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10 Great Essay Writing Tips
Knowing how to write a college essay is a useful skill for anyone who plans to go to college. Most colleges and universities ask you to submit a writing sample with your application. As a student, you’ll also write essays in your courses. Impress your professors with your knowledge and skill by using these great essay writing tips.
Prepare to Answer the Question
Most college essays ask you to answer a question or synthesize information you learned in class. Review notes you have from lectures, read the recommended texts and make sure you understand the topic. You should refer to these sources in your essay.
Plan Your Essay
Many students see planning as a waste of time, but it actually saves you time. Take a few minutes to think about the topic and what you want to say about it. You can write an outline, draw a chart or use a graphic organizer to arrange your ideas. This gives you a chance to spot problems in your ideas before you spend time writing out the paragraphs.
Choose a Writing Method That Feels Comfortable
You might have to type your essay before turning it in, but that doesn’t mean you have to write it that way. Some people find it easy to write out their ideas by hand. Others prefer typing in a word processor where they can erase and rewrite as needed. Find the one that works best for you and stick with it.
View It as a Conversation
Writing is a form of communication, so think of your essay as a conversation between you and the reader. Think about your response to the source material and the topic. Decide what you want to tell the reader about the topic. Then, stay focused on your response as you write.
Provide the Context in the Introduction
If you look at an example of an essay introduction, you’ll see that the best essays give the reader a context. Think of how you introduce two people to each other. You share the details you think they will find most interesting. Do this in your essay by stating what it’s about and then telling readers what the issue is.
Explain What Needs to be Explained
Sometimes you have to explain concepts or define words to help the reader understand your viewpoint. You also have to explain the reasoning behind your ideas. For example, it’s not enough to write that your greatest achievement is running an ultra marathon. You might need to define ultra marathon and explain why finishing the race is such an accomplishment.
Answer All the Questions
After you finish writing the first draft of your essay, make sure you’ve answered all the questions you were supposed to answer. For example, essays in compare and contrast format should show the similarities and differences between ideas, objects or events. If you’re writing about a significant achievement, describe what you did and how it affected you.
Stay Focused as You Write
Writing requires concentration. Find a place where you have few distractions and give yourself time to write without interruptions. Don’t wait until the night before the essay is due to start working on it.
Read the Essay Aloud to Proofread
When you finish writing your essay, read it aloud. You can do this by yourself or ask someone to listen to you read it. You’ll notice places where the ideas don’t make sense, and your listener can give you feedback about your ideas.
Avoid Filling the Page with Words
A great essay does more than follow an essay layout. It has something to say. Sometimes students panic and write everything they know about a topic or summarize everything in the source material. Your job as a writer is to show why this information is important.
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Poem Analysis Essay Guide: Outline, Template, Structure
Poetry analysis, which is similar to poetry review, involves analyzing the language and figures of speech used by a poet. It also entails sharing personal views regarding the poem and breaking down the poetic instruments utilized by the said poet. However, it’s not just about the words used (Headrick, 2014). It entails reading between the lines and understanding what made the poet come up with a particular poem. So it may require some background research on the author and history behind the creation of the poem.
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What Is A Poetry Analysis?
Poetry analysis may define as a critical review given on a poem, a reflection on the depth and gravity of a poem. It revolves around multiple aspects of a poem starting from the subject of a poem, its theme (meaning), tone, literary devices or speech figures, form to the feeling of the poet to how a reader feels about the poem. It is not only the analysis of techniques used in a poem, but poetry analysis provides a broader and wider picture of the poem, its reality, its hidden meanings between the lines, a study of poet’s mind, feeling and intention behind a poem. Different techniques used in poetry analysis are helpful tools in investigating and reviewing the poem. Behind every review or analysis vital research on poet (author), era (time frame), possible reasons, the background behind the conceptualization poem is vital.
One should read, understand and develop a thesis. Writing services also recommend researching more on the poet and his past works to understand the root of this particular idea.
If you have been asked to write a poem analysis essay, then it means to examine the piece and further dissect it into key elements including its form, techniques used and historical value. Then further appreciating the poem and highlighting to others these points, and gaining a better understanding.
It is also important to show as many ideas as possible that relate to the poem and then create conclusions on this.
To start writing a poetry analysis essay let's look at the prewriting stage.
How to Choose a Topic for a Poetry Analysis Essay?
- In the subject of the poem we mainly focus on the reasons such as why is the poem written or what is it all about?
- What is the context, the central content of the poem?
- Who wrote the poem and why?
- When and where the poet did write the poem, what or who has influenced the poet and what are the key features of the poem?
A topic should be chosen based on the theme you want to write. The theme is the message that the poem is trying to convey. You need to look therefore for concepts and notions that pop up in the poem and come up with an appropriate theme based on those perceptions or "feelings". If you can’t still figure out what topic you should choose for your analysis, it is recommended that you go through other poems similar poems and get a suitable topic for your analysis. Don’t also forget to cite your poem well. And also use in-text citations while quoting from the poem.
Related: COMING UP WITH ESSAY TOPIC IDEAS .
Poem Analysis Essay Outline
To create a good essay, it is needed to plan out the structure of a poem analysis essay so the writing stage will be easier and faster.
Here is an outline of a poem analysis essay to use:
Opening paragraph - Introduce the Poem, title, author and background.
Body of text - Make most of the analysis, linking ideas and referencing to the poem.
Conclusion - State one main idea, feelings and meanings.
Poem Analysis Essay Introduction
To start an introduction to a poem analysis essay, include the name of the poem and the author . Other details like the date of when it was published can also be stated. Then some background information and interesting facts or trivia regarding the poem or author can also be included here.
Poem Analysis Essay Body
When writing the main body of text keep in mind you have to reference all ideas to the poem so include a quotation to back up the sentence, otherwise, it will be a wasted comparison and not count. Be clear with your statements.
Poem Analysis Essay Conclusion
Now, this is where you should take a step back from analyzing the individual elements of the poem and work out its meaning as a whole. Combine the different elements of the analysis and put forward one main idea.
What is the poet trying to say, and how is it enforced and with what feeling? Then look at the meaning and what timeframe does this evolve over?
For example, is it obvious from the start, or does it gradually change towards the end? The last few lines can be very significant within a poem and so should be included in the poem analysis essay conclusion and commented on the impact on the piece.
Remember that you can always send us a " write an essay for me " text and have your assignment done for you.
How to Analyze a Poem?
Before even thinking about your first draft, read the poem as much as possible. If it's possible, listen to it in the original form. This depends on many factors which include if the poet is still alive?
Also reading aloud can help identify other characteristics that could be missed and even to a friend or colleague will give a chance to more insight. It is important to remember that poetry is a form of art painted with only words, this said it could take time to fully appreciate the piece. So take note of any first thoughts you have about the poem, even if they are negative.
Your opinions can change over time but still mark these first thoughts down.
