How to Deconstruct a Text : Deconstructive Reading of Three Poems by Shakespeare, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams

This blog is part of an activity titled How to Deconstruct a Text. In this activity, we will closely analyze three poems written by William Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams. We will use a method called deconstruction, which was developed by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. This approach helps us explore how the meanings of texts are not fixed or stable. Instead, it shows that the meaning of a text can change depending on how it is read and interpreted by different people.

Poem : 1 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A deconstructive reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 focuses on how the poem’s meaning is not as clear or stable as it first seems. At first, the poet compares his beloved to a summer’s day, but then says the beloved is actually “more lovely and more temperate.” This creates confusion—if summer is so nice, why is the beloved better? The poem also promises that the beloved’s beauty will never fade because it is captured in the poem’s words. But deconstruction asks: can words really stop time or death? Can poetry really make someone immortal? The poem seems to say yes, but it depends on language, and language is always open to different meanings. Deconstruction shows that what the poem says and what it actually proves are not the same. It also questions whether this poem is really about the beloved, or if it’s actually about the poet showing off his writing skill. In the end, a deconstructive reading doesn’t try to find one clear message—it shows how the poem’s meaning keeps shifting, and how the message falls apart when we look closely.

Poem : 2  "In a Station of the Metro" 

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough."

Poem : 3 "The Red Wheelbarrow"

"so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens."

Poetry doesn't just describe real things. It uses words (called signifiers) to create images and feelings in our minds. Even if we don’t see the actual object, the words help us imagine something beautiful, emotional, or powerful. Poems connect different ideas and invite us to think in new ways.

Example 1: Ezra Pound’s Poem

In the poem “In a Station of the Metro,” Ezra Pound compares people’s faces in a crowd to flower petals on a wet tree branch. These are very different things, but the comparison feels right. The poem doesn't show real people or flowers—it gives us words that create that picture in our minds. The word "apparition" adds a ghost-like feeling, and the rhythm and short lines make the poem feel soft and magical. This shows how poetry uses signifiers to make meaning, not just to describe real things.

The Power of Sound: Kristeva’s Idea

Julia Kristeva says that sound and rhythm in poetry can give us feelings, even before we understand the meaning. She calls this the semiotic. It's like when babies make sounds before they can speak—those sounds still show emotions. In poetry, rhythm and music can break the usual rules of language and make us feel something deep and personal, beyond logic.

Example 2: The Red Wheelbarrow

In the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, the poet names simple things: a red wheelbarrow, rainwater, and white chickens. At first, it seems like he’s just describing real objects. But when we read closely, we notice the poem feels clean, pure, and perfect—more like a picture in a children’s book than a real farm. The poem uses simple words and repeating rhythm to create a calm and innocent feeling. It reminds us that even simple things in poems come from language and imagination, not just from the real world.

Who Is Julia Kristeva?

Julia Kristeva is a famous thinker from France, originally born in Bulgaria. She studies language, psychology, and poetry. She believes that poetry has the power to go beyond normal meaning through sound and rhythm. Her idea of the semiotic shows how poetry can touch our feelings even without clear meaning, and this is why poems are so special and powerful.

Poem : 4 A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London

Never until the mankind making

Bird beast and flower

Fathering and all humbling darkness

Tells with silence the last light breaking

And the still hour

Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

     

And I must enter again the round

Zion of the water bead

And the synagogue of the ear of corn

Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound

Or sow my salt seed

In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

     

The majesty and burning of the child's death.

I shall not murder

The mankind of her going with a grave truth

Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath

With any further

Elegy of innocence and youth.

     

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,

Robed in the long friends,

The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,

Secret by the unmourning water

Of the riding Thames.

After the first death, there is no other.

What Do Post-Structuralist Critics Do?

Post-structuralist critics believe that language is not always clear or reliable. They think a text can have many meanings, not just one. So they try to find hidden meanings, contradictions, and strange parts in the writing. Sometimes, the deeper meaning is completely different from what the text seems to say on the surface.

