In most poetry, it is the connotations and the baggage that words carry (the weight of words) that are most important. These shades and nuances of meaning can be difficult to interpret and can cause different readers to hear a particular piece of poetry differently.
Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network. There are three ways of looking at empathy. First there is affective empathy. This is the ability to share the emotions of others.
Although no unified definition exists, there is broad agreement on three components of empathy (Decety, Jackson 2004): 1  An affective response to another person. This response often entails sharing that person's emotional state, but not always.  A cognitive capacity to take the perspective of the other person.