So that to analyze a poem properly, you have to pay attention to the following aspects:
Title of the Poem
So let's go deeper into the poem analysis essay and look at the title. The poet may have spent a lot of time thinking about naming the piece so what can be observed from this and what further questions can be asked?
- What are your expectations? For example, the poem could be titled “Alone” written by Edgar Allan Poe and from this it is natural to assume it will be sad. After reading further does the reality turn out to be different?
- What is the literature style used? So for example, the work could be called “His last sonnet” by John Keats. From appearance, it is possible to deduce that it could be in sonnet form and if not why did the poet choose to mislead the audience?
- What is the poem about? In the poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” by Elizabeth Barrett, it already states what could be included and what to expect but if it differs from the title what would this suggest?
Literal Meaning of the Poetry
According to our to fully appreciate a piece, it is needed to understand all the words used. So, for example, get a good dictionary and look up all the unknown words. Then go through partly known words and phrases and check these too. Also, maybe check the meaning of words that are used a lot, but remember some text may have had a different meaning a century ago, so use the internet to look up anything that is not clear. Furthermore, people and places and any cultural relevance of the time should be researched too to get a deeper look at the poet's attitude towards the piece. Patterns might become visible at this point and maybe the theme of the poem.
Structure of the Poem
When looking at the structure of the piece this will reveal more information so pay close attention to this. Look at the organization and sections, this will unlock more questions:
- What does each part discuss?
- How do the parts relate to each other?
- Can you see formal separations?
- What logical sense does it have?
- Is there emotional sense that can be evaluated?
- Does having a strict format say anything about the poet?
- Also failing to have a strict structure does this reveal something?
Once you have observed the structure, it is possible to go deeper into the poem analysis essay and investigate how the speaker communicates the poem to the reader.
Tone and Intonation of the Poetry
So now it is possible to look at the poet and see what details can be obtained from them. Is it possible to see the gender or age of the speaker? Is there some race or religious references to pick up on? Then can we see if the speaker is directly communicating their thoughts and ideas to the reader? If not, what is the character the poet has created to convey the ideas or messages? Does the poet's persona differ to the character created and what can be analyzed from this? Also the mood of the speaker could be available now, are they happy or sad, and how can you find out this from the poem?
Once the poet is understood it is possible to move onto who or what the poem is designed for. Then you can see the purpose of the poetry, what does the poet want from the reader? It is also possible that the poet does not desire a response from the audience and is simply making a statement or expressing themselves.
For example, a poem about spring could just be a happy statement that winter has ended. Looking from the other side, this could be an attempt to attract someone's attention or maybe just an instruction to plow the field.
Purpose of the Poem
The subject of the poem can help identify the purpose, as this usually will be what the poet is describing. Then the theme can be identified also, and what does it say about the work? Are there any links between the theme and the subject and what can analyzed from that? The timeframe is also an important factor to consider, for example, the poet's goal back when it was written, may have changed and why? Furthermore, has the original purpose survived the test of time and can it be said to be the best indicator of success?
Language and Imagery of the Poetry
Until this point it was only possible to analyze the literal information available which is the denotative meaning.’ Now let's look at the imagery, symbolism and figures of speech, this is the connotative meaning.
This is where you should look for pictures described within the text and analyze why they have been depicted? So for example, if the poet thas decided to describe the moon this could set the time in the work or maybe the mood of the poem. Also look for groups of images described and patterns within this, what can be deducted from that?
So when looking for symbolism within the text this could be an event or physical object, including people and places that represent non-physical entities like an emotion or concept. For example, a bird flying through the air can be seen as freedom and escaping usual conforms.
Poetic devices
In your analysis you will look at techniques like metaphors, similes, personification and alliteration to include just a few. It's important to identify the actual device used and why it was chosen. For example, when comparing something within the text using a metaphor then look at how they are connected and in what way they are expressed? Try to use all available clues to gain better insight into the mind of the poet.
Music of the Poem
Poetry and music have deep connections and can be compared together due to the history and uses throughout the ages.
Here are some things to look out for to help with those comparisons:
- Meter - This can be available to investigate in different ways, for example, iambic pentameter has a strict five beats per line just like a musical score if used what does it say?
- Rhythm - Just like with music, poem can have a rhythm but if there is no given meter, it is needed to look closer and observe what this does to the work. For example, a particular beat that is fast could make the poem happy.
- Special effects - Looking for not so obvious signs where the poet has written in a way so you take longer to pronounce words. Also it is possible to grab your attention in other ways, for what reason has the writer done that?
- Rhyme - There are many different types of rhyming techniques used within poetry, once identified look at how it impacts on the work like make it humorous for example? Be careful to look for unusual patterns for example rhymes within the lines and not just at the end of the sentences, even reading out aloud might help find these and then what does it this say about the poem?
- Sound effects - The depiction of different sounds can be powerful and also using different voices, look at what impact this has on the piece and why?
- Breaking Rules - Rhyme and meter for example can have very specific rules but what if the poet decided to break these conventional techniques and make something new, what does this add to the work and why
How to Write a Poem Analysis Essay?
Below you will find a compelling guide on how to analyze poetry with handy writing tips:
- Choose a suitable poem - If possible, before you start, pick the main subject of your essay, a poem that you would like to analyze. The more you find it interesting, the easier it will be to handle the task.
- Read it fully - If you are wondering how to analyse poetry, the first step you can’t go without is carefully reading the chosen poem multiple times and, preferably, out loud.
- Always double-check the meanings - When reading a poem, don’t forget to check for the meanings of unknown (and known as well) words and phrases.
- Collect all the details you need - To write a compelling essay, you need to study the poem’s structure, contents, main ideas, as well as other background details.
- Explore hidden meanings - When analyzing poem, be sure to look beyond the words. Instead, focus on finding broader, hidden ideas that the author wanted to share through his piece.
- Make an outline - Once you have analyzed poem, outline your essay and write it following the plan.
- Proofread and edit - Finally, once your essay is ready, take your time to revise and polish it carefully.
Poetry Analysis Template
To write a winning poem analysis essay, use the template below or order an essay from our professionals.
Introduction
- Name of Poem
- Name of Poet
- Date of Publication
- Background or any relevant information
Form of poem
- Structure of poem
- Rhyme of poem
Meaning of poem
- Overall meaning
- How can we relate the poem to our life
Poetic Techniques
- Literary devices
Form of the Poem
Poems are written in some ways, here one need to identify which structure the poet has used for the poem. The forms of poems broadly are stanzas, rhythm, punctuation and rhymes. Carefully analyze the length and number of stanzas , does the rhythm impacts the meaning of the poem, is there many punctuations or little, either the rhyme is consistent, or it’s breaking and what is the rhyme contributing to the meaning of the poem or is it random.
Theme, Meaning or Message of the Poem
In this part, we focus on the topic, main issue or idea of the poem. There are layers of meaning hidden in a poem.
- Meaning: surface meaning that what is actually or physically happening in the poem which a reader can sense.
