1. Characters & Setting Who, What, Where and When of Poetry Chapter 15

2. In poetry, character is studied as  The interactions of the speaker and the reader  Inner conflicts of the reader  Conditions of love, hate, acceptance, disagreement, etc.  The speaker’s commentary on personal, social & political life.

3. Setting  Possessions  Place they live  Periods of time  Financial status  Includes events & situations as well as objects and places

4. Speaker = The “Voice” of the Poem  Also called “persona” (latin root=mask) or narrator  Can be the poet’s voice  Can be human, animal, man-made, etc.

5. Inside Speaker  Uses 1 st person voice  Involved with the poem’s actions

6. Outside Speaker  Uses 3 rd person  Objective about actions (descriptive of action)

7. Other ways to learn about the speaker  Title  Diction  Grammatical forms  Word levels

8. Listener: the person the speaker is talking to  Not the reader  Is “inside” the poem  May exchange dialogue  Speaker/listener relationship creates drama  Dramatic monologue: speaker talks directly to an on-the-spot listener whose reactions may affect the course of the poem

9. “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning

10. Writing about Character & Setting in Poetry  How it differs from writing about characters in prose –The way you find out about the character is more through inference –Types of characters—often limited to the speaker  Use “discovering ideas” to outline your presentations (pg _____)

11. Strategies for Organizing Ideas  Formulate a central idea that focuses on the speaker’s personality or status –Character as revealed by his actions –Character as revealed by interaction –Character as revealed by circumstance or setting  Interrelationship of character & external situation