what is fragmentation in poetry?

Answer 1

Fragmentation in poetry occurs when the form of the poem captures the way the mind jumps from one thought to another, one image to another.

The best example (and one of the earliest) is probably T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The poet may create one unitary effect, as this poem does, and at the same time include many diverse and isolated images, quotations, and the like, that don't seem related or complete. They suggest rather that state outright.

Such poems are sometimes described as "oblique" rather than "direct," for the reader has to figure out what they mean, what lies behind the language. Students call this "reading between the lines." And, after all, that's a pretty good way to characterize a "fragmented" poem. The meaning is "between the lines" rather than on the surface of the poem.

Here's the way the noted critic, J. Hillis Miller, characterizes "...Prufrock":

"The poem circles around not only an unarticulated question, as all readers agree, but also an unenvisioned center, the 'one' whom Prufrock addresses. The poem never visualizes the woman with whom Prufrock imagines an encounter except in fragments and in plurals . . . ."

e e cummings, of course, took fragmentation one step further by breaking up lines on the page and letting the way the words were printed suggest their meaning. Check out these examples:

http://boppin.com/cummings.html

for

Buffalo Bill's
defunct

and http://www.web-books.com/classics/Poetry/Anthology/cummings/InJust.htm

for

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious

You gotta see these printed on the page to see how they work.

Answer 2

What Is Fragmentation

Answer 3

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/awnNl

In poetry, fragmentation and fusion consists in the breaking up of the conventional arrangements of stanzas, lines, or words into smaller units.

Answer 4

Try reading E.E. Cumming. He uses it a lot.


Unless I'm thinking of something completely different.