Analysis of Poetry

Analysis of Poetry Term Paper

Instructions/Descriptions

Analysis of Poetry Term Paper

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Analysis of Poetry Term Paper

Directions:

For Paper #2, you will have two options. You may complete a close reading of a single poem, or pick two poems on a similar theme to compare and contrast.

1. For the first option,you will conduct a very careful and thoughtful analysis of a single poem.
2. For the second option, you will explain how the poems use some of the poetic devices we’ve been discussing to express distinct attitudes towards their common subject.  It will point out the similarities and differencesin the ways the two poems do this.

Therefore, you will need to compare and contrast the general tones of the poems as well as how they use poetic devices to create those tones.  Poetic devices you might want to consider include diction, imagery, figurative language, sound (including rhyme, alliteration, assonance, rhythm, and meter), and form.

Your audience for this paper is other students in the class who have read these poems. You will need to quote specific lines, phrases, or words in order to point out specific features of the poems.

Your purpose is to help your reader see the significance of a single poem and its message or to discuss the differences and similarities in two poems and, consequently, to better understand how each one works to create its particular effects or meanings.

Your final paper should be 1,250 – 1,750 words long, typed and double-spaced, with 1” margins all around. This paper is due by midnight on Monday 27 April 2020.

Use of secondary sources (other than our own textbook) is allowed for this assignment, but the majority of your analysis should come from you.  Students who rely on eNotes and other resources to analyze their poems are not strengthening their own analytical skills, so they are advised to avoid relying on these. If you do use any outside resources, you must cite them, and be aware that I have copies of eNotes and other shortcuts to analysis like these.

 Here are some suggested topics:

1.  Complete a close reading of Emily Dickinson’s “My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun,” p. 544.
2. Complete a close reading of Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid”

• You might discuss the use of irony.
• You might discuss the assignment of roles to women.

1. Complete a close reading of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”

• You might address the duke’s perception of women.
• Complete a close reading of Randall Jarrell’s “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”
• You might address the use of sleep versus dream imagery.
• You might discuss the parallels of the womb and ball turret.
• Complete a close reading of “My Mistress’s Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun”
• You might address the treatment of the female.
• You might discuss the attitude toward “false” or “exaggerated” comparisons.

1. Complete a close reading of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”
2. Complete a close reading of Gwendolyn Brooks’s “the mother”

• Consider addressing the attitude toward abortion
• Complete a close reading of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory”
• Complete a close reading of Paul Simon’s “Richard Cory”
• Complete a close reading of Shakespeare’s “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”
• What is the nature of true love?
• Complete a close reading of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”
• You might explore the Nazi versus Jew references in the poem.
• Complete a close reading of John Keats’s “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be”
• Complete a close reading of Rod McKuen’s “Thoughts on Capital Punishment”
• Complete a close reading of Diane Thiel’s “The Minefield”
• Compare and contrast two views of war depicted in Randall Jarrell’s “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” and Diane Thiel’s “The Minefield”
• Consider addressing the repercussions of war.
• Consider addressing the themes about war.

Compare and contrast the ways any two of the following poems represent death:

• Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
• Dickinson’s “I hear a Fly buzz—when I died”
• Dickinson’s “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”
• Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night”
• Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”

What claims does each poem make about death?  What tone or attitude is taken towards death?  How does each poem use specific poetic devices to create its tone?

Process

Pick your single poem or pair of poems.

1. Read the poem/s through a few times, including out loud, to begin to get a general sense of its attitude towards or claim about its subject. Keep in mind that tone may change over the course of a poem.
2. Try to make sense of any tricky or ambiguous lines. Ask questions if you need to when you come to our live session on Thursday.
3. Use the list of questions below to help you identify the specific poetic devices used in each poem. Pay special attention to lines or passages that seem important to establishing the poem’s general meaning or tone.  Consider how the specific poetic devices seem to be contributing to the poem’s meaning, tone, or effects.
4. Note similarities and differencesbetween the poems’ general meanings, claims, or tone. Note similarities and differencesbetween the way the poems use specific poetic devices to create those meanings, claims, or tones.

A close reading can be a line by line analysis of a single poem.

For comparison-contrast, there are two general ways to organize a comparison/contrast argument of this sort.  One way would be to discuss each poem separately:  that is, say everything you have to say about poem A and then say everything you have to say about poem B.

At some point, either in the discussion of poem B or in a concluding section of the paper, you need to point out the similarities and differences you’ve discovered, both the general ones and the specific ones.

The second way to organize such an argument would be to discuss comparable aspects of the poems one at a time:  thus, you might have a paragraph or two on how each one uses imagery, followed by a discussion of how each one uses figurative language, followed by a discussion of how each one uses rhyme, etc.

For some papers on this assignment, the first approach may work better.  It allows you to offer a more coherent reading of each poem, rather than making your reader skip back and forth between the two poems.  The second approach might work for two poems that are very similar, such as two different Shakespeare sonnets.

If you like the second approach, be sure to give your reader a quick overview of the similarities and differences your analysis focuses on at the beginning of the paper, to help your reader stay oriented.

Whichever approach you take, I’d recommend outlining this paper before you begin drafting it.  Sometimes outlines can be stifling, but the organization of this sort of paper will probably be pretty straightforward in most cases.  Of course, if you come up with a neat or useful insight after you’ve made your outline, find some way to adjust the outline to fit it in.

Keep in mind that you will probably not want to write about all the poetic features and devices you identify in each poem. Rather, you will want to pick the ones that seem important in creating each poem’s distinct tone, effect, or meaning.

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Having picked the poems you’ll be writing about in Paper #2, take the following initial steps to begin exploring each one:

1. Try to decide the subjectand theme of the poem: Subject:  what is the poem about? Theme:  what does the poem seem to say or feel about its subject?
2. . Figure out how to read the poemaloud. Follow the punctuation.
3. Attempt to paraphrasethe poem. Are there any words or lines whose sense is not clear to you?
4. How would you define the toneof the poem? Is the tone consistent throughout or does it change?  What poetic devices create the poem’s tone?
5. Identify words, phrases, or lines which for any reason seem to stand outwhen you read them. Can you explain why they do?  Do they stand out for a reason?  Are they particularly significant in the poem?
6. What is the structureof the poem? Does it seem to be a closed formor open form poem?  Why?  If closed form, what are its important formal structures (e.g., line lengths, rhyme scheme, stanza form, etc.)?  In either case, does it seem to be broken into parts, sections, or steps?
7. Identify all imagery in the poem. What kinds are there?  You might want to list the imagery in order to see what the sequence of images suggests.
8. Identify all figurative languagein the poem. What specific kinds of figurative language do you find (e.g., metaphor, simile, personification, metonymy, etc.)?  What effect does the figurative language have?  What do the figures suggest about the things they denote?
9. Find examples of alliteration, assonance, or other interesting uses of the sounds of words. Do these uses of sound “echo” the sense of the poem?
10. If the poem rhymes, does it follow a structured rhyme scheme? Do the rhymes create a strong sense of rhythm in the poem?  Do they highlight important words?  Do you notice internal rhymes?
11. Does the poem contain caesura that interrupt the rhythms of certain lines? What effects are created at the ends of lines?  What lines are end-stoppedor run-on?  Does the poem sound musical, conversational, rough, smooth?
12. Scan the poem for stressed and unstressed syllablesand for significant pauses. Do these rhythmic devices enhance the poem’s effectiveness?  Does the poem follow a particular form or meter
13. Reviewyour responses to the above questions. Begin to note ways in which these features of the poem work together to contribute to the poem’s meanings or effects.

Analysis of Poetry Term Paper

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