Mark Harrison
English 110
Poetry Essay Assignment
The assignment in a nutshell:
Write an essay that performs a close reading of one poem or compares and contrasts
two poems. Support your explication using logical reasoning and relevant quotations
from the poem you have chosen.
For ideas on approaches to analyzing the poem you chose, feel free to draw from discussions in
class, those listed below, or in Reading and Writing About Literature, especially Chapter 6
Writing About Poems.
Please choose one of the following poems, one from the course website, or one poem from
your anthology, 250 Poems:
Introduction to Poetry, by Billy Collins
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year by Raymond Carver
My Papas Waltz by Theodore Roethke
What Work Is by Philip Levine
I heard a Fly buzz when I died by Emily Dickinson
Taking Off Emily Dickinsons Clothes by Billy Collins
What Do Women Want? by Kim Addonizio
The Mower by Philip Larkin
Counting Sheep by Russell Edson
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
Some suggestions for the focus of possible essays:
Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins
The poem is composed of a series of metaphors. Explain how Collins uses these metaphors to
illustrate the difference between how the instructor in the poem would like students to
approach reading a poem compared to how they actually treat the poem.
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year by Raymond Carver
The poem concerns a photograph of the speakers father. The speaker uses precise diction to
focus on specific details in the photograph. The speaker describes the photograph in three
different ways. Make a claim about how the changes in description of the father in the
photograph reveal the speakers relationship with and attitude toward his father.
My Papas Waltz by Theodore Roethke
The poem is often misinterpreted as a father physically abusing his son. Explain how a reader
might make this mistake, be sure also to explain the actually relationship between the father
and son in the poem.
What Work Is by Philip Levine
The poem discusses at least three types of work. Explain the similarities and differences
between these types of work and make a claim as to how the meanings of the word work are
central to the theme of the poem.
I heard a Fly buzz when I died by Emily Dickinson
Explain how the fly in the poem might work as a metaphor. How might a fly connote death?
Taking Off Emily Dickinsons Clothes by Billy Collins
Explain how Collins employs a combination of references to Emily Dickinsons poetry,
personality, and nineteenth century events to pay homage to Dickinson.
What Do Women Want? by Kim Addonizio
The speaker of the poem claims she wants a red dress. Make your own claim about what the
red dress might symbolize. What if the dress was white or black? Would the poem make sense?
How would the poem change?
The Mower by Philip Larkin
Explain how the hedgehog in the poem might work as a metaphor.
Counting Sheep by Russell Edson
Discuss what the poem may have to say about the relationship between humanity and science,
nature and curiosity.
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams
The poems begins with the lines so much depends / upon. Make a claim about what broadly
and exactly depends upon the items and the scene in the poem.
Requirements:
1. Do NOT use outside sources for this essay. Your analysis should be entirely in your own
words based on your interpretation of the poem and class discussion.
2. Your essay MUST conform to MLA format:
a. Poetry quotations MUST follow MLA short or long quotation format as
appropriate.
2 of 2
b. Include an MLA-formatted Works Cited page listing the poem(s) you analyze in
your essay.
3. Include a copy of the poem on a new page following the Works Cited page (i.e. the last
page of your essay.
4. Essay length: 4-5 pages (1000-1250 words, double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 pt. Times
New Roman font)
3 of 3
How to Quote Poetry
Length Matters
Short Quotation
(1-3 lines)
When quoting up to three lines of poetry, join your text with the quotation
to create a grammatically correct sentence.
Insert slash marks to indicate original line breaks
Cite line numbers
Place close quote marks at end of quoted passage and before line numbers citation.
Place punctuation after line numbers citation
Example:
When the speaker finds the red dress, she swears shell wear
it like bones, like skin, / it’ll be the goddamned / dress they bury me
in (25-7).
Long Quotations
(4 lines or more)
When quoting four lines or more of poetry, create a block quote.
Introduce the quotation with a colon
Indent the quotation one inch (two tabs)
Keep the original line breaks
Do not use quotation marks
Place punctuation at the end of the quotation, before the parentheses citing the range of
line numbers
Cite the range of line numbers
Example:
In Kim Addonizios poem What Do Women Want?, the speaker
answers the question in the title of the poem by claiming she wants a
particularly sexy and revealing dress:
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. (1-7)
The speaker is well-aware wearing this dress will likely cause people to
judge her as a “slut,” possibly even a prostitute. She doesn’t care. She
is a rebel, a mutineer. She is challenging the tyranny of social
expectations. She rejects the “good girl” role all women are expected to
play.
