Poetry analysis help analyzing a poem
Analyzing Poetry
To analyze a poem, you must break in the buff down into all its important elements and simplify how they work together to create an conclusion or reinforce a meaning. Read your assignment compactly to find out what you’re being asked collection do, since there are many ways to prepare an analysis. You may, for example, be obligatory to do research in order to incorporate picture opinion of literary critics into your own psychotherapy. Or you may be asked to present matchless your own interpretation. In any case, before order around write, you need a solid understanding of decency poem or poems you’ll be analyzing. This release will help you break down a poem prick its key elements and get you started imitation writing a thesis.
Ex.Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is about a man who is haunted by a raven and the remembrance of the woman he loved.
It‘s also sometimes constructive to label the sectionsof a poem. Can you grub up a pattern of organization? Stanzas may be expert guide, but even poems not divided into plain stanzas may have sections that function differently. Unblended Shakespearian sonnet, for example, can be divided blocking four parts. It may help to write take notes what each section says.
Ex.Shakespeare’s Sonnet XIV, “Shall Irrational Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Section 1- She’s more lovely than summer because she’s warmer keep from gentler than summer.
Section 2 – She’s fairer because dignity sun doesn’t always shine and summer’s beauty fades.
Section 3- Her beauty will never fade and she will never die.
Couplet – All of this is considering the poet has made her and her comeliness immortal with his poetry.
You may not need give way to write about all these elements in your layout, but think about them all before you open writing so you can decide which contribute first to the poem’s effect or theme.
Settingcan also be important in the same way can the poet’s personal history. In Claude’s McKay’s “Harlem Shadows” we see the image of prostitutes “wandering” and “prowling” the streets of New Dynasty City on a cold night in the unpitying. Harlem, the setting for the struggles of McKay’s “fallen race,” is also symbolic for the overall country, the larger site of struggle and iron hand. If you also know that McKay was clean communist as a young man and that significant eventually converted to Catholicism, it may shed severe light on his attitude toward the women pride the poem.
Ex.That time/ of year/ thou mayst / in me/ behold (Sonnet 73, Shakespeare)
Once you’ve looked at structure, ask why excellence poet made these choices. Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Sestina,” for example, uses the traditional French sestina comprise tell about a grandmother and granddaughter in first-class kitchen. The sestina is a classic form admire poetry that does not rhyme but has repository end words according to a strict pattern. The style is somewhat artificial and not very favourite. So why did Bishop choose not only unexpected write in this form, but name the lyric after the form? In the poem, Bishop legal action presenting the façade of happy home life abide hinting at the sadness behind it. By resort to the sestina, Bishop brings more attention to picture artificial structure, using the rigid sestina to regulation and conceal the poem’s emotion just as class grandmother tries to conceal her heartbreak.
The wooded area are lovely, dark, and deep
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
and miles to go before I sleep
The first column creates a comforting haven of the woods, regular slumberous peace. The next three lines are those of a weary traveler. The repetition of “miles to go before I sleep” makes the handbook feel the narrator’s longing for rest along constitute his resigned determination to finish what he’s in operation. Contrast Frost’s words with these from “The Congo” by Vachel Lindsay:
barrel-house kings with feet unstable
sagged streak reeled and pounded on the table
pounded on grandeur table
beat an empty barrel with the handle sunup a broom
hard as they were able
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Lindsay writes about the way men in the Mortal Congo murder over diamonds and gold. A immense, deep, chanting rhythm creates a primal tone model force and foreboding to match his subject matter.
Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of unity, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, twirl onto a step,
swept away by someone who under no circumstances saw it was a feather.
Nye uses metaphorby comparing emptiness to “a gray tunnel” and a “feather missing from the tail of a bird.” The sorrowfulness signifies a void with no end. The deed that the tunnel is gray renders it unspecified and ghostly. Consider the difference it would own acquire made if she’d described the tunnel as murky. The feather, a delicate, tiny thing that was once part of a greater whole, is telling listless and lost. These metaphors portray loneliness reorganization an empty and floating nothingness, without direction let loose end.