- Deeper Meaning: the central idea of the poem or what is it actually about.
- Theme: in poetry, there is always a hidden meaning in every line, which depicts the message about life.
Numerous topics can be covered in poems such as love, life, death, birth, nature, memory, war, age, sexuality, experience, religion, race, faith, creator and many others.
Tone of the Poem
The tone of the poem shows attitude or mood of the language used by the poet. Analyze the different shades of the language used in the poem for example; is it formal, judgmental, informal, critical, positive, bitter, reflective, solemn, frustrated, optimistic, ironic, scornful, regretful or morbid.
Literary Device used in the Poem
Find out what the different literary devices are or what sort of figures of speech is used by the poet . Analyze these techniques and suggest their use in the poem by the poet. The poem can contain a symbol, similes, metaphor, alliteration, allegories, oxymoron, assonances, dissonances, repetition, hyperbole, irony.
Conclusion or Feel of the Poem
Lastly, analyze the emotions and feelings linked with the poem; of the poet and what do you feel when you read the poem. This is the very critical part of reviewing a poem because we analyze the inner depth of the poem, the intention & feelings of the poet, the targeted audience, does the poem reflect the poet’s persona, perspective or it does not match with the poet.
Poetry Analysis Essay Example
Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s Poem “Annabel Lee”
Written in 1849 and first published after the author’s death, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe is a beautiful story of true love that goes beyond life. In the poem, the author is commemorating the girl named Annabel Lee, whom he knew since childhood. Despite the young age, the love between the narrator and Annabel was so deep and true that even angels were jealous, and, according to Edgar Allan Poe, their jealousy was so severe that they killed the love of his life. The poem ends with young Annabel Lee being buried in a tomb, leaving the readers with a feeling that the author kept holding on to his love for her for many years after her death.
The two evident topics in the poem are love and loss. The entire narration revolves around the author’s agonizing memory, at the same time demonstrating to the readers the purity and power of true love that makes him cherish the memory of his beloved one even after she is gone. Apart from that, Edgar Allan Poe also discusses such issues of love as jealousy and envy. The author states that the love of the two teens was so strong that even angels in heaven were not half as happy as Annabel and Edgar, which caused them to invade the teens’ romantic “kingdom by the sea” and kill the girl.
The topics discussed in the poem, as well as the style of narration itself, give the poem a very romantic atmosphere. It follows the main principles of the romantic era in poetry in the 18th and 19th centuries, which Edgar Allan Poe was representing. At the same time, the author also gives his poem a sense of musicality and rhythm. The poem’s rhyme scheme puts emphasis on the words “Lee”, “me”, and “sea”. The repetition of these words gives the poem a song-like sound.
A significant role in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem is played by imagery, which emphasizes the author’s unique style. The main imagery used by Allan Poe in Annabel Lee is the Kingdom. The author uses this imagery to set the right tone for his poem and give it a sort of a fairytale feel. At the same time, this imagery is used to take the reader to a different place, though not specifying what exactly this place is. To confirm this - the author uses the phrase “the kingdom by the sea” multiple times in his piece, never specifying its meaning. This trick enables the readers to leave this to their own imagination.
Apart from the Kingdom, the author also operates with the imagery of angels and demons. The narrator blames them for their envy for their deep love, which resulted in the death of Annable Lee. Thus, the author gives a negative attitude towards this imagery. This brings us to another big topic of good and evil discussed in the poem.
Nevertheless, even though the angels’ intervention seems to be clear to the reader from what the author says, Poe’s choice of words doesn’t directly implicate their responsibility for the girl’s death. The narrator blames everybody for his loss. However, he does this in a very tactical and covert way.
In conclusion, it becomes clear that the narrator in Annabel Lee did not only pursue a goal to share his pain and loss. He also emphasizes that true love is everlasting by stating that his love for the gone girl lives with him after all these years. With all its deep topics, imagery, and musicality, Annabel Lee is now considered one of the best works by Edgar Allan Poe.
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Writing About Poetry
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This section covers the basics of how to write about poetry, including why it is done, what you should know, and what you can write about.
Writing about poetry can be one of the most demanding tasks that many students face in a literature class. Poetry, by its very nature, makes demands on a writer who attempts to analyze it that other forms of literature do not. So how can you write a clear, confident, well-supported essay about poetry? This handout offers answers to some common questions about writing about poetry.
What's the Point?
In order to write effectively about poetry, one needs a clear idea of what the point of writing about poetry is. When you are assigned an analytical essay about a poem in an English class, the goal of the assignment is usually to argue a specific thesis about the poem, using your analysis of specific elements in the poem and how those elements relate to each other to support your thesis.
So why would your teacher give you such an assignment? What are the benefits of learning to write analytic essays about poetry? Several important reasons suggest themselves:
- To help you learn to make a text-based argument. That is, to help you to defend ideas based on a text that is available to you and other readers. This sharpens your reasoning skills by forcing you to formulate an interpretation of something someone else has written and to support that interpretation by providing logically valid reasons why someone else who has read the poem should agree with your argument. This isn't a skill that is just important in academics, by the way. Lawyers, politicians, and journalists often find that they need to make use of similar skills.
- To help you to understand what you are reading more fully. Nothing causes a person to make an extra effort to understand difficult material like the task of writing about it. Also, writing has a way of helping you to see things that you may have otherwise missed simply by causing you to think about how to frame your own analysis.
- To help you enjoy poetry more! This may sound unlikely, but one of the real pleasures of poetry is the opportunity to wrestle with the text and co-create meaning with the author. When you put together a well-constructed analysis of the poem, you are not only showing that you understand what is there, you are also contributing to an ongoing conversation about the poem. If your reading is convincing enough, everyone who has read your essay will get a little more out of the poem because of your analysis.
What Should I Know about Writing about Poetry?
Most importantly, you should realize that a paper that you write about a poem or poems is an argument. Make sure that you have something specific that you want to say about the poem that you are discussing. This specific argument that you want to make about the poem will be your thesis. You will support this thesis by drawing examples and evidence from the poem itself. In order to make a credible argument about the poem, you will want to analyze how the poem works—what genre the poem fits into, what its themes are, and what poetic techniques and figures of speech are used.
What Can I Write About?
Theme: One place to start when writing about poetry is to look at any significant themes that emerge in the poetry. Does the poetry deal with themes related to love, death, war, or peace? What other themes show up in the poem? Are there particular historical events that are mentioned in the poem? What are the most important concepts that are addressed in the poem?
Genre: What kind of poem are you looking at? Is it an epic (a long poem on a heroic subject)? Is it a sonnet (a brief poem, usually consisting of fourteen lines)? Is it an ode? A satire? An elegy? A lyric? Does it fit into a specific literary movement such as Modernism, Romanticism, Neoclassicism, or Renaissance poetry? This is another place where you may need to do some research in an introductory poetry text or encyclopedia to find out what distinguishes specific genres and movements.
