+1 862 207 3288 opportunity to approach a poem uninfluenced by prior approaches—these are poems no one has analyzed before.
The minimum wordcount is 1,250 words, but you may well need to go over that number to fulfill all of the requirements.
Exercise your own judgment as to the degree of detail required to fully and compellingly fulfill the purpose of each section.
How to Go about This Assignment (Instructions in Brief).
• Read the poem a few times, and note your initial impression.
• Carefully produce an accurate paraphrase of the poem in prose.
• Consider its speaker, rhetorical situation and audience.
• Consider its genre, structure, meter and rhyme scheme.
• Consider its images.
• Consider its similes, metaphors, symbols, and other figurative devices.
• Finally, you will reflect on all of your analysis and the interviews to develop a thesis statement that addresses
the following prompt: What is this poem really about? What are its key themes, and what is it saying about
those key themes by way of its rhetorical situation, structure, images, figurative language, etc.? Further
guidance in Section 3 below.
• Once you’ve drafted the thesis statement, support it by writing up your analysis of the poem from each
perspective, carefully following the instructions for each section as detailed below. Separate your essay with
headings and subheadings as described in the pages that follow (e.g. “Section 1: Introduction and Initial
Impression”). Number your responses within each section (as indicated). Nearly every line of the poem should
be accounted for (and cited) somewhere in your analysis.
You are not required to do outside research for the Essay 2 assignment, but you may find you need to look up words or concepts you’re not familiar with.
You might also want to know a little bit more about the author when interpreting your poem. Google and Wikipedia are a great starting point to help you get your bearings within the poem, but for reliable information you can actually draw upon explicitly and cite in your essays, consider the following databases:
For reliable definitions of words, try the Oxford English Dictionary.
• For reliable reference info, try Oxford Reference Online or Gale Virtual Reference.
• For author bio information, try Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete and/or Literature Criticism Online.
If the chosen author isn’t featured there, which is quite possible, then try his/her own website or his/her publisher’s website. Choose the most reputable source possible for your particular author.
Section 1: Introduction and Initial impression
1. Which journal/magazine issue did you choose, and why?
2. Why did you choose this poem in particular? What about it first caught your eye?
3. What was your initial impression of the poem (after reading it a few times but before analyzing it in detail)?
Section 2: Paraphrase
Paraphrase your chosen poem in prose. (Review pages xxv-xxvii for some guidance and an example.) Don’t interpret the
poem, just reword its straightforwardly as prose, capturing all of the details and unraveling any unusual syntax as you
go. The paraphrase should capture the literal meaning of the poem, not its figurative meanings. For example, a prose
paraphrase of the first stanza of Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” might look like this: “I was
unable to stop for Death, so he stopped for me, considerately. It was just the two of us in the carriage, along with
Immortality.”
If you need help finding definitions or information about any people, places or things evoked in the poem, feel free to
come see me, and I can direct you to appropriate reference works. (The sources you use should be reputable and—
where possible—scholarly.) Make sure to cite any sources you draw upon for information, both in the text and on your
Works Cited page.
Section 3: Thesis: Theme, Meaning and Interpretation
What do you see as the “big ideas” of this poem (its key themes), and what do you think it is seeking to convey about
those themes by way of its rhetorical situation, speaker, audience, structure, meter, rhyme scheme, images, similes,
metaphors, and/or other figurative devices? (See pages xlvii-li for guidance.)
In other words, anticipate the main ideas that will emerge from your analysis in the following pages. Take as many
sentences as you need, here. Basically, you want to use this section to provide a blueprint for the rest of the assignment.
Section 4: Speaker, Audience and Rhetorical Situation
Speaker
Identify the speaker. What do you know about him/her/them? (See xxiii-xxiv for guidance.)
Audience and Rhetorical Situation
1. Identify the audience. What do you know about him/her/them? (See xxiv for guidance.)
2. Discuss the rhetorical situation of the poem. What has occasioned this poem? (See xxiv-xxv for guidance.)
Section 5: Genre, Structure, Meter, Rhyme
Genre
1. In class, we have talked about lyric poems, narrative poems, sonnets, ballads, and free verse poems. (A lyric
poem is relatively short and usually conveys the perspective of a single speaker. A narrative poem tells a story. A
sonnet is a 14-line poem, usually in iambic pentameter. A ballad is a song-like poem in alternating lines of iambic
tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Free verse poetry does not follow any set metrical patterns.) There are many
other well-established types of poetry, too, which you can read about in the introduction to the Seagull Reader
(xlvi-xlviii.) Does your chosen poem fit in any of these categories? What kind of poem is this?
2. Is the genre will-suited to the content, or is the content at odds with the typical content of a poem in this genre?
How so?
Structure
1. Analyze the structure of the poem. (See xl-xliv.) If it is broken into stanzas, you might explain how its ideas
progress from one stanza to the next. If this is a sonnet, you might explain how it develops its ideas in three
quatrains and a couplet. If it has stanzas or lines that differ significantly in length, you might consider that, too,
looking at how form intersects with content in various ways through the structural features of the poem.
2. Why do you think the poet choose to organize and present the poem in this way, given your understanding of
his/her overall purpose?
Meter
Consider the meter of the poem. (See xl-xliii for guidance.) You don’t need to scan the whole poem, marking all the
stressed and unstressed syllables, but do notice if the poem has a set metrical pattern or whether it is a free verse
poem. How many syllables are there per line? Are they stressed similarly, or do the stresses differ line by line? Explain
with reference to examples, noting any metrical features that strike you as significant.
Rhyme
1. Analyze the poem’s use of rhyme. (See xliv-xlvi for guidance.) Do the rhymes follow a set pattern? If so, does the
poem deviate from that pattern anywhere? (If so, where, and what might that deviation signify?) If there is no
consistent rhyme scheme, do any lines rhyme at all? Are there any internal rhymes? Which rhymes are most
striking or memorable?
2. What aspects of the poem’s theme(s) might these rhymes (or non-rhymes) be intended to draw your attention
to?
Section 6: Images
1. How do the images in this poem relate to the key themes you identified in section 3—or not?
2. Explain.
a. List all of the images from your chosen poem (any mention of anything you can see, hear, smell, touch
or taste). Remember that images must be concrete, not abstract. (See pages xxix-xxxiii for guidance. An
example image list begins on the bottom of page xxxi.)
b. Now, review your image list. What commonalities or contrasts can you identify among the images?
What kind of images, generally, does this poem employ? If you struggled to find many concrete images,
reflect on that here, instead.
Section 7: Similes, Metaphors, Symbols and Other Figurative Devices
1. How do this poem’s similes, metaphors, symbols, and other figurative devices relate to the key themes you
identified in section 3? (See xxxiii-xl and the glossary for guidance.)
2. Explain. Analyze the similes, metaphors, symbols and other figurative devices at play in the poem. (e.g. For
similes and metaphors, consider what is being compared to what, what common qualities are being evoked, and
for what purpose. Look for alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification, etc., too, and consider the functions
these serve with respect to the meaning of the work.) You may need 3-5 paragraphs for this section.
Section 8: Conclusion
How did analyzing the poem from your initial impression shape your understanding of its
meaning? (Do you feel the same way now as you did upon first impression?) What can you take away from this whole process?
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