Interpret Quotations
Never let a quotation of any length stand on its own. Always analyze and
interpret the quotation to explain how the quotation applies to your
argument.
ELEMENTS oF
PoETRY 97
The Listener
CHAPTER
6
Writing about Poems
poetry may be divided into several major subgenres and types. A nalTative poem, for instance, tells a story. An epic, a subgenre of narralive, is
pera long poem that narrates heroic events. A lyric poem expresses the
And
many
poet
speaker.
or
particular
of
a
feelings
and
sonal-ihoughts
other types of poems have venerable histories.
As wiih stories, you should be aware of certain elements as you prepare to write abouipoetry. Sometimes these elements are the same as for
hction. A narrative poem, for instance, will have a plot, setting, and
characters, and all po”*. speak from a particular point of view. To the
extent that any of the elements of fiction help you understand a poem, by
all means use them in your analysis. Poetry howeve[, does present a special sbt of concerns for a readeL and elements of poetry frequently provide rich ground for analYsis.
ELEMENTS OF POETRY
The Speaker
First, consider the speaker of the poem. Imagine that someone is saying
the words of this poem aloud. Who is speaking, where is this speaker,
and what is his oiher state of mind? Sometimes the voice is that of the
poet, but frequently a poem speaks from a different perspective, just as a
.ho.t ,tory might be fto* u point of view very different from the author,s. It,s not always apparent when this is the case, but some poets will
signal who the speakei ii in a title, such as “The Passionate Shepherd to
His Love” and “ihe Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'” Be alert to signals
that will help you recognize the speakel and remember that some poems
have more than one sPeaker.
Be attentive also to any other persons in the poem, particularly an implied listener. Is there a “you” to whom the poem is addressed? If the
poem is being spoken aloud, who is supposed to hear it? When, early in
his poem “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold writes, “Come to the window,
sweet is the night-air!” he gives us an important clue as to how to read
the poem. We should imagine both the speaker and the implied listener
together in a room, with a window open to the night. As we read on, we
can look for further clues as to who these two people are and why they
are together on this night. Many poems create a relationship between the
“I” of the speaker and the “you” of the listener; howeveq that is not always the case, Sometimes the speaker does not address a “you” and instead provides a more philosophical meditation that isnt explicitly addressed to a listener. Consider the effect: Do they feel more abstract?
More detached from the material conditions of time and place? Do they
provide certainty, or resolution? The questions about the speaker and the
listener are crucial to your analysis of poetry.
Imagery
Just as you should be open to the idea that there are frequently symbols
in stories, you should pay special attention to the images in poems. Although poems are often about such grand themes as love or death, they
rarely dwell long in these abstractions. Rathec the best poetry seeks to
make the abstraction concrete by creating vivid images appealing directly to the senses. A well-written poem will provide the mind of an attentive reader with sights, sounds, tastes, scents, and sensations. Since
poems tend to be short and densely packed with meaning, every word
and image is there for a reason. Isolate these images and give some
thought to what they make you think and how they make you feel. Are
they typical or unexpected?
Consider these lines from John Donne’s “The Good Morrow”:
in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces res!
My face
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without dectining west? (tines 15-18)
Here, Donne celebrates the love between the speaker and his object of
desire, comparing the faces of the lovers to two “hemispheres” on globes.
Elsewhere in the poem, Donne uses imagery that is borrowed from the
world of navigation and mapping; here, he suggests that the lovers’ faces
t
98
ELEMENTS oF
WRITING ABOUT POEMS
are an improvement upon whatever instruments explorers and learned
men use to understand the world. By examining the images in a poem,
their placement, juxtaposition, and effect, you will have gone a long way
toward understanding the poem as a whole.
Sound and Sense
Of all the genres, poetry is the one that most self-consciously highlights
language, so it is necessary to pay special attention to the sounds of a
poem. In fact, it is always a good idea to read a poem aloud several times,
giving yourself the opportunity to experience the role that sound plays in
the poem’s meaning.
