Review · 11 October 2026
Dead Poets Society (1989)Poetry, metaphor and figurative language
🎯 Today’s focus
The real English of poetry, metaphor and figurative language — the vocabulary English speakers use whenever words stop meaning exactly what they are: naming the devices a writer is using, separating a phrase’s surface meaning from the picture underneath it, and talking about poems, verses and stanzas with confidence. Eleven terms you will need whenever you discuss a poem, a speech or a piece of writing, and every one of them appears in the story before it is explained.
🎬 Episode script
Transcript
4 chapters · about 9 minutes of reading🎭 Intro
Welcome back for another English movie review lesson — I’m Teacher Teddy, and today, let’s talk about Dead Poets Society.
Today’s lesson is about poetry, metaphor and figurative language — the vocabulary English speakers use whenever words stop meaning exactly what they are. By the end of this video, you’ll be able to name the devices a writer is using, separate a phrase’s surface meaning from the picture underneath it, and discuss poetry confidently. If you’re interested in a wider selection of episodes unlocking native English phrases and vocabulary pulled straight from your favourite movies, consider subscribing now.
What is a poem actually for? Not what it means — what it is for.
At a rigidly traditional American boarding school in 1959, a new English teacher gives an answer nobody on the staff requested. The story begins by delivering Todd Anderson, played by Ethan Hawke, to Welton Academy, an austere boys’ boarding school in Vermont whose pillars are tradition, honour, discipline and excellence.
📜 Plot & how the story is told
At a rigidly traditional American boarding school in 1959, a new English teacher gives an answer nobody on the staff requested.
The story begins by delivering Todd Anderson, played by Ethan Hawke, to Welton Academy, an austere boys’ boarding school in Vermont whose pillars are tradition, honour, discipline and excellence. Todd is painfully shy, while his roommate, Neil Perry, is confident, admired, and quietly terrified of his own father.
Their new English teacher is John Keating, played by Robin Williams, and he begins by throwing away the textbook, whose introduction proposes measuring poetry on a graph. Keating orders the boys to rip the pages out, then tells them that every poem is built from “a figure of speech” — words used in a way that is not literally true.
His second lesson is Latin, delivered among photographs of long-dead pupils: “Carpe diem.” Carpe diem is Latin for “seize the day” — take your chance now, because you will not get it twice — and English speakers use both versions constantly.
He reads them Robert Herrick — “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” — where the rosebuds are not really rosebuds at all. That is “a metaphor”, describing one thing as another to show what it is like, and metaphors saturate ordinary English: “time is money”, “the economy is overheating.” Keating quotes the philosopher Thoreau too, on the ambition to live deliberately and “suck all the marrow out of life”, though nobody is eating anything.
This is the distinction between “literal” and “figurative” language: “literal” means the exact meaning of the words, “figurative” the picture they paint.
Nobody actually sucks the marrow out of life, so Thoreau’s words are figurative: they mean living as fully as possible, not eating bones.
Later, Keating hauls Todd to the front of the class and refuses to let him sit down, and Todd, eyes shut, improvises a poem about the “sweaty-toothed madman” in a portrait, whose truth is “like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold”. That is “a simile”, a comparison using “like” or “as”, and the whole description is “imagery”, language that builds a picture in your mind.
Sweat, teeth, a thin blanket, cold feet: you can almost see and feel the poem, and that is exactly what imagery does.
The boys discover that Keating belonged to a secret club called the Dead Poets Society, and revive it, gathering at night in a cave to read aloud. Each boy takes “a verse” — a single line, or short section, of a poem — while a block of lines is “a stanza”, the poetry equivalent of a paragraph.
Put several lines together and you have a stanza; a long poem is built from stanzas the way an essay is built from paragraphs.
Keating’s most quoted lesson comes from Walt Whitman: “that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” The play is life, the verse is yours, and he asks each boy what his will be, which is why the line gets quoted at graduations worldwide.
Not everyone hears it identically: Knox Overstreet takes carpe diem as permission to pursue a girl, Charlie Dalton as licence to provoke the headmaster. Neil, never once asked what he wants, auditions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and wins the part of Puck, in defiance of the father who has chosen his career.
Keating also teaches that language can “paint a picture”, describing something so vividly that the listener sees it, and to demonstrate a different perspective he climbs onto his desk. The gesture is literal, the meaning is not.
What Neil decides to do about his father, what it costs the boys, and how Welton answers for it — I won’t tell you here. What I can tell you is that the final act turns towards tragedy, and that the closing scene, built on Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!”, is among the most recognised endings in American cinema.
That poem is “an extended metaphor”, a single comparison stretched across an entire work, and it is why the film is still quoted.
📖 Vocabulary spotlight
This episode also has five bonus vocabulary words — the words real critics reached for when they wrote about this film, and the ones you’ll want when you talk about it yourself.
Lyrical means beautiful and musical, like poetry. Variety called the film a lyrical, gorgeous and tough evocation of youth.
Galvanising means making you suddenly want to get up and act. Many critics found Williams’ call to seize the day galvanising.
Earnest means completely sincere, with no joking. Collider credited Williams’ earnest passion with carrying the film’s message.
Impassioned means delivered with strong, obvious feeling. One review called the film an impassioned defence of the humanities.
Heartening means making you feel hopeful and encouraged. The Washington Post found it literate, if a little strained, and many viewers find it heartening.
