Persona and Tone

Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”

Dorothy Parker’s “One Perfect Rose”

���Objectives

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• Introduce and discuss concepts of persona (or speaker) and tone in poetry
• Examine persona/speaker and tone in poems by Roethke and Parker

���Persona

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• A persona is the speaking subject of a poem.
• The persona is the “voice of a character” the poet creates (McMahan 352).
• It is possible for a poem to have more than one voice, however most have only one.
• Often we will simply use the term “speaker” to designate the voice of a poem.

����Persona

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Is it fair to assume that the speaker in a poem is the poet?

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(see Literature and the Writing Process page 352)

�Persona

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In her poem, “One Perfect Rose”, Dorothy Parker explores the plight of a woman who has never been in a limousine. This can be evidenced when the speaker says, “Why is it no one ever sent me yet / One perfect limousine, do you suppose?” The speaker is sick and tired of only getting crummy flowers, and wants her suitors to dish out more cash for a good night on the town.

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��Persona

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• We might say that the poet is responsible for the overall poem. The poet crafts the language and explores the themes.
• The speaker is the one who tells the poem to us and is involved in the action of the poem.
• Be careful of this distinction between poet and speaker/persona!

��Tone

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Quite simply put, tone in poetry is “the attitude of the writer towards the subject matter of the work” (McMahan 353).

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“Tone in a piece of writing is always similar to tone of voice in speaking” (353).

��Tone

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There is an almost inexhaustible list of adjectives that can be used to describe the tone of a poem. Some examples include

“humorous, joyous, playful, light ... solemn, sombre, poignant, earnest ... curt, hostile, sarcastic, cynical, ambivalent, ambiguous” (353) and the list goes on and on.

��Tone

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While the definition of tone is fairly straightforward, it can become a bit more complicated when we try to pick the best word to describe the tone of a particular poem. It is possible for different readers to have different ideas about the tone of the same poem.

��Irony

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• Verbal vs. Situational Irony
• Verbal irony is saying something and meaning the opposite; the surface meaning and the intended meaning are not the same; verbal irony is extremely common in literature.
• Situational irony is when a particular event is expected to take place but does not; there are varying degrees of situational irony.

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��Situational Irony?

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It's a traffic jam when you're already late

It's a no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

It's meeting the man of my dreams

And then meeting his beautiful wife

And isn't it ironic... don't you think

--Alanis Morissette (19.5 million hits, 21000 comments)

��Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”

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• who is the speaker in this poem and how do you know?
• could the speaker be otherwise?
• what is the tone of the poem and how do you know?
• could the tone be otherwise?

��Parker’s “One Perfect Rose”

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• who is the speaker in this poem and how do you know?
• could the speaker be otherwise?
• what is the tone of the poem and how do you know?
• could the tone be otherwise?