Rhy*,
Much of the poetry written in English before the twentieth century was
written in some form of rhyme, and contemporary poets continue to experiment with its effects. Rhymes may seem stilted or old-fashioned to our
twenty-first-century ears, but keep in mind that rhymes have powerful
social meanings in the cultural context in which they’re written. And even
today rhyme remains a viable and significant convention in popular songs,
which are, after all, a form of poetry. As you read poems, ask yourself
how rhymes work. Do they create juxtapositions? Alignments of meaning? And what is the effect of that relationship as the poem progresses?
As
sonance and Consonance
While it is important to look at the end of a line td see how the poet uses
sounds, it is also important to look inside the line. Poets use assonance,
or repeated vowel sounds, to create an aural effect. Consider these opening lines from Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty”:
G[0ry be
to
God
for dappted
things-
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles a[[
in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-fi recoaI chestnut-fa[ts; fi nches’ wi n gs;
Landscape ptotted and
pieced-fotd, fa[tow, and ptough;
And att trades, their gear and taclite and trim. (tines 1-6)
Throughout these lines, Hopkins pays special attention to “uh” and “ow”
sounds. Notice “couple-colour” and “cow” in line 2,”upon” and “trout” in
line 3, “fallow” and “plough” in line 5. As you read through each line, ask
poETRy
99
yourself: Why does the poet align these sounds? Do these sounds speed
up the tempo of the line, or slow it down? What do these sounds-and
words-reveal about the poet’s praise of “dappled things”?
Poets also use consonance, repeated consonant sounds, to create
alignments and juxtapositions among consonants. Consider these first
lines from Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His
Love”:
Come
live with me and be my [ove.
And we witt atl the pleasures prove (tines 1-2)
In line
1, Marlowe aligns “live” with “love” to suggest that there is an
equation between cohabitation and romance. In line 2, he aligns the “p”
sound in “pleasures prove”; in addition, though, the slant rhyme of
“love” and “prove” also creates meaning between the lines. What “proof”
is there in love? Is love what will make the speaker feel most alive?
Meter
Poetry written in English is both accentual and syllabic. That is, poets
count the number of accents as well as the number of syllables as they
create each line of poetry. Patterns of syllable and accent have names like
“iambic pentametey” and “dactylic tetramete4″ and each meter has its
own unique properties and effects. Your literature instructor may help
you learn about the specifics of metel or you can find several sites online
that explain the art-called scansion*of determining the meter of a
poem. Whether or not you have a clear understanding of the many meters of poetry in English, when you read a poem, listen to each Iine to
find out how many accents and syllables it contains. If you can determine what that meter is, consider how the poet uses and subverts that
formula as part of a strategy for the poem.
Fotttt
Poets writing in English use dozens of traditional forms from a variety of
traditions. Some of the most common of these forms are the sonnet, the
villanelle, and the ballad, but there are too many to name here. As you
read a poem in a traditional form, think of the form as a kind of template
in which poets arrange and explore challenging emolional and intellectual material. A sonnet, for example, has a concise fourteen-line structure that allows the poet to address a religious, romantic, or philosophical argument in a very compressed space. As you read a sonnet, you
might ask yourself: What does its form accomplish that is different from
-I
100
,I’WO
wRITING ABout PotrMs
form likc a ballacl? Thc two sample poems later
good opportunitv to compare a short, highly
provide
a
in this chapter
conventional form with a longeq more loosely structured one.
Note, too, that many contemporary poets write in free verse, which
means that they don’t necessarily use a strict traditional form or meter
for their poems. That doesn’t mean that the free verse poet is writing
without rules; it just means that the poet is creating his or her own system for the unique needs of each poem.
a loose4 more extended
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
Lineation
a crucial
etry” online tutorial at http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/
rhyme_def.html.
TWO POEMS FOR ANALYSIS
Take a few minutes to read William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 and T. S.
Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and consider the student
annotations and the questions that follow the poems. Both of these poems are complex, though in very different ways. What elements of poetry
do you notice in these poems? What insights do you have in addition to
those suggested by the annotations and questions?
11564_16161
Conaonance: marriage/minds.
Repetition:love/love,alters/alteration,
remover/remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixtsd mark
s
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; Abstractideasbecomespecific
i m a g e5: te m pe6te, s hi p6.
It is the star to every wandering bark,’
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.’
