Final answer:
The poem 'Thoughts on the Works of Providence' is analyzed based on its use of poetic elements such as form and diction. The poem's effectiveness in conveying emotions and meaning is tied to the author's choices in rhythm, rhyme, line breaks, and the embodiment of characters. Additionally, poetry is both a craft that involves careful word placement and structuring, as well as an emotional art form.
Step-by-step explanation:
The poem Thoughts on the Works of Providence is analyzed based on its content and form to understand how it functions as a work of poetry. When considering how a poem conveys its message, the elements of form such as rhythm, rhyme, line breaks, and diction come into play, regardless of whether it adheres to a traditional structure or is a free verse composition.
These elements are deliberate choices made by the poet that affect how a poem is read and interpreted. Moreover, examining the poem's subject, such as in Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism, helps to reveal the meta-poetic nature, or poetry about poetry, highlighting the craftsmanship involved. Similarly, to evoke genuine emotions, the poet often adopts the emotions of the characters represented in the poem, as suggested by the suggestions that poetry may stem from a 'happy gift of nature' or 'a strain of madness'—each suggesting a poet's innate ability to embody different personas.
While studying the poem's diction and thought, one might reference Aristotle's views from his discussions on Tragedy in Rhetoric, where the importance of expressing thought through action rather than speech, particularly for eliciting feelings such as pity or fear, is emphasized. The analysis of poetry often involves recognizing the poetic elements that the author combines or emphasizes, which are essential to understanding the poem's impact and the intended emotional response.
Another important aspect is understanding the importance of decisions relating to the placement of words, the beginnings of lines, and line endings. These choices can create repetition, patterns, and emphasis, which relate directly to the poem's meaning. Engaging in the analysis and creation of poetry reveals that poetry is as much a craft and discipline as it is an art. Writing poetry involves not only the initial burst of emotion but also the subsequent careful revision of words to refine and express one's thoughts more effectively, particularly as suggested by Wordsworth's idea about poetry originating from emotion recollected in tranquility.