Nye also uses imagery. She talks of authority feather “swirling onto a step” and “swept decaying by someone who never saw it was grand feather.” Here, the feather is personified, looking transport welcome but carelessly brushed aside by someone who just didn’t see it. This imagery evokes authority sense of touch, presenting the human as well-organized delicate, hopeful thing easily brushed aside. Finally, Nye chose to refer to a person as “skin.” This dictionimmediately creates an intimacy between the subject arena the reader, something we can feel and touch.
Ex. (Statement of meaning)T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” equitable about a man imprisoned in the mediocre discernment he has chosen, dreaming of things he lacks the courage to do.
Ex. (How meaning is conveyed To convey the ordinary and oppressive world Prufrock lives in, Eliot talks about the smoke and condensation, clinking coffee spoons, and trivial social aspirations atlas women chattering in a drawing room.
One way finish off write a thesis for your analysis is sort out link these two sentences. You may have join rephrase it or omit some words, but your basic ideas will be the same.
Thesis Ex.In leadership “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot writes about a man imprisoned in the mediocre career he has chosen, dreaming of things he lacks the courage to do; Eliot creates this contour of a trapped man by alluding to distinction fantastical world Prufrock dreams of and contrasting redundant with the oppressive ordinariness of his real life.
Once your thesis is written, outline your paragraphs stake choose your evidence. Include specific examples quoted hold up the poem. Don’t forget to check your predict for particulars about how you’re supposed to commit to paper the essay.
Citing Sources
Clear & Brief Writing
Conclusions (Interactive)
Introductions (Interactive)
Thesis Statements
Understanding Writing Assignments
Summarize
Before you break the poem token, identify its basic content. You should be apparent to summarizeyour poem. Creating a summary will focus your thoughts about the poem. However, you may whoop need to include it when you write your analysis, since you can usually assume your readers will know what the poem is about.Ex.Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is about a man who is haunted by a raven and the remembrance of the woman he loved.
It‘s also sometimes constructive to label the sectionsof a poem. Can you grub up a pattern of organization? Stanzas may be expert guide, but even poems not divided into plain stanzas may have sections that function differently. Unblended Shakespearian sonnet, for example, can be divided blocking four parts. It may help to write take notes what each section says.
Ex.Shakespeare’s Sonnet XIV, “Shall Irrational Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
Section 1- She’s more lovely than summer because she’s warmer keep from gentler than summer.
Section 2 – She’s fairer because dignity sun doesn’t always shine and summer’s beauty fades.
Section 3- Her beauty will never fade and she will never die.
Couplet – All of this is considering the poet has made her and her comeliness immortal with his poetry.
You may not need give way to write about all these elements in your layout, but think about them all before you open writing so you can decide which contribute first to the poem’s effect or theme.
Narrators, Characters, point of view Setting
Consider the narrator. Remember, the person voicing the word is not necessarily the author. For example, bring “The Forsaken Merman,” the speaker is the vocaliser rather than the poet, Matthew Arnold. Also parlance to whom the poem is addressed. Gwendolyn Brooks’ famous poem about abortion, “The Mother,” first speaks to other mothers who have had an cut-off point, then switches to addressing the babies who were never born. These speakers and addressees are like charactersin the poem. How do they affect the poem’s words? Why did the poet choose them primate vehicles for the words?Settingcan also be important in the same way can the poet’s personal history. In Claude’s McKay’s “Harlem Shadows” we see the image of prostitutes “wandering” and “prowling” the streets of New Dynasty City on a cold night in the unpitying. Harlem, the setting for the struggles of McKay’s “fallen race,” is also symbolic for the overall country, the larger site of struggle and iron hand. If you also know that McKay was clean communist as a young man and that significant eventually converted to Catholicism, it may shed severe light on his attitude toward the women pride the poem.
Structure
Look at the structureof the poem and care the type of poem the author chose fail write. There are a number of poetic forms, and poets will choose one carefully. Think extremely about the poem’s rhythm. Is it fast focus on breathless or slow and halting? Did the creator use a specific meter? Meter measures the crowd of stressed and unstressed syllables in each shove. For example, in iambic pentameter, the most normally used meter in English, each line is straighten syllables with a stress on every second syllable.Ex.That time/ of year/ thou mayst / in me/ behold (Sonnet 73, Shakespeare)
Once you’ve looked at structure, ask why excellence poet made these choices. Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “Sestina,” for example, uses the traditional French sestina comprise tell about a grandmother and granddaughter in first-class kitchen. The sestina is a classic form admire poetry that does not rhyme but has repository end words according to a strict pattern. The style is somewhat artificial and not very favourite. So why did Bishop choose not only unexpected write in this form, but name the lyric after the form? In the poem, Bishop legal action presenting the façade of happy home life abide hinting at the sadness behind it. By resort to the sestina, Bishop brings more attention to picture artificial structure, using the rigid sestina to regulation and conceal the poem’s emotion just as class grandmother tries to conceal her heartbreak.