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/ Rosylipsandcheeks:clas’
siclovepoemimal”u’
Within his bending sickle’siompurr-.o*”; -to
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeki- -. ..
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.i
?;ir:1:X:l::lhimase’unusuat
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Finatrhymeiaslantrhyme.
A stanza is any grouping of lines of poetry into a unit. The term stanza
comes from the Italian word for “room.” As you read poetry, imagine
each stanza as a room with its own correspondences and relationships,
and consider how that stanza creates a singular effect. Sometimes a
stanza can be one line long; sometimes the poet creates a block of lines
with no stanza breaks. All of these choices create distinct effects for readers of poetry.
component of poetry. Sometimes poets use punctuation at the end of every line, but more often they mix end-stopped lines with enjambed lines.
Enjambment occurs when the line is not end-stopped with a comma,
dash, or period. Its meaning spills over onto the next line, creating the
effect of acceleration and intensity. Poets also use caesuras in the middle
of lines to create variety in the pattern of the line. A caesura is a deep
pause created by a comma, colon, semicolon, dash, period, or white space.
Poetry written in English can have many kinds of rhyme schemes,
forms, and meters. For more information, see the “Elements of Po-
101
Sonnet 116
Stanzas
Lineation-or how a poet uses the line breaks in the poem-is
POEMS FOR ANALYSIS
Il6oe]
bark: ship
taken: is measured
12. doom: Judgment Day
7.
8.
The student who annotated noticed both structural features of the poem
(such as the move from abstract to concrete language) and small-scale
language features, such as consonance and repetitions of individual
words. This provides a good beginning to understanding the poem; answering the questions that follow will deepen that understanding, making it easier to wdte a paper about the poem.
q
lO2
wRrrrNG ABour PoEMS
TWO POEMS FOR
Let us go, through certain l”ralf-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
QUESTIONS ON THE POEM
tr
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . .
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
What images are most striking in this poem? Do they seem
I
tr
n
conventional? Surprising? Experimental? Why?
A sonnet often reveals its own logic in order to argue for a
point of view What is the argument of this poem? Do you find
it persuasive? If so, why? If not, why not?
What is the rhyme stnrcture of this sonnet? What words are
aligned as a result of this scheme?
How does Shakespeare use enjambment and caesura to manage the tempo of the poem? What effects does this create?
T. S. ELIOT
ANALYSIS 103
10
.
Who are they visiting? Why?
New oettin1, in a room. Visiting
“the women”?
1s
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Fog like an animar, armost
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
a characten
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non tomo vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Settinggrubbyandaeedy.Depresaing.
The yellow fog that rrrbs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
[1888-le6s]
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
5
Footnote 5ay6 this ie
from Dante’slnlerno.
The apeaker is in hell,
Why
start
a “love
song” with hell?
Whoisthio”you”?WherearetheygoingT
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Epigraph: “If I thought that my answer were being made to someone who
would ever return to earth, this flame would remain without further movement;
but since no one has ever returned alive from this depth, if what I hear is true, I
answer you without fear of infamy” (Dante, Infemo 27.61’66). Dante encounters
Guido de Montefeltro in the eighth circle of hell, where souls are trapped within
flames (tongues of fire) as punishment for giving evil counsel. Guido tells Dante
details about his evil life only because he assumes that Dante is on his way to an
even deeper circle in hell and will never return to earth and be able to repeat
what he has heard.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the rOOm the women COme and gO
Talking of Michelangelo.
20
Usesrhymeinirregularpatfiern.
25
Lota of repetition here, as
if hebfinted on these ideas
and can’t letgo,
30
He seems obsessed with
and how much
time
ofitthere
is.
Anotherrepetition.gamewomen?
gameroom?
And indeed there will be time
I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stai4,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair40
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
Phys ica I d eoc ri pt i on : a gi n g,
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, thin,welldreased.
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pinTo wonde4 “Do
,*Z:i:;:
rl
104
,tWO
wRITING ABou’t PotiMS
(They will say: “But how his arms ancl lcgs are thin!”)
Do I dare
How could he Uieturb
Disturb the universe?
universe”?
is
time
there
In a minute
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
all:-
45
the
life.
with his
Maybe
depressed?
50
And I have known the arms already, known them allArms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
He aaka many questiono in this aeation. Maybe
And should I then presume?
unsule of self, Women seem to make him insecure.