Versification: Look closely at the poem's rhyme and meter. Is there an identifiable rhyme scheme? Is there a set number of syllables in each line? The most common meter for poetry in English is iambic pentameter, which has five feet of two syllables each (thus the name "pentameter") in each of which the strongly stressed syllable follows the unstressed syllable. You can learn more about rhyme and meter by consulting our handout on sound and meter in poetry or the introduction to a standard textbook for poetry such as the Norton Anthology of Poetry . Also relevant to this category of concerns are techniques such as caesura (a pause in the middle of a line) and enjambment (continuing a grammatical sentence or clause from one line to the next). Is there anything that you can tell about the poem from the choices that the author has made in this area? For more information about important literary terms, see our handout on the subject.
Figures of speech: Are there literary devices being used that affect how you read the poem? Here are some examples of commonly discussed figures of speech:
- metaphor: comparison between two unlike things
- simile: comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as"
- metonymy: one thing stands for something else that is closely related to it (For example, using the phrase "the crown" to refer to the king would be an example of metonymy.)
- synecdoche: a part stands in for a whole (For example, in the phrase "all hands on deck," "hands" stands in for the people in the ship's crew.)
- personification: a non-human thing is endowed with human characteristics
- litotes: a double negative is used for poetic effect (example: not unlike, not displeased)
- irony: a difference between the surface meaning of the words and the implications that may be drawn from them
Cultural Context: How does the poem you are looking at relate to the historical context in which it was written? For example, what's the cultural significance of Walt Whitman's famous elegy for Lincoln "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" in light of post-Civil War cultural trends in the U.S.A? How does John Donne's devotional poetry relate to the contentious religious climate in seventeenth-century England? These questions may take you out of the literature section of your library altogether and involve finding out about philosophy, history, religion, economics, music, or the visual arts.
What Style Should I Use?
It is useful to follow some standard conventions when writing about poetry. First, when you analyze a poem, it is best to use present tense rather than past tense for your verbs. Second, you will want to make use of numerous quotations from the poem and explain their meaning and their significance to your argument. After all, if you do not quote the poem itself when you are making an argument about it, you damage your credibility. If your teacher asks for outside criticism of the poem as well, you should also cite points made by other critics that are relevant to your argument. A third point to remember is that there are various citation formats for citing both the material you get from the poems themselves and the information you get from other critical sources. The most common citation format for writing about poetry is the Modern Language Association (MLA) format .
How To Write A Poetry Analysis Essay: Definition, Outline, Examples
Tia - The Writer Expert
Poetry analysis is simply the process of reviewing the multiple artistic, functional, and structural pieces that make up a poem. Normally, this review is conducted and recorded within an analytical essay . This type of essay writing requires one to take a deeper look at both the choices that a poet made and the effects of those choices. In essence, these essays require an in-depth analysis of all parts that were used to form a work of poetry. Read the details from our essay writer service .
What Is A Poetry Analysis?
From an academic literary point of view, knowing the steps to follow to understand how to analyze poetry is essential. All kinds of jobs are usually found on the Internet, from relatively informal web articles to pedagogical documents in indexed journals. All of them typically coincide on one point: poems are a type of lyrical expression structured in verses. From that we can derive what a poem analysis essay should be about.
Therefore, when you have chosen a poem to analyze, it is crucial to review definitions such as stanza, lyrical object, rhyme, synalepha, syneresis, among others. In this way, poems can be classified, interpreted, and “measured.” Of course, without pretending to form unanimous criteria, since a stylized narrative emerged from inspiration always has a tremendous subjective load for whoever reads it. A good poem analysis essay or any poetry analysis in general leaves some room for interpretation. It's better not to deal in absolutes which you can see in all poem analysis essay examples.
Poetry Analysis Essay Subject Matter
The final element to writing a poetry analysis essay is a part of the composition dedicated to the poems subject matter. This can be analyzed during the reader’s quest to determine the theme, tone, mood, and poems meaning . The subject matter – and the thematic elements that support the intended message behind the subject – is often an interpretive minefield. Often, people have different ideas about what a poet is trying to say by their use of a subject, so unless the message is implicitly stated, it is best to state multiple possibilities about what the poet may have meant and included evidence for these theories. As the essay is to be an analysis, opinions are to be avoided in favor of facts and conjectures that are backed by evidence from work.
How To Choose A Topic For A Poem Analysis Essay?
A great way to choose a topic for these type of assignments is to decide on a topic that would deal with information that one is already familiar with. For example, if the choice of the poem to analyze is up to the writer, then it may be beneficial for the writer to choose a poem that he/she has encountered before. If the choice is to be made between different subject areas within a poem, then the writer could find it easier to choose to focus on writing about an area that plays to his/her strengths, so that the statements made in the essay are conveyed clearly and confidently. Such assignments may seem like a daunting writing experience at first, but if the topic, outline, and paper are composed following the steps above, the essay should turn out very well.
The analysis essay is a challenging type of assignment. Your task is not to retell poetry in prose because a lyric poem is not a transposition of some prosaic intention. Still, while embodying a particular poetic state of the artist and analyzing the lyrics, you should also be able to “enter” a similar condition. To interpret in a poem analysis essay a work means to approach the author’s intention. This can be done by following the path of the so-called “slow reading” – from the first verse to the last, considering each line of poetry, its content and form, sound, images, the logic of development of the author’s feeling or thought as a step towards solving the author’s idea.
How To Write A Poetry Analysis Essay?
In order to compose a poetry analysis essay, one must first read the poem carefully. This reading allows one to become familiar with the poem helping produce a strong literary analysis essay . It is also an opportunity to make note of the rhyme scheme ( if there is one ), the type of poem ( limerick, ode, sonnet, lyric, haiku, free verse, etc .) and other poetic techniques that the poet used ( such as enjambment, meter, end-stopped lines, figurative language, etc. ). All of those elements in the poem are essential to know when one is writing such an essay because they are a part of the poem’s structure and can affect the content. It is not a bad idea to read up on these poetic terms before writing an essay, since being knowledgeable about a subject can allow one to assume a more confident tone when composing a literary analysis essay on that topic. By following the guidelines provided in this blog you will not be wondering how to write a poetry analysis assignment any longer. It is also important to follow the poem analysis essay structure. It's not paramount but it will make your poem analysis essay writing much easier.
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Poetry Analysis Essay Outline
An outline for a poetry analysis essay can be very simple, as it is just a guideline for the writer to build upon as the first draft is written. When starting your introductions it would probably be best to put the essays title at the top of a page, then place a Roman numeral one (I) underneath, preceding the word “ introduction ”. Under this, one can list brainstormed ideas for the introductory paragraph. The final portion of your poem analysis essay introduction should be dedicated to the papers thesis statement. Following the completion of that portion of the outline, one can move on to the body paragraphs of your example. Each of the Roman numerals used to label this part should denote a different subject area in respect to the poem that will be discussed in the essay. Letters under these numerals may be followed by subtopics within each subject area that are to be dealt within individual paragraphs ( or sentences, if it is to be a shorter essay ) within the body of the paper. At this point you are almost done with your poem analysis essay outline.
