consideration of the narrative approach, the tone of the poems, the appropriateness of the selected words and phrases, the relevance of the subject matter and the use of different patterns of poetry. As shown, each of the mentioned techniques is useful in enabling the audience to conceptualize the theme of the poems and build on the fluency and skills of the three authors.











Works Cited

Auden, W. H. “In Memory of W. B. Yeats.” n. pag. Print.

Durcan, Paul. “The Death by Heroin of Sid Vicious.” n. pag. Print.

Fanshawe, Richard. “A Great Favorite Beheaded.” n. pag. Print.

Poetry. “I.6 Enjambment.” (2017): n. pag. Web.

Wesling, D. “Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.” Modern Language Quarterly 2004: 305–310. Web.