The Formalistic Approach
o I. READING A POEM: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FORMALISTIC APPROACH
Here is the situation:
The reader is to be presented with a short but complete poem.Its author and its era of composition are unknown.Its lan-guage, however, is English; it is not a translation.Here is the poem:
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears;
She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years.No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, and trees.The poem seems quite simple, easy to grasp and to understand.