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Identifying Persona in A Poetry

In this document, persona in poetry is discussed. It explains that in some poems like Dante's Divine Comedy, the author speaks directly as themselves. However, in other poems like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the voice and perspective shifts between different pilgrim characters. A third example is given of a poem by William Cowper where the persona is from the perspective of a goldfinch, speaking as the bird. The document concludes that identifying the persona enhances understanding and appreciation of the poetry.

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529 views6 pages

Identifying Persona in A Poetry

In this document, persona in poetry is discussed. It explains that in some poems like Dante's Divine Comedy, the author speaks directly as themselves. However, in other poems like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the voice and perspective shifts between different pilgrim characters. A third example is given of a poem by William Cowper where the persona is from the perspective of a goldfinch, speaking as the bird. The document concludes that identifying the persona enhances understanding and appreciation of the poetry.

Uploaded by

angelo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Identifying Persona in

a Poetry
In poetry, is it always the author speaking?
Identifying Persona in a Poetry
In the Divine Comedy, Dante speaks in his own voice. He is the speaker-
the “I” in the poem. In the beginning of Paradiso, he says:
Truly whatever of the holy realm
I had the power to treasure in my mind
Shall now become, the subject of my song
O good Apollo, for this last emprise
Make of me such a vessel of thy power
As giving the beloved laurel asks!
One summit of Parnassus hitherto
Has been enough for me, but now with both
I need must enter the arena left
Identifying Persona in a Poetry
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” a group of pilgrims
agree to take turns telling stories as they journey to the cathedral at
Canterbury. The speaker in the tales shifts from one pilgrims to
another. In the following excerpt, it is the pardoner telling his tale:

Now these rioters of whom I tell


One morning long ere nine by any bell
He sat down in a tavern to drink
And as they sat a bell began to clink
Before a corpse being carried to his grave
Then said the tavern-keeper to his knave
“Since how the funeral train has come so nigh,
Go ask whose corpse is that which passes by.”
Identifying Persona in a Poetry
In many works of poetry, the voice speaking or
persona, is another character. Read the following poem
by the 18th-century English poet William Cowper, in
which the”I” or the persona is a goldfinch, a bird
starved to death in a cage
Identifying Persona in a Poetry
Time was when I was free as air For caught and caged, and starved to
The thistle’s downy seed my lare death
My drink the morning dew In dying sighs my little breath
I perch’d at will on every spray Soon pass’s the wiry grate
My form genteel, my plumage gay Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes
My strains forever new And thanks for this intellectual close
But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain And cure of every ill
And form genteel were all in vain More could none express
And of transient date And I, If you had shown me less
Had been your prisoner still
Identifying Persona in a Poetry
Recognizing persona deepens the
understanding and appreciation of the sentiments
and messaged expressed in poetry

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