They pay close attention to how words sound, what the words originally meant, or old-style comparisons (metaphors) that may not work anymore. They also look for breaks or sudden changes in the text—these are signs that something important is being left out or not said clearly. These breaks are called “fault-lines”, like cracks in rocks that show something happened under the surface.

What Is Deconstruction?

Deconstruction is a method used by post-structuralist critics. It doesn’t destroy the poem or story—it takes it apart to show that the meaning is not simple or clear. It shows that words can mean many things, or even the opposite of what they first seem to say.

Deconstruction has three main steps:

-The verbal stage

-The textual stage

-The linguistic stage

We will explain each one using the poem “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London” by Dylan Thomas.

Step 1: Verbal Stage

In this step, we look closely at the words in the poem. For example, the last line of the poem says:

“After the first death, there is no other.”

This doesn’t make sense. If it’s called the first death, then that means there should be a second or third. So, the sentence goes against itself. Deconstructionists say this shows how language can be confusing and full of contradictions.

There are other strange word uses too. The poem says things like “until never”, which also doesn't make much sense. These kinds of paradoxical (opposite and confusing) phrases show that language is not always trustworthy.

The poem also changes common opposites. Usually, people think light means good and darkness means bad. But in this poem, darkness is shown as the thing that creates life. So the poem flips the usual idea, which shows how language creates its own world, not just a copy of the real world.

Step 2: Textual Stage

In this step, we look at the whole poem, not just single words. We try to find big changes in time, tone, voice, or mood. These shifts show that the poem is not stable and doesn't have one clear meaning.

For example, in Dylan Thomas’s poem, the first two stanzas talk about ancient time and the end of the world. Then suddenly, the third stanza talks about the child’s death in the present moment. Then the last stanza zooms out again and talks about the history of London.

These big changes make the meaning unclear and broken. The poet says he refuses to mourn the child, but the poem doesn’t explain why, and it actually feels like a mourning poem. These confusing changes and missing explanations are what deconstructionists focus on.

Step 3: Linguistic Stage

In this step, we look at how the poem talks about language itself. Sometimes the poem says that language can’t express certain things, but then uses language anyway.

In this poem, the speaker says he won’t mourn, but the poem itself is a form of mourning. He also says he doesn’t want to use fake or formal language, but then he uses big, poetic words like:

“London’s daughter”

“robed in the graves of her majesty”

This shows the poet is stuck in the same language he wants to avoid. Deconstruction says this is because no one can fully escape language—even when you try, you still end up using it in the usual ways.

What Do We Learn from Deconstruction?

Deconstruction helps us see that texts are not simple. They are full of hidden meanings, contradictions, and broken ideas. Even a poem that says “I won’t mourn” might secretly be mourning in a deeper way.

Deconstruction is different from traditional criticism. Traditional critics try to find unity in a poem. Deconstruction shows that there is no complete unity—only many layers of meaning.

Both methods have their uses, but deconstruction helps us understand that language is complex and never fully stable. It makes us question what we read and think more deeply about how meaning is made.

References

-“A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London by Dylan Thomas.” Famous Poems, Famous Poets. - All Poetry, allpoetry.com/A-Refusal-To-Mourn-The-Death,-By-Fire,-Of-A-Child-In-London. 

-Barad, Dilip. “Deconstructive Analysis of Ezra Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro' and William Carlos Williams's 'The Red Wheelbarrow.'” Research Gate, 03 July 2025, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381943844_Deconstructive_Analysis_of_Ezra_Pound's_'In_a_Station_of_the_Metro'_and_William_Carlos_Williams's_'The_Red_Wheelbarrow'. Accessed 03 July 2025.

-Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism (First Indian Edition 2006 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

-“In a Station of the Metro.” The Poetry Foundation, 29 Oct. 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12675/in-a-station-of-the-metro.

“The Red Wheelbarrow.” The Poetry Foundation, 22 June 2024, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45502/the-red-wheelbarrow.