Introduction
It is necessary to add a poem’s title and author in the introduction to poetry essays. Other information, such as the date of printing, may be used. You can also include the poem’s or author’s additional details, as well as interesting facts or trivia.
Body Of Text
How to analysis poetry? When composing the main body of text, bear in mind that you must reference all the poem concepts, so add a quote to support the sentence; otherwise, the analogy would be a waste of time and will not be counted. Your comments must be explicit.
Now is the time to stand back from examining the poem’s elements and find out the poem’s general significance. It is bringing together the various aspects of the study into one key concept when writing about poetry.
What is the poet’s message, and how is it expressed, and with what emotion?
Then understand the context and how this evolves.
Is it clear from the outset, or does it progressively change as the story progresses? The last few lines of a poem can be significant, so they should be included in the poem review essay conclusion and discussed in terms of their influence on the work.
How To Analyze A Poem?
So how to analyze a poem? Commenting on a text is a way to verify what the author said and how he transmitted it, relating both concepts. You have to observe the connotations and the implicit meanings, interconnecting them with precise ideas. It is a moment when the reader establishes affinity with the text he reads, exposing his aesthetic sensitivity, articulating what the author said, the way he did it, with his subjectivity of those who analyze and comment.
When you analyze poem, the text must be coherent, resulting from the articulation of all aspects to be dealt with in the different analysis plans. Citations must appear in quotation marks. When it is not necessary to quote a complete verse or a complete sentence, you must use the sign [...] at the place where the transcription is interrupted. When it is desired to quote more than one verse, and that quote follows precisely the order of the analyzed poem, the respective verses must be separated using an oblique bar.
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This is an essential step. Analyzing a poem, you need to understand the central message; the author’s primary emotion is trying to share with the poem’s recipient.
So now you can pay attention to the poet and see what information you can learn from them. Is it easy to get the speaker’s gender or age? Were there any racial or theological allusions to be found? Can we really tell whether the speaker is expressing their opinions and suggestions to the reader directly? If not, who is the poet’s character who is conveying the thoughts or messages? Your essay on poetry must include all the vital answers.
When you’ve figured out who or what the poem is about, you should go on to who or what the poem is about. Can the meaning of the poem be seen; what does the author expect from the audience? It’s pretty likely that the poet merely makes a comment or expresses themselves without expecting a reaction from the crowd.
A poem about March, for example, might be a cheerful declaration that winter is over. At the same time, it could be an intention to get somebody’s focus.
The analysis of poetic language is the most challenging part of the whole poetry essay. It has multiple openings, and the resources are very varied, so it is necessary to analyze the elements and assign them significant values.
Presenting a list of worthless poetic elements is not of great interest to the commentary of the poem. Analyzing poems, better share your images of what’s related to the topic.
Poetic Techniques
To analyse a poem successfully, you should remember the technical part of the task. If the poem has many metaphors, repetitions, or alliterations, it is in your best interests to highlight the emotional representation and expressiveness of the work you are interpreting. But don’t limit yourself to defining the style figures (for example, alliteration is the repetition of phonemes); this does not matter for the essay.
Technical Poetry Analysis Worksheet
After covering the technical aspects of a poem, it is best to learn about the poem's background. This means that one may find it beneficial to look up the poet, the date that the poem was written, and the cultural context surrounding the work. All of that information typically permits the reader a better understanding of the poem, and it seems self-explanatory that one who has an enhanced comprehension of the poem would have an easier time conducting an analysis of that poem.
Poetry Analysis Essay Tips
If you want to analyse poetry successfully, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Read the poem at least twice. This poetic analysis tip is general and applies to all text types: always read the text two times minimum. Read, in fact, as many times as necessary to understand poetry. We miss some critical points by doing just one reading, especially in poetry that expresses personal information.
- Identify the figures of speech. Another critical step is to pay attention to the figures of speech – this is precisely where you will find some information implied in the text. Pay attention to metaphors, antitheses, or any other model of speech that appears in the poem.
- Don’t let your opinion interfere with the interpretation. Precisely because it is a text with a lot of subjectivity, do not let your idea and conception of a specific theme interfere with the understanding of poetry. Always read neutrally concerning the poet’s point of view, without prejudice about the subject matter.
- Get to know the authors’ lives briefly. If you do this, you will have complementary information that will help you to interpret the poetry.
- Keep the habit of reading and try to analyze poems. Finally, keep the poetry reading habit. Reading is one of the most natural ways to get intimate with the language and its particularities.
Poetry Analysis Essay Template
1. Author and title of the poem .
2. Style : romanticism, realism, symbolism, Acmeism, sentimentalism, avant-garde, futurism, modernism, etc.
3. Genre : epigram, epitaph, elegy, ode, poem, ballad, novel in verse, song, sonnet, dedication poem, etc.
4. The history of the poem’s creation (when it was written, for what reason, to whom it was dedicated). How important is this exact poem in the poet’s biography.
5. Theme, idea, main idea .
6. The poet’s vocabulary (everyday, colloquial; bookish, neutral, journalistic).
7. Composition of the work .
- Analyze the micro-theme of each stanza. Highlight the main parts of the poetic work, show their connection (= determine the emotional drawing of the poem);
8. Description of a lyrical hero .
9. Your impressions of the work .
Poetry Analysis Essay Example
A good poem analysis essay example is an essential factor that can help you understand how to write an evaluative poetry essay. The poetry essay aims to test the ability to perceive and interpret the problems and artistic merits of the studied and independently read literary works, using the information obtained in studying the subject on the theory and history of literature. Let’s have a look at the analysis essay example of two poems.
The poem’s problem is an essential part of the poem structure and is determined by the formulation of the question in the text or the work’s subtext. This aspect of poetic work is not generally different from other literature types: the social and ethical questions are asked by the poets, and they also respond to “eternal” philosophical questions.
A poetry analysis worksheet can also be a specific set of parameters that the instructor has asked you to examine the work from . In this scenario, it is important to create a structure that will highlight the given set of instructions. An example of such a task would be " The Tyger " by William Blake . In this poem, one can examine it from the initial emerging theme examining the process of a tiger’s creation and unavoidably its end. This context lets us understand that no power other than God himself could create something as beautiful and terrifying as the tiger. However, some literary analysis essays will require you to adopt different interpretations of this subject matter. Some often compared the beauty and fear inspired by the tiger to the industrial revolution and new machinery being built at the time when Blake wrote this poem.
Another version of a poem background is that Blake explores the coexistence of good and evil and asks about the source of their existence, wondering how one creator could create both beauty and horror. Modern readers can resonate with this poem easily because the questions asked there are essential.