And how should I begin?
aaa
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
platter,
matter;
80
Lots of disconnected body parts:
eyes,arms,clawa,head.
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eter-nal Footman hold my coat, and
And in short’ I was afoaid’
snicke4
8s
Eternar Footman = Death?
5s
And I have known the eyes already, known them allThe eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
Likeabug.MoreinsecurityT
when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
I
begin
should
Then how
60
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through nalTow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
105
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a
I am no prophet-and here’s no great
He seems bored
POEMS FOR ANALYSIS
70
Eartierhewaslikeabug,nowlikea
And would it have been worth it, after all, Again,hethinkssomeoneistaughing
athim.
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
eo
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “l arn Lazarus, come from the dead,
More about death. Who is dead
here?Prufrockhimeelf?
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”9s
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what
wrl.L Ir r,Edrrl
meant at all.
^t “”‘
That is not it, at uu.””””
,u1i11,”1,”#!*:”;:;i;il;;
all,
And would it have been worth it, after
::l:,tr{;:i’::il::;:-y,
Would it have been worth while,
too
/
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sfrinkl”d streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor-
And this, and so much more?It is impossible to say just what I meanl
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say: whoisrepeatingthis?,,Thatienot
“That is not it at all,
whattm)ant”=miaunderounding.
That is not what I meant, at all.”
110
crab’
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired. . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the flooL here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
No! I am not Prince ,.-a,, ,; *r;-“.nt
Am an attendant ]ord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
to be;
llhy
compare
aelfto
Hamlet? Heb not a pinaeT
Not famous?
rl
106
SAMPLE PAPER
wRITING ABour PollMS
Full of high sentence, but a bit btttsc;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculousAlmost, attimes, the Fool.
I grow old.
..I
grow
QUESTIONS ON THE POEM
‘
old:1-worryaboutaging.Howotdiohe?
120
I shll wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled’
peach? Apeach?Howis
Shall I pafi my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a
the beach. thatdarins?
upon
walk
and
t.o”rers,
r shall wear white ttu.r.r”i
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each’
12s
I do not think that they will sing to me’
I have
seen them
107
getling changes again:
riding seaward on the waves
now a beach.
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
Wh”.t th”” wind blows the water white and black’
underwater(likebheilab
we have lingered in the chambers of the sea
earlier)’ 130
ny r”u-gi.ft wieathed with seaweed red and brown
wakeua?tsthisalladream?A
drown’
we
and
fiU fruria” voices wake us,
”
niahtmare?
[19lsl
complexities of this
On a first reading, the student was baffIed by the
annotating it on a
After
head’
her
over
was
p.”.” .”Jf”ft certiin that it
she had gotten far more
that
realized
she
however,
i””ona.”ua-through,
begun to develop
out of it than she originally believed and that she had
When her class
setting’
the
.o*” int”.”rting ideai about the speaker and
to the discusadd
to
comments
the plem, she had inslghttul
;;;;;;
insights’
these
deepen
and
on
build
questions
sion. The following
n
tr
n
tr
n
What images are most striking in this poem? What makes
them striking or memorable?
How do the stanza breaks work in this poem? Why do you
suppose Eliot chose these particular places for breaks?
The rhyme and meter of the poem are highly irregula4, but it,s
not quite free verse. Why use rhyme and meter at all? Why not
make the rhyme and meter more regular?
What are the various settings of the poem? How does each contribute to your understanding of the poem?
What specific words would you use to sum up the character of
Prufrock?
SAMPLE PAPER: AN EXPLICATION
Patrick McCorkle, the author of the paper that follows, was given the assignment to perform a close-reading of one of the poems his class had
studied. He needed first to pick a poem and then to choose specific features of its language to isolate and analyze. He chose Shakespeare,s
Sonnet 116 because it seemed to him to offer an interesting and balanced definition of love. After rereading the poem, he became interested
in several unexpectedly negative, even unsettling images that seemed out
of place in a poem about the positive emotion of love. This was a good
start, and it allowed him to write a draft of the paper. When he was finished, howeveE, the essay was a little shorter and less complex than he
had hoped it would be. During a peer workshop in class, he discussed the
sonnet and his draft with two classmates, and together they noticed how
many positive words and images appeared in the poem as well. That was
the insight Patrick needed to fill out his essay and feel satisfied with the
results.
