Introduction to Poetry

Imagery

Meaning

Ever since the beginning of the study of this poem your main task has been to try to make sense of the 'meaning' of the poem. When described in that way it sounds as if there is only a single meaning that the poem contains which is the same for every reader. But as we pointed out earlier in the study, every reader brings to each new experience of reading a poem all of the life experience that they have had. No two people have exactly the same experience and therefore no two people will have the same sense of the meaning of a poem.

If you click the following link you will be taken to another version of the poem where some extra information on meaning is given on each individual line. You might find this helpful but remember that it does come with a health warning. You might interpret the meaning of the poem and of each line entirely differently from the writer of these lines. Your opinion is just as valid.