Poetry: Speakers, Ideas, and Figurative Language

The Voice of the Poem: Identifying the Speaker and Point of View

Every poem has a voice that tells the story or shares reflections. In poetry, this voice is known as the speaker. A fundamental rule of reading poetry is that the speaker should not automatically be assumed to be the real-life poet. Just as a novelist creates fictional characters to narrate a book, a poet often constructs a distinct speaker to deliver the lines of a poem. Determining who the speaker is clarifies their motivation and their relationship to any other characters mentioned in the text. Furthermore, the speaker's personal biases and values influence how events are presented, coloring every description and observation.

Poems generally fall into different forms depending on what this voice aims to accomplish. Narrative poems tell a story that includes characters, a setting, and an unfolding sequence of events. Within a narrative poem, the speaker may participate directly or watch from afar. In contrast, a lyric poem focuses on expressing personal feelings, thoughts, or states of mind rather than telling a story. Another distinct form is the dramatic monologue, which is a poem in which one speaker addresses an implied listener. As the dramatic monologue unfolds, it often reveals the speaker's inner character or unique situation to the reader.

To understand the speaker's viewpoint, you must examine the grammatical perspective being used. A first-person speaker uses pronouns such as 'I,' 'me,' and 'my.' In a narrative poem, a first-person speaker may be a character directly involved in the action of the plot. A third-person speaker uses pronouns such as 'he,' 'she,' and 'they' to describe events from an outside viewpoint. Third-person narration can be limited or omniscient. A third-person limited speaker tells the story mainly through one character's perspective, without knowing every character's thoughts. On the other hand, a third-person omniscient speaker knows the thoughts, motives, and feelings of multiple characters.

Readers can identify a speaker's overall perspective by analyzing tone, diction, and emotional reactions to events. Diction refers to the specific words the speaker selects, while tone reflects the speaker's attitude toward the subject. By tracking how the speaker reacts emotionally to what happens, you can pinpoint their underlying attitude and discover what drives their point of view.