108
wRITING ABour PoEMS
SAMPLE
McCorkte 1
pApER
109
McCork[e 2
in one of the sad poems about the loss of [ove. But these tempests
Patrick McCorkte
and sickles are more realistic than the hearts and flowers of so
many lesser [ove poems. In fact, they show that the poet recog_
nizes the bad times that occur in a[[ relationships, even those
Professor Bobrick
Engiish 102
10 January 2008
strong enough to inspire [ove sonnets. And the negative images
are tempered because of the contexts in which they occur. The
ShakesPeare Defi nes Love
the earliest written rhymes to the latest radio hit, love
is among the eternal themes for poetry. Most love poetry seems to
praises of
faLL into one of two categories. Either the poet sings the
From
“wandering bark,” for instance, might represent trouble and [oss,
but love itsetf is seen as the star that witt Lead the boat safeLy
back to catm waters. MeanwhiLe, the betoved,s,,rosy [ips and
the beLoved and the unending joys of love in overly exaggerated
terms, or the poet laments the [oss of [ove with such bitterness
and distress that it seems tike the end of [ife. Anyone who has
been in [ove, though, can tetl you that both of these views are
joyous
Limited and incomplete and that rea[ love is neither entirety
nor entirety sad. In Sonnet 116, “Let me not to the marriage of
true minds,” Shakespeare creates a more reatistic image of [ove’ By
balancing negative with positive images and language, this sonnet
cheeks” may fade, but rea[ love out[ives even the stroke of death,s
sickte, lasting “to the edge of doom.”
Just as positive and negative images are juxtaposed, so are
positive and negative language. The first four [ines of Sonnet j.j.6
are made up of two sentences, both negatives, beginning with the
Patick identifies
his topic and
states his thesis.
grates direct
not time’s foo[.” From here, the poem goes on to dwe[[ in abstract
close-reading.
job than thousands of songs and poems before
love in atl its comptexities and contradictions’
defining
and since,
ideas such as “a[teration,” “impediments
Like many poems, Sonnet 116 ret’ies on a series of visua[
images to paint vivid pictures for the reader, but not a[[ of these
is what readers of [ove poems have been led to expect in their
previous reading, and we might even wonder if the poet finds this
does a far better
images are what we might expect
pteasures of lasting [ove. A reader can easily picture “an ever-fixdd
mark,” a “tempest,” a”star,” a “wandering bark” (a boat [ost at
sea), “rosy l.ips and cheeks.” and a “bending sickte”‘Some of
these, [ike stars and rosy [ips, are just the sort of sunny, positive
images we typicatty find
in love
Likewise, a boat tossed in a raging tempest is not exactty the
typicaL poet’ic depiction of happy [ove’
Such pictures woutd hardl’y seem to provide an upbeat image
of what love is atl about, and in fact they might be more at home
and,,error,,, None of this
scriptions of [ove? Where are the summer skies, the smiles and
laughter? Clearty, Shakespeare doesn’t mean to sweep his readers
poems of the joyous variety’
0thers, though, are more unexpected. Ftowers and images of
springtime, for instance. are standard issue in happy love poetry,
but a sickte is assocjated with autumn and the death of the year,
and metaphorical.Ly with death itsetf in the form of the grim reaper’
,”
love thing worth the trouble. This strange and unexpected language
continues on through the [ast tine of the poem, which contains no
fewer than three negative words: “never,” ,,nor,,, and,,no.,,
Where, a reader might ask, are the expected positive de-
in a poem celebrating the
Patick introduces the poemb
contradictory
imagery.
up in rosy images of a lover’s btiss. Ultimatety, though, even with
the preponderance of negative images and words. the poem strikes
a hopeful tone. The hedging about what love isn,t and what it
can’t do are balanced with positive words and phrases, saying
clearty what love is: “it is an ever-fixdd mark,, and ,,it is the star.,.
Love,
Patick explains
the effect of this
imagery.
Patrick inte-
words “Let me not” and “Love is not.” The negatives of the first few
[ines continue in phrases Like “Whose worth,s unknown,, and ,,Love,s
it
woutd seem, does not make our lives perfect, but
us the strength, stabitity, and direction
i
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