Sun Of The Sleepless
The author of the poem, George Byron («Sun of the Sleepless» taken as our poetry essay example), was born on January 22, 1788, in London into a titled but low-income family. The first education, from the biography of Byron, was received at a private school. Then he began to study at the classical gymnasium, the school of Dr. Gleni (there was a great desire for reading), the Harrow school. Byron wrote several poems in this school.
Metaphor is one of the linguistic, stylistic devices most often found in Byron’s lyrics; many of them indicate the poet’s peculiar style. In verse, the star illuminates the darkness that it cannot dispel. The meaning of Byron’s image: not hopelessness and bitterness of reproach, but the thought that the memory of happiness does not save, but even more “painfully” highlights the darkness.
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How to Write a Poem Analysis: 6 Steps for Students and New Reviewers
If you’re a student or new reviewer first approaching the task, you may be wondering how to write a poem analysis. Fortunately, there are concrete steps you can take to analyze a poem or collection of poetry. Even if you do not plan on learning how to write a poem analysis essay, building a routine of analysis into your poetry reading can deepen your appreciation for the genre.
Poems have many layers of meaning. A particularly beautiful and well-crafted poem only becomes more enjoyable the more you increase your understanding of the decisions the poet made to craft it. The following steps outline the kinds of questions to ask yourself while writing a poem analysis.
Step 1: Read the Poem Aloud
Poetry has a long oral history. Poets often utilize sound techniques which are easier to detect when reading the poem aloud. Read it once without an analytical focus. Simply notice how you respond to the poem. Begin by asking yourself broad, simple questions such as: How did this make me feel? What do I think the poet is trying to say?
Jot some notes down about your initial impression. Analyzing a poem is a recursive process. You will read the poem several times, and these first impressions can provide interesting clues for what to focus on in your analysis.
Step 2: Identify the Type of Poem
There are several different types of poems, but all poems fall into three overarching categories: free verse, formal verse, and prose poems. Formal poetry itself comes in many more specific forms. Check out A Beginner’s Guide to Different Types of Poems.
There are certain analytical questions you can ask yourself depending on the type of the poem you’re reading. If this is a prose poem, ask yourself, what exactly makes this piece of writing a poem, as opposed to a short piece of prose? Recognizing a specific poetic form allows you to contextualize the poem in history. For example, if you’re reading a sonnet, consider how the poem you’re analyzing fits with or fights against the conventions of sonnets.
Step 3: Mark It Up
There is no one correct way to mark up a poem. You can underline lines which stand out to you. You can take notes in the margins identifying poetic techniques as you see them. You can scan the poem, a method of marking stressed and unstressed syllables. You can circle words which seem important or stand out as surprising.
If you are reviewing an entire poetry collection, it’s a good idea to take notes in the margins about particular motifs or themes. That way, when you are finished with your first read, you can look for ideas which appeared in multiple poems.
Step 4: Consider Poetic Techniques
Read the poem several times, considering a single poetic technique at a time. For example, free verse and formal poems use line breaks. Read through the poem once, focusing on how the poet has broken lines, and the impact of those decisions. If the poem contains stanzas, do the same for stanzas. You can repeat this process with any poetic technique: similes, metaphors, imagery, assonance, consonance, alliteration. How do these poetic techniques support, enhance, or problematize the overall message of the poem? Your observations will prove crucial when you are ready to sit down and write a poem analysis.
Step 5: Pay Attention to the Turn(s)
In poetry, the term “volta,” sometimes called a “turn,” is a shift in the tone, meaning, or style of a poem. This is a common enough poetic technique that it warrants its own step in the analytic process. Nearly every sonnet contains a turn in the final two lines of the poem, but countless other types of poems contain some sort of shift.
Voltas are so common that if the poem you’re reading does not contain a volta, that is a decision worth incorporating into a poem analysis. You can always ask yourself whether or not a poem contains a turn, and how this impacts the poem overall. Focus on the final lines of a poem, since that is where the volta typically appears.
Step 6: Make an Argument
If you are reviewing an entire poetry collection you can use the above steps for each poem. Then consider the way that the poet has chosen to order the poems within the collection. Revisit the first and last poems, asking yourself how they might function as a kind of introduction and conclusion to the collection.
As with any other essay in the realm of literature, in order to write a poem analysis essay, you should formulate an argument and back it up with evidence. Different readers can have opposing ideas about how a poem or collection of poetry operates, and that’s okay, as long as both readers have evidence to support their claims. How do you back up your claims with evidence? Refer to your notes, especially your observations of poetic techniques. Whenever necessary, quote exact lines or stanzas and use them to support your argument.
Step 7: Consider the Audience
Writing a book review of a poetry collection is considerably different from writing an essay about it. That is because book reviews serve a different purpose than essays do. Individual readers, book buyers, and librarians read reviews in order to decide whether or not to purchase a book.
Ask yourself: what kind of reader might enjoy this collection? It’s always a good idea to compare and contrast to other collections of poetry. You can recommend the poetry collection you’re reviewing to fans of another poet, for example.
Book reviews tend to be considerably shorter than essays, often as short as two or three hundred words. For that reason, it’s important to be concise. Unlike reviewing fiction or nonfiction, you do not exactly need to “summarize” a poetry collection. Most poetry collections cannot be summarized the way that a novel or nonfiction book can. Instead, list some of the central thematic concerns of the collection and describe the poetic style. Tell your readers what kind of poems they will find in this collection. Are these prose poems, free verse, formal verse, or a combination? Are they simple, accessible poems, or complex poems with unusual syntax? Does the collection contain a lot of references?
In a book review, you will want to quote a line or two which represents some aspect of the poetry collection as a whole. Since you do not have a lot of space, choose something representative of the poet’s style. This will give readers an idea of whether or not this collection appeals to them. For more information about writing book reviews, check out How To Write a Book Review: Six Steps to Take .
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Poetry Analysis: How to Analyze a Poem
Every author and poet has their own unique style that cannot be replicated. Based on how they think or what they are trying to portray, they create various poems to explore several ideas or theories that were on their mind.
By mastering how to analyze poetry, you also learn how to ask questions, see multiple meanings in simple things, and develop figurative thinking. Let’s give your brain a boost! Discover how to write poetry analysis from EssayPro service - custom dissertation writing .
What Is a Poetry Analysis?
Poetry analysis is the process of reviewing the multiple artistic, functional, and structural pieces that make up a poem. Typically, this review is conducted and recorded within the structure of a literary analysis essay.
The nature of poetry is expressing complex feelings, which usually makes multiple meanings. To understand them, you must examine not only words, but also rhythm, images, obvious meaning, and implied meaning.
Writing a poem analysis essay requires one to take a more in-depth look at both the choices that a poet made and the overall effects of those choices. These papers need a detailed analysis of all of the parts that were used to form a work of poetry.
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4 Pre-Writing Steps to Take
Read the poem carefully.
