Memorizing a poem is one of the most classic tasks that are assigned in school. However, for many, playing Leopardi is not a walk in the park. While you may think there is a lot to learn in order to memorize a poem, by following and perfecting the steps in this article, you will eventually be able to memorize any type of poem effectively.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Memorize a Formal Poem
Step 1. Read the poem aloud many times
It is important to remember that all poems - rhyming or not - come from the oral tradition, that is, they are meant to be spoken and heard. Before television, it was poetry that entertained people by telling stories. And in an age when not everyone was able to read, poetry took on certain characteristics - from rhyming patterns to metric form - that helped people who couldn't read poems in books remember how the story was articulated..
- Before you start trying to memorize the poem, read it aloud several times.
- Don't just read the written words; try to perform as if you are telling a story to an audience. Lower your voice in quiet moments, and raise it in emphatic ones. Gesture with your hands to highlight the most important passages. Be theatrical.
- It is important to read the poem aloud, and not just in your mind. Hearing the poem with your ears will help you remember the rhymes and rhythms and learn all the poetry faster.
Step 2. Look for words you don't understand
Poets are great lovers of words, so they often use uncommon headwords. If you are asked to learn an ancient poem, you will likely encounter archaic words or grammatical structures that you do not understand. Understanding the meaning of these words and phrases will help you memorize the poem. Take as an example the poem "Guido, I 'I would like you Lapo and I" by Dante Alighieri.>
- In the first verse, you may have to search for the words "vasel" (vessel, ship) and "enchantment" (magic, spell).
- In the second stanza the words "rio" and "disio" may not be clear to you.
- In some cases, it's not the words themselves that get you in trouble, but their use in poetry. You may know all the words in the third verse of the poem, but not understand what it is about.
- If you can't understand the meaning of a poem, consult a didactic manual in the library or on the internet.
Step 3. Learn and internalize the "story" of the poem
Once you have searched for all the words, idioms and images you don't know, you will have to learn the history of poetry. If you don't understand what it is, it will be much more difficult to memorize it, because you should try to memorize a series of unrelated words that have no meaning to you. Before attempting to memorize the poem, you should be able to summarize the story easily and comprehensively in mind. Don't worry about the words of the poem - a summary of the contents will suffice.
- Some poems are "narrative", that is, they tell a story. A good example is William Wordsworth's “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”.
- In it, the narrator wanders through nature and arrives in a field of daffodils. He then describes the flowers: how they dance in the breeze, how their number seems to imitate that of the stars in the sky, how their dance seemed happy and joyful, how the memory of those flowers fills him with joy in the sad moments when he is at home, away from nature.
Step 4. Look for connections between stanzas or sections
Not all poems are narrative and tell a clear story with a plot: first this happened, then this one. But all poems deal with a topic, and the best ones - which are often the ones assigned by teachers - develop and progress in some way. Even if there is no plot, try to understand the meaning or message of the poem by understanding the links between the stanzas or sections. Take Richard Wilbur's "Year's End" as an example.
- This poem begins with a clear setting: it is New Year's Eve, and the speaker is in a street, looking into the window of a house, where he can see the figures inside moving through the covered glass. of ice.
- The main part of the poem progresses with associations of images, born freely from the writer's mind, which do not follow a logical or chronological order, as would happen in a story.
- In this poem, the frozen window of the first verse makes the poet think of a frozen lake; they are quite similar after all. The leaves that fell on the lake during the freeze are in turn frozen and trapped on the surface, floating in the wind like perfect monuments.
- The perfection at the end of the second verse is referred to in the third as "perfection in the death of ferns". The idea of freezing is also invoked: as the leaves were frozen in the lake as monuments in the second verse, the ferns are frozen as fossils in the third. Mammoths have also been frozen as fossils, and remain preserved in the ice.
- The conservation at the end of the third verse is recalled in the fourth: a dog preserved in the ruins of Pompeii, the city canceled by the eruption of Vesuvius, but whose forms have been made eternal by volcanic ash.
- The last verse recalls the idea of the sudden end of Pompeii, when people were "frozen" where they were unexpectedly, unable to imagine their death. The final verse takes us back to the scene of the first: it's New Year's Eve, the end of another year. When we "advance into the future", the poem suggests that we should consider all the "sudden ends" that the poem has presented to us: the leaves caught in the ice, the ferns and fossilized mammoths, the sudden deaths in Pompeii.
