Poetry essay
Description:
This essay assignment asks you to use your close reading and interpretive skills in the analysis of a poem. In this essay, rather than asserting a thesis and “proving” it, you will consider three distinct aspects of the poem (word choice, figures of speech, and form). Your final section will include a tentative thesis about the poem based upon the close reading you’ve performed in the first three sections.
Primary Objectives:
1) Employ close reading techniques
2) Quote frequently and correctly from the text
3) Ask questions about specific features of the poem you select (these features are detailed below)
4) Consider possible answers to these questions, considering multiple alternatives
5) Develop a thesis for the poem that is informed by your careful consideration of its features and interpretive possibilities
Formatting Rules:
1) Use Times New Roman, 12pt. font 2) Double space your lines, but single space block quotations 3) Use 1-inch margins 4) Number your pages 5) Write one full page per section 6) The title of your essay should be the title of the poem you’ve selected *Note that these formatting guidelines may not be the same as the default settings on your word program. You may need to change the margins, font, etc.
Section One: Word Choice
Choose a particularly interesting or important word or phrase from your poem and ask an interpretive question about it. Write this question at the top of your page and italicize it.
Tips for your response:
– Look up your word (or words; you may choose more than one) in the Oxford English Dictionary. Read the complete entry for the word, including its etymology and use over time. Reflect upon how the words’ history and etymology enhance your understanding of the poem and how the words contribute to the overall meaning or effect of the poem.
– Choose a word that has many different possible readings, adding depth to the poem.
– When you quote from the OED, do so selectively and introduce the applicable information when called for in your analysis, rather than presenting the definition as a clump.
– Engage the words you choose in context, discussing the way they affect the line and/or phrase in which they appear and the poem as a whole.
Section Two: Figurative Language
Choose two examples of special imagery, symbolism, or rhetorical devices from the poem (these are all instances of “figurative language”). Ask a question (or questions) about these instances of figurative language in the poem, and write it at the top of the second page. Italicize it.
Tips for your response:
– Examine how the instances of “figurative language” you have chosen from the poem support, undermine, inflect, or otherwise contribute to the straightforward, literal meaning of the poem. – What kinds of figurative language are used in your poem (images, metaphors, similes, symbols, etc.) and what difference does it make?
– Why are these particular images or comparisons introduced rather than some other ones?
– How do these instances of figurative language affect our reading of the poem and its impact on us? Do the figures or images introduced undergo a shift or change in the passage of the poem?
Section Three: Sound, Sense and Form
Isolate two to three features of the sound or form of the poem. Ask a question or questions about how the poem’s form, structure, and/or sounds relate to its content (its meaning or sense). Write your question(s) at the top of the page and italicize it.
Tips for your response:
– What form is the poem?
– What is the poem’s meter? Its rhythm?
– How are phrasing, punctuation, and capitalization utilized in the poem? (consider enjambments, caesuras, stanza breaks, etc.)
– What sounds does the poet employ? (consider alliteration, stress, duration, rhyme, etc.)
Section Four: Thesis
In the fourth section of your essay, propose a thesis about the poem’s meaning or argument. Write this thesis at the top of the page and italicize it. Discuss how your analysis of features of the poem in the previous three sections of your essay supports this “reading” of the poem. This section of the essay should function as an essay in itself, so do not worry about repeating features of the poem you presented in the first three sections. In this section, you describe how some of those features serve as evidence for your thesis about the poem.
