How do you find the theme in a poem?

Answer 1

It depends on what the author was trying to provoke, what their intent was upon writing the poem.

Some poems are politically driven, others are simply to share the poet's observations on the surrounding world, and many others are written to provoke emotion from readers.

Many poets simply write for its intrinsic value, creating a poem for Self, versus writing for any audience or cause.

Analyzing a poem's word choice, themes, imagery, and subject matter can hint towards a poem's goal. It varies greatly from poet to poet, and adds to the beautiful diversity in poetry that is available to readers.

Researching a poet's biography, and what they believed in, are also detrimental towards a poem's analysis. If the poet is living, you can ask what their intent was, though, developing your own criticisms and opinions on a poem is important. How you intrepret a poem may be different than the writer's intent, but either way, both defintions are correct.

What a poem is about is relative to the reader. We all are seperate individuals, with differnet environments and thought proccesses. What do you think the poem is about? That is no more wrong than what the writer intended.

The best way to anaylize poems is to read poetry. Having a grasp for the art form will allow you to find new meanings in different poems. Knowledge is power, as the age old cliche goes.

I hope this answer helps. Cheers!

Answer 2

To find the theme in a poem, if you are a first timer in this thing, just read and sing the poem from the first to the last line for once, whatever happens. Whatever is retained in your heart is the theme of that poem. If nothing is retained in human language, just throw it away, at least for the time being. It is not the poem for you to read, or you are not whom the poem tries to reach.

And if you are experienced in reading and singing poetry, your eyes will tell.

Answer 3

A Poem is a work of Poetry. Poetry like other genres of literature has to be interpreted through their foam and content. The foam is the superstructure of any literary work. In poem you can look on:

1) Style- here you can try to see if the poet used the modern or tradition method. Whether there were repeated words (refrain), or similies, figure of speech, rhetorical questions etc

2)The name of the poem

3) Language--here you look at the language used and if he introduced any other words, sacarsm or irony, imagery etc

4)Persona and characters.

In content you directly interpret the theme, message, and the philosophy behind.