- It can be difficult to memorize this poem because it does not have a chronological development of the plot. But by understanding the associations that bind the stanzas, you will be able to remember them: looking through the frozen window on New Year's Eve → leaves in a frozen lake as perfect monuments → the perfection of fossilized ferns and mammoths preserved in ice → bodies preserved in ashes volcanic in Pompeii → we should remember these sudden ends, at the end of the year, when we look to the next.
Step 5. Understand the yardstick of poetry
The meter is the rhythm of a line of poetry; is made up of metric feet, or units of syllables with their distinct accent patterns. The hendecasyllable (composed of 11 syllables) for example is the most common meter of Italian poetry, while iambi are the most common metric unit of English poetry, because it closely recalls the natural sound of that language. They consist of two syllables - the first unstressed, the second stressed, which gives rise to a ta-TUM rhythm, as in the word "hel-LO".
- Other common feet include: the trocheus (TUM-ti), the dactyl (TUM-ti-ti), the anapesto (ta-ta-TUM), and the spondeo (TUM-TUM).
- In Italian literature, most poems use iambs and dactyls, but there is a huge metric variation. These variants are often found at important moments in poetry; look for variations at key moments in the story you have memorized.
- The meter of a poem is often limited by the number of feet in a line. The iambic pentameter, for example, is a meter in which each verse is composed of five (penta) iambs: ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM. An example of an iambic pentameter is "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" of Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18".
- The dimeter indicates the presence of two feet on each side; the trimeter has three feet; the tetrameter four, the hexameter six and the heptameter seven. Very rarely you will see longer lines than the heptameter.
- Count the syllables and rhythms of each verse, then determine the yardstick of the poem. This will help you learn the musical cadence.
- For example, there is a big difference between a poem written in iambic tetrameter, such as Tennyson's “In Memoriam A. H. H.,” and a typed writing such as Tennyson's “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.
- As you did in the first step, read the poem aloud many times, but pay particular attention to the sonority and rhythm of the lines. Read the poem several times until the music, including its metric variations, sound as natural and predictable to you as your favorite song.
Step 6. Memorize the formal structure of the poem
A formal poem, also known metric verse, is a poem that follows a pattern of rhymes, length of stanzas and meters. You've already discovered the meter, but now you need to look at the rhyme scheme, which will tell you how many lines are in each verse. Search an online guide to check if your poem is an example of a particular metric form - a Petrarchian sonnet for example or a sestina. It could be a special form, invented by the poet for the sole purpose of that poem.
- On the internet you can find many reliable sources where you can learn more about the formal structure of the poem you are trying to learn.
- By memorizing the structure of the poem, you will be able to remember the next passage better if you get stuck while reciting the verses.
- For example, if you are trying to recite Giovanni Pascoli's “Il fiume,” but get stuck after the second verse, you may remember that it is a Petrarch sonnet, which begins with the ABBA rhyming pattern.
- Since the first line ends with "casolare" and the second with "mura", you know that the third line will end with a word that rhymes with "mura" and the fourth with a word that rhymes with "casolare".
- At this point you will be able to remember the rhythm of the poem (hendecasyllables) to help you remember the line: “d'erme castella, e tremula verzura; / here you are at the thunderous sea: ".
Step 7. Read the poem aloud many times
This time you should do it very differently from the first readings, because you will understand in a deeper way the story, the message and the meaning of the poem, its rhythm and its sonority and its formal structure.
- Read the poem slowly and theatrically, expressing all your new knowledge in the performance. The more involved you are in the theatrical performance of the piece, the easier it will be to remember it.
- As you manage to recite the lines without reading, try to say more and more parts of the poem by heart.
- Don't avoid looking at the paper if you have to. Use it as a guide to help your memory as long as you need to.
- As you continue to read the poem aloud, you will find that you are reciting more and more verses from memory.
- Switch naturally from page to memory.
- After you have successfully recited all the poem by heart, continue to recite it five or six times to make sure you have memorized it.
Method 2 of 2: Memorize a Free Verse Poem
Step 1. It is more difficult to memorize a free verse poem than a formal one
Free verse poetry became popular after the modernist movements of the early twentieth century, when poets such as Ezra Pound declared that the rhyming patterns, metrics, and stanzas that dominated poetry for much of its history I am unable to describe truth or reality. As a result, many of the poems written in the last hundred years have no rhymes, predictable rhythms, or pre-established stanzas, and are therefore much more difficult to remember.
- Even if you've been able to remember sonnets easily in the past, don't expect it to be as easy to learn free-verse poems.
- You will have to work harder.
- If you have the choice of which poem to memorize for a lesson and you are short on time, prefer a classic poem instead of a free verse one.
