Meaning Of Diction In Poetry

The French poet, playwright, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau once said, "The poet doesn't invent. He listens" (AZQuotes), diction, or a writer's choice of words, has an important place in poetry, as the meaning, sound, and number of syllables in each word are often very important. Diction in poetry expresses the tone and many aspects of the style of poetic work. In many cases, particularly in poems that must follow to firm stylistic limitations, the poet must pick words that contain a certain number of syllables and that rhyme with other specific words. Diction is important even in less structured works of poetry as well, as most poetic forms are less wordy than most works of prose. While a prose writer can often spend several paragraphs on description,

Words carrying ideas of dreariness, darkness, and melancholy will often bear a drastically different tone than those suggestive of joy, brightness, and energy. The tone of a poem is often used to influence its emotional impact beyond the literal meaning and sounds of the words. A skilled poet designs their diction not only to carry a certain meaning and to sound a certain way, but also to evoke a particular set of emotional responses from readers. Sloppy and careless diction in poetry may succeed in meaning and sound but is likely to fail in evoking the specific emotional response intended by the

Within these restraints, diction becomes extremely important, as the poet must choose words that fit these restraints without compromising the meaning that a poet wishes to send. Each word must be assessed based on its meaning and its role in the rhythm and rhyme scheme. William Shakespeare is well-known for this type of writing.

In some forms of poetry, particularly in narrative poems, the choice of words is used to tell the reader something about the narrator. Diction in poetry can be used to convey that the speaker is from a certain background or age group, for instance. This use of diction, though much more common in prose, still has an important place in many forms of poetry, particularly when the identity of the speaker is essential to fully understanding the poem.

For Robert Frost, tone was very important. He said, "It's tone I'm in love with; that's what poetry is, tone." Frost believed that tone conveyed the art in poetry. He called himself an "ear reader," not an "eye reader." He interpreted the meaning of what he read by how it sounded to him. This is reflected in his own poems, which come to life in the reader's auditory imagination. Frost used tone to make his poems interesting, or as he said himself, "You've got to get