GMAT

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How to Determine The Number of Main Ideas in a Text Reading Strategies Using Visualization Close Reading vs Big Picture Reading Strategies Interpreting Literary Meaning How to Use Text to Guide Your Interpretation What is Inference How to Infer Intended Meaning Understanding Figurative Language in Poetry Inferring Mood in Poetry How to Draw Conclusions From a Passage Identifying an Author's Underlying Assumptions Constructing Meaning With Context Clues Prior Knowledge Word Structure Tone vs Mood Interpreting Meaning in Prose What Are Connotation And Denotation Definitions Examples How to Compare And Contrast Elements of a Passage Effective Summaries of a Paragraph or Passage How to Use Context to Determine The Meaning of Words How to Pass a Reading Comprehension Test

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GMAT: What Are Literary Motifs Definition Examples
Inferring Mood in Poetry

Jason has 20 years of education experience including 14 years of teaching college literature. Poets have a variety of tools to use to create mood. In this lesson, you'll learn about three of these tools and how you can use that knowledge to infer mood. You'll also learn how this skill applies specifically to the AP Literature exam.

Inferring Mood in Poetry

Setting the Mood

Somber. Nostalgic. Joyous. Depressing. Curious. If you've felt it, there's a poem that matches that mood. When you're feeling sappy and sentimental and you reach for the greeting card that expresses your mood, there's probably a little poem on the inside, next to the softly lit photos of flowers and kittens. The poem, probably 8 rhyming lines, perfectly captures your mushy feelings, but how does it do it? The writers of those cards know that there are some tools in the poetry tool kit that create mood. The main three are images, sounds, and diction.

Imagery

Imagery in poetry is the parts that excite the senses. Poetic imagery comes in several varieties. The most common is visual imagery, but poets can create images that appeal to touch, taste, smell, or hearing. There's a reason why flowers and kittens appear on your greeting card. Those images elicit an emotional response. Well, images in a poem do the same thing. Writers choose their images based in part on the mood they create.

In Poe's poem, The Raven, he presents the reader with some carefully constructed images. Poe builds his mood of melancholy from the early in the poem when he describes a fire in a fireplace in the midst of winter. Rather than focus on the cheerful flames or the cozy warmth, he instead references the embers thrown from the fire that glow and are then extinguished. Poe writes, 'And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor'. Even the dead embers are described in ghoulish terms by Poe's use of the word 'ghost.'

Diction

And that brings me to my second tool, diction. Diction in the context of poetry simply means the words chosen for a poem. Words carry emotional weight. Poets first decide on the emotion they're hoping to create in the reader and then they choose words to build their images, metaphors, and all those cool poetic devices you've learned about in class. Well-chosen words will carry additional emotional content that augments the intended mood of the poem.

For example, rather than using a word like 'fading' or 'burning' to describe the embers, Poe chooses the word 'dying', a word that carries sadder emotional content than the others. Instead of 'ashes', Poe employs the word 'ghost' to refer to the remnants of the embers. His creepy, supernatural diction supports his poem's mood, which is both melancholy and creepy.

Sound

The third approach Poe uses is sound. Acoustics refers to all the sound elements of a poem. Poetry is meant to be heard more than it's meant to be read, and poets have a keen ear for sounds. If you were trying to create a sad, creepy mood using only sounds, what sounds might you make? You'd probably use some low moaning sounds. In 'The Raven', Poe repeatedly rhymes words with the same low moaning sound, words like 'door' and 'floor' and 'before' and of course, 'nevermore'.

When you're reading a poem, you can infer the mood by paying attention to these three tools. Find the images in the poem, then ask yourself, 'How do these images make me feel?' Do the same with word choice. Are there any words that stand out? Consciously consider why those words might have been chosen; what emotional impact could they have? Finally, listen to the poem. Do the sounds, the rhymes, the rhythm of the poem lift you up? Do they bring you down? Consciously find parts in the poem that elicit emotion and listen to the sound of the lines and how that moves you.

Tips for the AP Literature Test

On the AP Literature test, you'll have to analyze a poem and write an essay explaining your ideas. Certainly mood could be an important part of that analysis. Here are two tips to remember when analyzing mood.

First, while poets can create mood with images, diction, and sound, that doesn't mean that you'll find all three techniques used in every poem. It's very likely that a poet might only use one or two of those tools.

Second, poetry that's included in your exam will be complex. 'Complex' is one of those words that they use all the time on the AP test. I'm going to clue you in on a secret. If the test mentions the 'complex mood', what they're really saying is there's more than one mood. To show that you understand the complexity, and that's important to do well on the test, you should be sure to write about how the mood shifts at least once. Find the spot in the poem where your feelings shift, then break down what it is about the poem that generates that shift in mood. Not all poems have a shift in mood, so will poems on the AP exam have one? You bet. They love to choose complex poems for the exam.