It is essential to reread the analyzed poetry several times to get a full grasp of the numerous ideas and concepts. This also gives you an opportunity to make a note of the rhyme scheme (if there is one), the type of poem (limerick, ode, sonnet, lyric, haiku, free verse, etc.) and other poetic techniques that the poet used (such as enjambment, meter, end-stopped lines, figurative language, etc.).
- Limerick: Limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyme with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables.
- Ode: Its structure — 10-line stanzas rhyming, with the 8th line iambic trimeter and all the others iambic pentameter
- Sonnet: A fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter. Was made famous by non-other than Shakespeare! (Shakespeare invented the word "swag"... just saying)
- Lyric: A lyric poem is a comparatively short, non-narrative poem in which a single speaker presents a state of mind or an emotional state. Rather than tell a story, the speaker talks about his thoughts using a specific rhyming style.
- Haiku: Invented by the Japanese, a haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count.
- Free-Verse: Rather simple, free verse is poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular rhythm.
All of those elements of the poem are essential to know when one is writing a poetry analysis essay because they are a part of the poem’s structure and can affect the content.
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Learn About the Background of the Poem
This means that you can find it beneficial to look up the poet, the date that the poem was written, and the cultural context of the work. All of that information typically gives the reader a more in-depth understanding of the poem, and it seems self-explanatory that one who has an enhanced comprehension of the poem would have an easier time analyzing that poem.
Define a Composition Dedicated to the Subject Matter of the Poem
This can be analyzed during the reader’s quest to determine the theme, tone, mood, and meaning of the poem. The subject matter — and the thematic elements that support the intended message behind the subject — is often an interpretive minefield.
Pick a Side Among the Various Theories That You Have Created
Often, people have different ideas about what a poet is trying to say by their use of a subject, so unless the message is implicitly stated, it is best to report multiple possibilities about what the poet may have meant and included evidence for these theories.
The amateur writer can try to elaborate on several existing ideas and theories. Be careful not to mistake this with choosing a popular opinion or biased one. They should be defending the one that carries the most weight or offers the most validation. As the essay is supposed to be an analysis, try to avoid opinions in favor of facts and conjectures that are backed by evidence from work.
How to Choose a Poem to Analyze?
A great way to choose a topic for a poetry analysis essay is to decide on one that would deal with information that you are already familiar with. For example, if the choice of the poem to analyze is up to you, then it may be beneficial for you to choose a poem that you have encountered before. If the choice is to be made between different subject areas within a poem, then you could find it easier to choose to focus on writing about an area that plays to your strengths, so that the statements made in the essay are conveyed clearly and confidently.
A poem analysis essay may seem like a daunting writing assignment at first, but if the topic, outline, and paper are composed following the steps mentioned above, the paper will no doubt, turn out very well.
Poetry Analysis Essay Outline
An outline for a poetry analysis essay can be very simple. It is merely a guideline for the writer to build upon. Put the title of the paper at the top of the page, then place the number one (1) underneath, just before the word “Introduction.” Under this, you can list brainstormed ideas for the introduction paragraph of the paper. The final portion of this section should be dedicated to the thesis statement of the paper.
Need a poetry analysis essay outline? Here is a basic structure to follow for your outline:
Following an outline for a poetry research essay is recommended to make sure you organize all your thoughts and statements you want to say. No matter whether you know how to write poetry — an outline will help identify areas that need to be explored in the analysis.
Introduction
Starting with the title for the analysis can be something very basic or a clever quote, a statement from the piece. Moving onto the introduction to poetry analysis, this should open with a “hook” to get the reader's attention. Follow up with the Authors name and title for the piece. Add some interesting trivia or background info that is not known to the audience, but try to keep it short. To finish off the introduction to a poetry analysis, state your thesis.
The bulk of ideas and comparisons need to be explored here in a clear, focused way. When writing a poetry analysis, each paragraph should be devoted to one point or feature you are comparing. You can divide each point by using the corresponding letter from the outline. Try to make it a coherent and specific about what is being compared (example: when stating your ideas about what the poetic devices do to the piece check whether you state each one and do not generalize). Using transition words and phrases will keep the paragraphs flowing well and more helpful to read.
It's important when looking at how to analyze a poem to finish with a set-out conclusion. Firstly, start by restating the thesis in different words. Summarize the most important findings to prove the thesis. From this, you can draw up your own opinions and take a step back and say what it all means with one key idea. Lastly, try to leave the reader with something memorable to take away with them (a thought-provoking sentence or question about the poem).
Tips for a Poetry Analysis
We have put together some handy tips to help you with when writing a poetry analysis essay:
- If possible, choose a poem that you would like to write about. This seems like a simple enough idea but very relevant. If you have the choice pick a poem you enjoy.
- Try reading the poem to a colleague or friend and even just out loud to yourself. This will help discover any hidden information from the sound, and it’s always good to get a second opinion or extra ideas.
- Don’t be scared to double-check the meanings of words and phrases. This is vital to know how to write a poem analysis essay and to the best, you can. Some words may have had different meanings, cultural references and places all should be looked up if only half certain.
- Check if the conclusion has one clear central idea or theme. Do not put in many confusing ideas or conclusions as this will look like you have not evaluated the work with focus. To go beyond a simple poetry analysis for middle school, try to show how it links to broader themes and the outside world.
- Always try to look beyond the words themselves. Hunt for hidden meanings and any little clues upon which to build a picture. Anybody could know how to write a poem but to explore the hidden meanings within poetry takes time, skill, and a lot of research.
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Poetry Analysis Essay Example
Read also a very fascinating article the Divine Comedy summary . Our readers find it very informative.
Ballad of Birmingham is the author of the poem that revolves around a little girl who would like to go downtown to take part in a freedom protest. Her mother, however, says that she cannot go because of the dangerous conditions outside. Her mother instead tells her to go to church despite the little girl's constant explanations that she would not be alone. Defeated and in a show of respect for her mother, the little girl gets dressed and goes to church. Her mother is contented that she would be fine at the church. Sooner her mother hears of an explosion that sets her racing downtown in search of her daughter. Unfortunately, she finds her daughters dress and shoes in the piles and rubbles. She is left wondering where her daughter is.
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How to Write a Well-Developed Poem Analysis Essay
Poems are literary works that shed light on different social and cultural aspects. Therefore, if students want to learn how to write a well-developed poem analysis essay, an essential educational undertaking requires one to familiarize certain technical features. Basically, these features include the refrain, narrators and characters, setting, diction, imagery, figurative language, voice and tone, storyline, rhyme scheme, and structure. In this case, the extent to which a student examines these elements in poetry determines whether their analysis is shallow or deep. Hence, an in-depth analysis poem essay goes beyond reviewing the prominent features in a written piece, and it interrogates other “behind the scenes” aspects of writing.