Step 2. Read the poem aloud many times
As you did with the classic poems, you will need to start by becoming familiar with the rhythm of the free verse poems. Although the formal features that help remember other poems are lacking, as TS Eliot said, "no verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." This phrase means that all kinds of language, even the informal one used in conversations, it can be analyzed in search of metric rhythms and patterns produced at an unconscious level, and that a good poet will be able to extract musicality from a verse even without the aid of a rigid structure - to quote Eliot again: "I am not in able to say what sort of verse would be one entirely devoid of analysis."
- When reading the poem aloud, try to capture the author's distinctive voice. Do you use a lot of commas that slow down the pace of the poem, or do you feel like the words chase each other in one long run?
- Free verse poetry tries to reproduce the rhythm of natural speech, therefore it will make great use of the iambic meter, which closely recalls natural Italian. Is this the case with this poem?
- Does poetry have a surprisingly different rhythm from the iambic meter? James Dickey's poem, for example, is famous for the parts in anapestic trimetre scattered in his free verse poems. Here is an example of Dickey's “The Lifeguard,” which mostly uses the iambic meter, but interspersed with anapestic trimeters and dimeters: “In a STAble of BOATS I lie STILL”; "The LEAP of a FISH from its SHAdow"; "With my FOOT on the WATer I FEEL."
- Read the poem aloud repeatedly until you can internalize the musical rhythm of the poet's voice.
Step 3. Look for words and references you don't understand
Since free verse poetry does not have a long tradition, it is rare to encounter archaic words that you do not recognize. Some branches of free-verse poetry try to closely imitate the spoken language and avoid courtly terms; Wordsworth, an influential forerunner of free verse, wrote that a poet is nothing more than "a man who speaks to men." However, poets, who try to overcome the boundaries of language, in some cases resort to little-used words to elevate their works to a more artistic level. Make good use of your dictionary.
- Modern and contemporary poetry has a tendency to make abundant use of allusions, so beware of references you don't understand. Classical references to Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology are quite common, as are biblical ones. Look for all obscure references to better understand the meaning of a verse.
- Eliot's “The Waste Land” for example contains so many references that it is almost incomprehensible without consulting the accompanying notes to the poem provided by the author. (Even then, it remains difficult!)
- Again, the aim is to learn poetry more easily. It will be easier to memorize a poem that you "understand".
Step 4. Look for the most important moments in the poem
Since you can't rely on rhymes or rhythm to help your memory, you'll need to find key points in the poem to refer to. Study the poem in search of the parts you like or surprise you. Try to space them out within the poem, so as to identify a distinct line or phrase for each section. Even if the poem consists of a single long verse, you could choose a memorable image or phrase for every four lines, or perhaps for each sentence, regardless of the number of lines that make it up.
- Take Eugenio Montale's “In Limine” as an example. For this poem, we will simply list the striking and memorable images that come to mind:
- the wave of life; a dead person sinks; reliquary; eternal womb; lonely strip of land; steep wall; ghost that saves you; game of the future; broken mesh; flee !; the thirst; acrid rust.
- Notice how memorable each of these phrases is and identify a key point in the poem's plot.
- By memorizing these key phrases before attempting to recite the entire poem, you will have steadfast points that will help you move forward if you get stuck.
- Memorize the words of these sentences in the exact order they appear in the poem. You will have created a condensed summary of the poem that will help you summarize it in the next step.
Step 5. Turn memorable sentences into a summary of the poem
As with classical poetry, you will need to fully understand the history or meaning of the poem before attempting to memorize it. That way, if you can't remember a word, you can rethink the summary to refresh your memory. Transform the key phrases you identified earlier into your summary, making sure you shape the connective tissue that binds one sentence to the next in your own words.
If the poem is fiction, try acting it like a play to better remember the chronology of the progression. Robert Frost's poem “Home Burial” for example is so narrative, with its exposition and its dialogues, that it has been recited. “Home Burial” would otherwise be a very difficult poem to remember, since it is written completely in loose verse, ie non-rhymed iambic pentameters
Step 6. Read the poem aloud many times
You should have a good starting point at this point, because you've already used the list of key phrases to write a summary. Keep reading the poem aloud - with each reading, however, try to switch between key phrases without having to look at the page.
- Don't get frustrated if you can't recite the poem perfectly on the first try. If you feel frustrated, take a moment to relax and take a five-minute break to let your brain rest.
- Remember to use the key images and summary as aids in remembering each line of the poem.
