Your job is to say something smart about the poem and attempt to convince your reader of your interpretation using specific (even picky little) details from the poem itself.1 Purpose: For this assignment, we will analyze a poem through careful attention to detail. Your job is to say something smart about the poem and attempt to convince your reader of your interpretation using specific (even picky little) details from the poem itself. Writing task: How does this poem’s form (rhyme scheme, meter, specific language and tone) contribute to its meaning? Yes, you will have to tell us what you think the poem means based on a very detailed analysis of the big issues and tiny details of the poem. You will still need a thesis statement and topic sentences. If you are just dying to compare one poem to another or you want to discuss the poet’s biographical context or you want to discuss the poem’s historical context or you want to quote a handful of expert on this poem, that is fine. Just remember that at least 75 percent of this paper should be focused on one poem (and its language and meaning). DO NOT ASSUME THE READER KNOWS THIS POEM. Explain the poem in a way that the reader can understand your interpretation just from your essay. Excerpts from “How to Explicate a Poem” by Sara Lundquist FIRST OF ALL, read it over and over. Read it out loud. Then read it out loud again. Practice different ways of placing emphasis to get the most meaning. (Poetry is a spoken art; it needs the human voice, your voice, to really live.) All of the following can be part of a written explication, depending on the poem. Let the poem dictate to you. The extra dimension of poetry is in its insistence that meaning cannot be divorced from form. The purpose of an explication is to show, for an individual poem, how this is true. Therefore an explication is a discussion of the art and craft of language. An explication shows how the form deepens the meaning of the content. ? Look up anything you don’t understand: an unfamiliar word, a place, a person, a myth, an idea. Look up words you DO understand, to help you articulate connotations. Become a dictionary addict. Make friends with the OED. 1. State, very literally and in one or two sentences, what the poem is about. What is the most obvious statement you can make about the situation that the poem concerns itself with? Do not scare yourself with “deep meaning”: start literally. Paraphrase the poem. 2. What is the emotion of the poem? How does the speaker feel about what he/she is talking about? What can you infer about this speaker, what kind of person is he/she? Remember that because most poems are about human beings they are often expressions of complicated, mixed, and conflicting emotions; always try thinking in terms of both/and rather than either/or. To whom is the speaker talking: to him/herself? to someone else? How does the audience of the poem affect it? 3. Look at the poem. Describe the form of the poem, the design it makes on the page. For instance, is it divided into stanzas? Does it have long or short lines, or irregular? How does the form contribute to the content? Is it an inherited form (sonnet, sestina, etc.) or an invented one? 4. Listen to the sounds of the poem. Does it rhyme? Does it use alliteration (repetition of beginning consonant sounds)? Does it have an interesting rhythm? What do the words sound like? Are they smooth, or harsh, or lilting, or dull? Do they move quickly or slowly? 5. How did the poet organize the poem, and why? Is it a question and an answer? Is it a story? Is it a list? Is it a conversation? Is it a description? Where (emotionally speaking) does the poem begin and where does it end? Be willing to be surprised. Things often happen in poems to turn them around. A poem may seem to suggest one thing at first, then persuade you of its opposite, or at least of a significant change or qualification. Discuss the “journey” the poem takes from beginning to end. 6. Be very alert to word choice. Discuss the kinds of language the poet uses. Are they simple and everyday words? words from a particular occupation or walk of life? are they slang words? abstract? philosophical? from religion, or sports, or banking? from the world of nature or love or domestic life, or politics or painting or childhood or computers or psychology or law? From what “world” of experience does a group of words derive? Be alert to unusual words or usual words used in an unusual way. Try to say why this word is effective, what kind of very particular meaning it communicates, what it suggests. Try substituting a synonym of the word and explain to yourself why the poet’s choice serves his/her purpose better. Look up the word in the OED and find out how old it is, what kind of journey it has taken to get to this poem. 2 7. Be alert to repetitions of any kind: a repeated word, a repeated sound, a repeated idea, punctuation, part-of-speech, syntactical arrangement. Since repetition always serves to emphasize, what is being emphasized and why? 8. Figurative language: What metaphors, similes, images does the poem use? When and why does the speaker use them? Keep in mind that a poet uses figurative language when more literal ways of speaking seem inadequate or inappropriate. Discuss what further dimensions of human experience can be delved into when the literal gives way to the figurative. (note well: both metaphors and similes are essentially comparisons: say what is being compared to what and why.) 9. Meter??? Do you want to deal with it? 10. Theme: take a stab at the poem’s theme. A poem’s subject will be its wonderfully particular, local, personal concerns; its “theme” will be that part of it that communicates more widely, that tries to say a “truth.” Be careful that you don’t reduce the poem to a cliché. Don’t turn corny or glib. Good poems record hard-won and sometimes devastating “truths.” Reading them well makes us struggle to know, feel, and express those things about living that are not easy to know, feel, or express. 11. Here is some of the specialized vocabulary of literary criticism. These are beautiful and useful words. alliteration assonance consonance apostrophe personification anaphora stanza verse paragraph irony onomatopoeia synesthesia narrative elegy oxymoron lyric hyperbole aubade slant rhyme, off rhyme, caesura half rhyme refrain internal rhyme lineation imagery enjambment metaphor allusion simile dramatic monologue To avoid unnecessary uses of the verb “to be” in your compositions, the following list suggests some verbs you can use when writing the explication. dramatizes presents illustrates characterizes underlines asserts posits enacts connects portrays contrasts juxtaposes suggests implies shows addresses emphasizes stresses accentuates enables 3 ? Writing the Explication (Excerpted from a UNC Handout, “Poetry Explications” https://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/poetry-explications/ ) The explication should follow the same format as the preparation: begin with the large issues and basic design of the poem and work through each line to the more specific details and patterns. The first paragraph The first paragraph should present the large issues; it should inform the reader which conflicts are dramatized and should describe the dramatic situation of the speaker. The explication does not require a formal introductory paragraph; the writer should simply start explicating immediately. According to UNC ‘s Professor William Harmon, the foolproof way to begin any explication is with the following sentence: “This poem dramatizes the conflict between …” Such a beginning ensures that you will introduce the major conflict or theme in the poem and organize your explication accordingly. RUBRIC 4 ? Issue Penalty Essay is not at least 1000 words (Penalty per 100-word deficit) 10 points per every 100 words under 1000 Essay does not refer to adequate evidence (quoting from the poem itself) to support its points 25 points Essay summarizes rather than analyzes the poem (There is no interpretation) 25 points Essay is shallow or rushed, so it does not engage with the complexities of the text. 25 points Essay does not focus on one poem at least 75 percent of the time 15 points Essay does not have a clear thesis on the first page. 15 points Essay does not have topic sentences that express a clear purpose (or lesson) for each paragraph 15 points ? Essay’s tone is not academic (too conversational) ? 10 points If optional quotations from other sources are used, they are cited according to MLA style. ? 10 points Every “you,” “your,” or “you’re” (too informal for academic papers) 5 points ? Every fragment or run-on sentence 5 points ? Every apostrophe, comma, or semicolon error ? 5 points
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