💬 Critic reception
Now, let’s talk about how critics have described Dead Poets Society.
The words reviewers reach for are the five bonus words above. Variety praised the film as a gorgeous, tough portrait of youth, and many critics said Williams’ call to seize the day made them want to act. Collider gave his sincere passion the credit for carrying the film’s message, and one review saw it as a heartfelt defence of the humanities. The Washington Post was cooler — literate, it said, but a little strained — yet many viewers still come away hopeful and encouraged.
That is the English of poetry and figurative language: from a figure of speech, a metaphor and a simile, through imagery and the difference between literal and figurative, to verses, stanzas and an extended metaphor that runs through a whole poem. Watch the film with these eleven terms in mind, and notice how often Keating says one thing and means another — the terms you learned today are the ones you need to describe exactly how he does it.
⭐ The verdict
Rating
As a film it is unashamedly earnest, and its critics were right that it stacks the deck, but Peter Weir’s autumnal photography and Robin Williams’ restraint earn the emotion it requests. For English learners it isn’t the gentlest listen: the vocabulary is literary and the poetry deliberately archaic, so use subtitles for the recitations. Watch it for the lesson Keating genuinely teaches — that words are worth choosing carefully.
Rated PG in the UK · B2–C1
📚 Study tools
Learning focus recap
Eleven terms for talking about poetry, metaphor and figurative language, each with a fresh example — plus the five bonus words.
Any phrase that is not literally true: words used to mean more than their exact meaning.
When my sister said she was dying of boredom, it was only a figure of speech.
Describing one thing as another, to show what it is like.
In Herrick’s poem, the rosebuds are a metaphor for opportunities that will not last.
A comparison that uses “like” or “as”.
Todd compares truth to a blanket, and because he uses “like”, it is a simile.
Language that builds a picture in the reader’s mind.
The imagery of cold feet and a thin blanket stays with you long after the scene.
The exact meaning of the words, and nothing more.
Taken literally, “suck the marrow out of life” would mean eating bones.
The picture the words paint, not their exact meaning.
“The economy is overheating” is figurative, because an economy has no temperature.
To describe something so vividly that the listener can see it.
Her letters from Vermont paint a picture of red leaves and frozen mornings.
A single line, or a short section, of a poem.
In the cave, each boy reads a verse aloud to the others.
A block of lines in a poem: the poetry equivalent of a paragraph.
The poem we studied has four stanzas of four lines each.
A single comparison stretched across a whole poem, story or speech.
Her speech was one extended metaphor, comparing the company to a ship in a storm.
Latin for “seize the day”: take your chance now, because you won’t get it twice.
My grandmother’s motto was carpe diem, so she learned to swim at seventy.
A simple way to remember it all: a figure of speech is any phrase that isn’t literally true. A metaphor describes one thing as another, so rosebuds can stand in for opportunities, and a simile does it openly, using “like” or “as”. Language that builds a picture in the mind is imagery. Literal means the exact meaning of the words and figurative the picture they paint, and a writer who describes something vividly is said to paint a picture. A verse is a line or short section of a poem, a stanza is a block of lines, and an extended metaphor is one comparison running through a whole work. And when you take your chance now, because it won’t come twice, that is carpe diem.
📖 Bonus words
Lyrical
Beautiful and musical, like poetry.
Galvanising
Making you want to get up and act.
Earnest
Completely sincere, with no joking.
Impassioned
Full of strong, obvious feeling.
Heartening
Making you feel hopeful and encouraged.
✏️ Practice
Fill in the blank
0 of 5 correctType the missing word or phrase from this episode, then check. Stuck? Tap Hint to see three options.
Keating tells the boys that every poem is built from a figure of .
Carpe diem is Latin for “seize the ”.
“Like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold” is a , because it uses “like”.
Nobody really sucks the marrow out of life, so the phrase is , not literal.
A block of lines in a poem, like a paragraph in an essay, is called a .
🧠 Check you understood
Comprehension questions
0 of 6 answeredWhere is Welton Academy?
- In a busy city in England
- In Vermont, in the United States
- On an island off the coast of Scotland
What does Keating tell the boys to do with the textbook’s introduction?
- Rip the pages out
- Learn every word of it by heart for a test
- Copy it neatly into their notebooks
“Time is money” is a metaphor. What does a metaphor do?
- It compares two things using “like” or “as”
- It means exactly what the words say
- It describes one thing as another, to show what it is like
What do the boys bring back to life after learning about Keating’s past?
- A secret club called the Dead Poets Society
- The school’s old rowing team
- A student newspaper that had closed years before
What does “literal” mean?
- The picture that the words paint in your mind
- A comparison using “like” or “as”
- The exact meaning of the words
Why does Keating climb onto his desk?
- To reach a book on a high shelf
- To show the boys a different perspective
- To get the headmaster’s attention from the corridor
✍️ Your turn
Try it yourself in the comments
At the start I asked what a poem is actually for. Keating’s answer is that a poem is something to live by, and his pupils act on it. Is that teaching, or is it persuasion? Write two sentences in the comments here or on the website, using a phrase from today’s lesson, or one of the five bonus words.
For example: “I think it is teaching, because Keating explains what a metaphor is and then lets each boy decide what his own verse will be.”Write a comment ↓📚 Keep learning
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