User:Mk1183/PersonaPoetry

Persona Poetry

Persona poetry is a sub-form of poetry that is not written from the perspective of its writer. These poems are from the voice and perspective of a 'persona' that the poet creates, and then implicitly posits as the speaker of the poem. Persona poetry has been likened to the dramatic monologue, although the two are functionally different in their form and purpose. The dramatic monologue is technically a speech, with one speaker, that can take part of a play, novel, or can exist as a poem. The persona poem does not have to be a speech, and can have multiple perspectives or speakers.

Origins and Development

The earliest use of the term 'persona' can be traced to the fifteenth century, although it was not a significant or common term. Persona poetry as a sub-form began proliferating from the 1730s onwards, and this has been explained by an increased desire to explore the self as an individuated and autonomous entity, due to an interest in individualism rather than collectivism.

Development of the persona poem gained traction in the twentieth century due to the term 'persona' being popularised in psychology and anthropology by researchers in these fields such as Carl Jung. Grzegorz Moroz states that the use of the male persona is more common in poetry than the female persona, with the term "Gentleman Scholar" entering the literary sphere in the eighteenth century due to this.

Telemachus and Mentor, from Homer's Odyssey

Notable Works

• Homer's epic poem, 'The Odyssey', has been accepted by academics as the first known persona poem in the Western literary canon.

• A. E. Housman's body of poetic works solidified the formal patterns and structures that distinguish the persona poem. Christopher Ricks has written that Housman created the 'Poetry of Emphasis', which uses the "monosyllable, internal rhyme, and the compound word". The Poetry of Emphasis has come to typify the technical qualities of the persona poem.

• T. S. Eliot's 1915 'The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock' is considered by many English academics to be influential to the trajectory of the persona poem in the twentieth century.

• Robert Browning’s 1842 “My Last Duchess” has been posited as meeting "the golden standard" of the persona poem, as it typifies the formalistic qualities of the persona poem: dramatic tension, manipulating the reader experience, and removing the distance between speaker and reader.

Critical Reception

In the twentieth century, analysis of the persona by literary academics focused on the way the persona was used in poetry, rather than the novel or play.

In the twenty-first century, Chris Mounsey states that there has been a slow movement away from discussing persona poetry in literary criticism due to the complexities surrounding questions of identity, personality, and literary value. Mounsey explains that there can be difficulty determining the identity or speaker of some poems. Mounsey states that doubts surrounding the identity of a poem's speaker are increased where multiple personae are involved.

Some critics also question the literary value of this form of poetry, with poetry reviewer for PN Review, Rebecca Watts, stating that poetry that is centred around a "personality" does not "deserve to be taken seriously as poetry."

Christopher Ricks has criticised both Housman and persona poetry in general as not being "profound", and that the rhythm and style of the persona poem "mitigates" the impact of what the "poem would be saying."

Themes and Interpretation

Poet Rebecca Hazelton explains that the persona poem permits "a great deal of control over the distance between a speaker and the audience", and that "the persona poem can accommodate a variety of speakers and dramatic situations". Hazelton states that the persona poem posits a “puzzle”, that revolves around an “artifice” and is a “very intimate form of poetry”. The writer is able to speak directly to the reader in a persona poem, building an “interpersonal relationship with them”.

The persona poem allows for a multiplicity of experiences and settings to be explored that the writer themselves does not have to have experienced, and taboo themes can be explored due to the protection of the writer's own identity, provided by the fictional persona.

The persona of the traveller and of the lover are common archetypes used within the persona poem. Alex Drace-Francis states that the genre of travel is instrumental to the formation of an author's persona, due to the varied locations that are used to "dramatise the self".

The persona poem can be employed as a form to explore societal issues that were not socially accepted at the time of writing, such as same-sex love, adultery, and sexuality. Through this, the poet is able to use their own name whilst protecting their reputation as they writing through a fictive self.

21st Century Persona Poetry

Snoop Dogg at the Snoop Dogg Supafest, 2011.

Persona poetry has persisted into the twenty-first century in the form of rap and song, as well as through traditional poetry. Celebrity figures such as Snoop Dogg have constructed alter-egos through which to write and perform songs, and through this Snoop Dogg is able to portray “the persona of a cool, yet violent man” to deliver “theatrically exaggerated threats.”

Other musicians that use the persona in their artistic endeavours include David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Garth Brooks’s Chris Gaines, Beyonce’s Sasha Fierce, Lady Gaga’s male alter ego Jo Calderone, and Nikki Minaj's many personae. Rebecca Hazelton explains that psychologically, this phenomenon suggests that using a persona allows for an "exploration of one's gender, sexuality, and social behaviours in their music with less fear of public or private repercussions".

In the sphere of traditional poetry, with the rise of "Instagram Poetry" more writers are choosing to write poetry using themselves as the explicit speaker of their poem rather than a persona. Instagram poet Rupi Kaur has outsold Homer's Odyssey as the best-selling poetry book, with over 3.5 million copies sold. Rebecca Watts states that the increased replacement of persona poetry with non-persona poetry is due to a trend in readers requiring "honesty" and "authenticity".