Peterson's Poetry Test

Trying the poetry multiple choice questions was kind of an eye-opener for me. Before, I thought that I was just bad at understanding poetry in general, but the test helped me pinpont specific elements and types of poetry that give me problems. For example, most of the questions that I missed were those that had to do with symbolism, tone, and figurative language. Because of my struggles with symbolism, I had the hardest time with the first poem, by the Romantic poet John Keats. Since Romantic poetry tends to have a lot of symbolism, that would explain why I have a harder time understanding it. Most of the figurative language problems were made clear through questions like number seven from the first set of questions, which wanted the reader to identify that the knight was dead. I completely missed out on that, although looking back I wonder how because it seems like it should have been made obvious by Keats' wording. I often forget how important word choice is in poetry, and as a result when something isn't stated directly I just don't pick up on it. Overall, it would seem that I have a lot of work to do when it comes to understanding symbolism, tone, and figurative language.