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The Poetry and Memory Project is an interdisciplinary enquiry into the value and experience of poetry in the memory, and examining the relationship between memorisation and understanding.
The funded phase of project began in January 2014 and ran to December 2016. The project yielded a large and rich set of data, which we continue to analyse. You can read the project report and our initial publications here. A book of the project is planned for publication in 2021. |
Project aims and objectives
The Poetry and Memory Project is an interdisciplinary enquiry into the value and experience of poetry in the memory, and examining the relationship between memorisation and understanding.
The funded phase of project began in January 2014 and ran to December 2016. The project yielded a large and rich set of data, which we continue to analyse.
You can read the project report and our initial publications here. A book of the project is planned for publication in 2021.
The funded phase of project began in January 2014 and ran to December 2016. The project yielded a large and rich set of data, which we continue to analyse.
You can read the project report and our initial publications here. A book of the project is planned for publication in 2021.
LEARNING POETRY BY HEART was once inscribed in the British school curriculum and woven into the fabric of cultural life, but has now declined to the point where knowing and being able recite poetry is no longer a cultural norm. At the same time, there is a distinct nostalgia for a time when people could readily summon up lines of verse, supplying poetic insight for any occasion and reinforcing a sense of shared cultural heritage. This dichotomy was reflected in our own, earlier study of teachers’ perceptions of poetry teaching: some thought that memorising poetry was ‘old fashioned’, if not a real threat to enjoyment and engagement; but for those who had learned poetry themselves when young it was evidently a cherished resource for teaching and for life. Whilst memorisation and recitation were reinstated on the English primary curriculum in 2012, it was not on the basis of research evidence. Since then, informal reports have indicated that in some classrooms the requirement is being met with reluctance, with some teachers using potentially counterproductive methods. At secondary level, the reversion to ‘closed book’ examinations, with its implied obligation to memorise, has been met with similar ambivalence.
AT THE HEART OF THIS AMBIVALENCE are questions about the relationship memorisation has with engagement and understanding. The wider cultural context, meanwhile, is one in which there are signs of reviving interest in the practices of memorisation and recitation – perhaps in part a result of anxiety about the increasing outsourcing of our memory to external devices. Our project therefore took as its central research questions:
AT THE HEART OF THIS AMBIVALENCE are questions about the relationship memorisation has with engagement and understanding. The wider cultural context, meanwhile, is one in which there are signs of reviving interest in the practices of memorisation and recitation – perhaps in part a result of anxiety about the increasing outsourcing of our memory to external devices. Our project therefore took as its central research questions:
- What is the distinctive value of the memorised poem?
- What is the relationship between memorisation and understanding?
Methodology
BECAUSE MEMORISATION OF POETRY IS A COMPLEX PHENOMENON arising from the interplay of social, cultural and psychological factors, this enquiry has taken an interdisciplinary perspective and multiple angles of approach. Designed as a nested, multiple-methods project, the investigation has collected and is now analysing and integrating data collected through three strands: literary and documentary research, online survey and in-depth interviews.
OUR NATIONAL ONLINE SURVEY was launched on National Poetry Day in 2014, we launched a national online survey. We asked people to name one poem they knew by heart, and to tell us about its significance for them. We also asked questions about when and why they learned poetry, as well as gathering salient personal details. We now have around 500 responses.
FORTY IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS were conducted with selected survey participants and others.
OUR NATIONAL ONLINE SURVEY was launched on National Poetry Day in 2014, we launched a national online survey. We asked people to name one poem they knew by heart, and to tell us about its significance for them. We also asked questions about when and why they learned poetry, as well as gathering salient personal details. We now have around 500 responses.
FORTY IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS were conducted with selected survey participants and others.
FINDINGS AND OUTCOMES
The data we have collected is rich and substantial. Our analysis has succeeded in identifying a number of central themes that we know are of interest to leading figures in education, the arts and in therapeutic interventions, and we have developed an excellent network of relationships within these fields. Although a small project, Poetry and Memory has developed a strong public presence, and we respond to frequent enquiries from media representatives.
The project’s modest size has limited what could be achieved within the funding period, and there is potential for further analysis on our data set and for other development of the work. We are investigating ways to do this, including making the database publically available to researchers for other studies, and finding routes to influence thinking and policy within education.
The project’s modest size has limited what could be achieved within the funding period, and there is potential for further analysis on our data set and for other development of the work. We are investigating ways to do this, including making the database publically available to researchers for other studies, and finding routes to influence thinking and policy within education.
Significance
FOR FORMAL EDUCATION, our findings will contribute to the research evidence base available to educational policy-makers and practitioners. As well as having obvious application for the teaching of English, they will also be relevant for literary study within other subject domains such as ancient and modern languages, and drama.
FOR WIDER SOCIETY, an element of culture is being lost, and questions about exactly what we are losing, and whether there is anything that we might want to recover, remain largely unexamined. In this context, our project will contribute to cultural understandings of the locations and functions of literature in memory.
WITHIN A BROADER CONTEXT, questions about the value of poetry learning can be also located within the wider context of the enormous changes being wrought by technology to the ways in which we perceive, think and interact with the world, including the “outsourcing” of human memory to digital devices. Now that we can summon any of a thousand poems onto a smartphone or tablet in seconds, the idea of keeping a sonnet in our head might, on the face of it, seem rather pointless. Here, our study relates to concerns about the short-circuiting of learning and the shallowness of cognitive processing; it contributes to discourse about locations of knowledge and the ways in which embodied knowledge operates in the lives of individuals and society.
FOR WIDER SOCIETY, an element of culture is being lost, and questions about exactly what we are losing, and whether there is anything that we might want to recover, remain largely unexamined. In this context, our project will contribute to cultural understandings of the locations and functions of literature in memory.
WITHIN A BROADER CONTEXT, questions about the value of poetry learning can be also located within the wider context of the enormous changes being wrought by technology to the ways in which we perceive, think and interact with the world, including the “outsourcing” of human memory to digital devices. Now that we can summon any of a thousand poems onto a smartphone or tablet in seconds, the idea of keeping a sonnet in our head might, on the face of it, seem rather pointless. Here, our study relates to concerns about the short-circuiting of learning and the shallowness of cognitive processing; it contributes to discourse about locations of knowledge and the ways in which embodied knowledge operates in the lives of individuals and society.