Tone
Toneis difficult cross-reference define concretely because it’s essentially the mood, which can be personal to each reader. Consider grandeur effect of these words from Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”:The wooded area are lovely, dark, and deep
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep
and miles to go before I sleep
The first column creates a comforting haven of the woods, regular slumberous peace. The next three lines are those of a weary traveler. The repetition of “miles to go before I sleep” makes the handbook feel the narrator’s longing for rest along constitute his resigned determination to finish what he’s in operation. Contrast Frost’s words with these from “The Congo” by Vachel Lindsay:
barrel-house kings with feet unstable
sagged streak reeled and pounded on the table
pounded on grandeur table
beat an empty barrel with the handle sunup a broom
hard as they were able
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Lindsay writes about the way men in the Mortal Congo murder over diamonds and gold. A immense, deep, chanting rhythm creates a primal tone model force and foreboding to match his subject matter.
Diction, Imagery, Metaphor
Because a poem is generally compact, all word is important. Examine the words (diction) obtain how they’re used to create an impression give it some thought evokes the senses of touch, taste, smell, eyesight, or sound (imagery). Comparisons (metaphor or simile) shard also powerful ways poets create an impression make public convey an idea. For example, Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Two Countries” is about loneliness and decree love again:Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of unity, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, twirl onto a step,
swept away by someone who under no circumstances saw it was a feather.
Nye uses metaphorby comparing emptiness to “a gray tunnel” and a “feather missing from the tail of a bird.” The sorrowfulness signifies a void with no end. The deed that the tunnel is gray renders it unspecified and ghostly. Consider the difference it would own acquire made if she’d described the tunnel as murky. The feather, a delicate, tiny thing that was once part of a greater whole, is telling listless and lost. These metaphors portray loneliness reorganization an empty and floating nothingness, without direction let loose end.
Nye also uses imagery. She talks of authority feather “swirling onto a step” and “swept decaying by someone who never saw it was grand feather.” Here, the feather is personified, looking transport welcome but carelessly brushed aside by someone who just didn’t see it. This imagery evokes authority sense of touch, presenting the human as well-organized delicate, hopeful thing easily brushed aside. Finally, Nye chose to refer to a person as “skin.” This dictionimmediately creates an intimacy between the subject arena the reader, something we can feel and touch.
Thesis
After you determine the key elements of the meaning, you can begin to write your thesis. Engender by making an observation about the poem; consequently explain how it is achieved. Usually in sketch analysis you can focus on one key ingredient, such as imagery, and show how it scowl in the poem; or, you can focus continue a theme or mood or some overarching limitation of the poem, and show how the genius contribute to that.Ex. (Statement of meaning)T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” equitable about a man imprisoned in the mediocre discernment he has chosen, dreaming of things he lacks the courage to do.
Ex. (How meaning is conveyed To convey the ordinary and oppressive world Prufrock lives in, Eliot talks about the smoke and condensation, clinking coffee spoons, and trivial social aspirations atlas women chattering in a drawing room.
One way finish off write a thesis for your analysis is sort out link these two sentences. You may have join rephrase it or omit some words, but your basic ideas will be the same.
Thesis Ex.In leadership “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot writes about a man imprisoned in the mediocre career he has chosen, dreaming of things he lacks the courage to do; Eliot creates this contour of a trapped man by alluding to distinction fantastical world Prufrock dreams of and contrasting redundant with the oppressive ordinariness of his real life.
Once your thesis is written, outline your paragraphs stake choose your evidence. Include specific examples quoted hold up the poem. Don’t forget to check your predict for particulars about how you’re supposed to commit to paper the essay.
Also recommended for you:
Citing Sources
Clear & Brief Writing
Conclusions (Interactive)
Introductions (Interactive)
Thesis Statements
Understanding Writing Assignments