Dead Poet Society Questions

What is the movie saying about poetry?

In the movie “Dead Poets Society”, poetry is meant to be viewed differently for everyone. There is no exact explanation to what a poem means exactly, but rather through what each and every different person’s perspective of the poem is. Poetry cannot be measured using graphs, nor can it be teached as equally as mathematics by simply utilizing and reading off a textbook. Therefore, Mr. Keating told the students to rip out the pages of “introduction to Poetry” in their poetry textbooks. On the first day of school, Mr. Keating, the English teacher told the students to recite the first stanza of a poem, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”, which means “Carpe Diem”, Latin for “Seize the Day”. His message was to state that people only get one chance to live, so make your lives extraordinary, take initiative in your life, and follow your dreams. This connects to one of the characters called Todd Anderson. First, he attended the school, hoping to follow his older brother’s footsteps, living his life in his brother’s shadow. However, throughout the movie, Todd clearly grown out of his “timid and shy” personality and started to stand up for himself and finding his own voice. Also, Neal, Todd’s roommate can connect and understand the meaning since his father did not allow him to follow his dreams in pursuing a career in acting. Mr. Keating showed the students a whole different way of understanding poetry other than what the usual poetry textbook states.

What do you think of poetry? How is it similar and different then the movie’s view of poetry?

I always thought poetry was simply about writing poems, always worrying about whether the poem had enough syllables, or making the verses rhyme. Never even thought about looking beyond all that and write poems that relate to what I feel. Also, when reading poems, people are so used to translating word by word in to the literature we comprehend, but not actually thinking insightfully about what the poem might mean to you, others and the poet him/herself. That’s the main difference from the movie’s point of view of poetry compared to mine. However, now I have come to think of poetry the way Mr. Keating in the movie stated. Everyone can write poems, like when Mr. Keating told Todd stand in front of the class and say out the first things that come in mind. He ended up creating a wonderful piece of literature that made the whole class applaud. This proves that everyone can create poems freely and without any restrictions.