General Guidelines on How to Write a Poem Analysis Essay
Poems are literary works that help to shed light on particular historical or present social issues. As such, students must critically analyze poetry pieces if they wish to understand the issues that people espouse what informs written pieces. Unlike other academic texts, such as essays and reports, poetry does not follow the introduction-body-conclusion outline. Instead, they use stanzas (same as paragraphs in other literary texts), where each espouses specific issues relevant to the poet’s primary mission. Therefore, a poem analysis essay requires an appraisal of the different technical features that authors use in their writings.
Poem Analysis Essay Examples
A practical poetry analysis essay requires one to break down the text into essential elements. Then, students must explain how these technical features work together to reinforce the poem’s meaning. Basically, the primary purpose of these features is to create an effect on the readers’ minds about the topic or the poetry meaning. In this case, the most effective approach in the poetry analysis is to have a solid understanding of poetry pieces they intend to analyze. Ultimately, a poetry analysis essay must examine ten technical features: refrain, narrators and characters, setting, diction, imagery, figurative language, voice and tone, storyline, rhyme scheme, and structure.
Every poem has a central message that gives its meaning. Therefore, any poem analysis essay must identify this meaning by interrogating what happens in the written piece, what authors are trying to communicate, and how powerfully they try to pass along their messages. In this case, the answer to these questions is the refrain – the line or group of lines that people repeat in every stanza. In turn, the primary function of a refrain is to emphasize the author’s central message and give poetry meaning.
2. Narrators and Characters
When analyzing a poem, one must identify the narrator – the person voicing the words. In many instances, the narrator is different from the author, who is the author. Then, another factor that one must consider when analyzing poetry is the audience – people that the narrator or the poet addresses. In this case, both narrators and authors act as speakers in poetry. Also, their role is to pass along the central message. Therefore, anyone analyzing a poem must determine how these speakers affect the poetry message and why the author chose them as conveyors of the central message.
To understand how to write a good poem analysis essay, an individual must consider its context from the poet’s perspective. In particular, the setting is the technical feature that gives poetry its boundaries. It captures various issues, including the author’s personal history. Then, other aspects that define a poem’s context are the political, social, cultural, and environmental aspects that prevail during the writing of poetry. As such, time is a critical aspect for one to consider when analyzing poetry.
A poem is a short text, meaning every word is significant to the poet’s mission. Therefore, a compelling analysis essay of a poem must consider diction (choice of words) and how the author uses it to create an impression. Here, one must determine why the author uses particular words and whether these words carry any significant meaning. In this case, essential concepts, such as the line or lines that the poet repeats in every stanza, tend to stand out. Thus, a compelling poem analysis essay should examine whether these important words emphasize or reduce the meaning of poetry.
One of the goals of poets is to impress their audience, and imagery helps a great deal. Basically, imagery is what the author uses to evoke the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, or sound in the audience. Imagery, also termed as symbolism, represents the object, action, and idea that authors espouse, and it allows them to appeal the senses. In this case, the importance of imagery is that it enables readers to empathize with speakers (narrator and characters) by imagining a similar sensory experience.
6. Figurative Language (Metaphor, Simile, Irony, and Personification)
Another feature that a poem analysis essay must include is how the author utilizes figures of speech, including metaphor, simile, irony, and personification, to create an impression or convey an idea. Ideally, what drives the author to use this language is the need to create a powerful emotional and intellectual impact. In turn, this outcome comes by ensuring the figures of speech that the poet uses help to enrich poetry to the extent that it becomes more memorable to the audience.
7. Voice and Tone
Just like any literary text, a poem has a voice and a tone. In this case, the factor determining these two features is the persona that the poet adopts, whether they are only the writer or they are both the writer and the narrator. One of the elements that reflect the voice and tone of poetry is the poet’s mood. This means that in analyzing a poem, one must identify the tone that the author uses by determining whether they (poets) are angry, ardent, regretful, or suicidal.
8. Storyline
One of the features of a literary text that makes readers interested from the first paragraph to the last is a storyline, also known as the plot. For instance, there are many issues that a person analyzing a poem should consider to determine the poet’s storyline. Basically, these issues include conflicts, tragedies, disappointments, or events. By examining these issues and how the author deals with them, a person can understand what direction poetry takes. In essence, a storyline reflects characters that a poet uses and their roles. Also, suspense is a powerful tool that helps the author to develop a storyline.
9. Rhyme Scheme
Unlike essays and novels, a poem has a rhyme scheme, which helps create a rhyme pattern. For example, one of the most notable features that help to create a rhyme in poetry is a refrain, the line or group of lines that come at the end of every stanza. Therefore, examining whether a poem has wordings that create a rhyme is crucial in determining the poet’s approach in writing the text. Then, poetry pieces that follow a free verse style do not incorporate the rhyme scheme feature. In turn, there are many types of rhymes that authors can use in their works, including internal, slant, and identical rhymes. Also, the most common strategy that the poet uses in creating a rhyme is to utilize a rhyme scheme composed of shared vowel sounds or consonants.
10. Structure
In many literary works, the most common structure is the introduction-body-conclusion outline. However, this outline cannot be applied to poetry. When analyzing poetry, one determines the structure that the poet has used by examining how they have written the stanzas. In this case, the author can either use a regular stanzaic form, which involves the use of two or the same clusters of lines, or an irregular form. Whichever structure poets have used, one must determine why they used them to understand the poetry meaning. In turn, the author relates the poem’s structure to the central message (the purpose of poetry).
How to Write an Effective Poem Analysis Essay with Different Types
There are different forms of poetry that an author can choose when writing a poetry analysis essay. Two examples of poetry are haiku and epic poems. As such, when analyzing poetry, the form that the author adopts plays a significant role in determining the approach of the analysis. In analyzing a haiku, one must consider its 5-7-5 structure. Basically, this structure means that, in every stanza, the first line has five syllables, the second – seven syllables, and the third – five syllables. For instance, haiku poetry has three lines and 17 syllables. In analyzing an epic, one must consider its lengthy, narrative structure, where the poet details remarkable feats and adventures of historical characters.
How to Cite Poetry and Use Quotes in a Poem Analysis Essay
As a literary text, a poem can serve as a reference point in an academic paper. In the case of an educational poem analysis essay, a student can identify different elements of poetry to make a point. Basically, these elements include the technical features named above. As such, students must cite the poem and the specific place within the poem’s structure to locate the item they are citing. For example, when citing a poem in the MLA format, one must list the last name of the poet followed by the line or lines in the poem where the information cited originates. In turn, the information that a student cites when analyzing poetry must be in quotation marks.
Meaning of a Deep Poem Analysis Essay
There are many approaches that one can use to analyze a literary text, including a poem. For instance, a shallow analysis is where a person takes the most prominent details of a text and expound on it. However, this type of analysis reflects a lack of an in-depth understanding of a text. In a deep analysis, one goes beyond the details that are obvious to consider other factors that might be irrelevant to a shallow analysis. Also, these factors include the author’s background, the time they wrote the poem, imagery, and other technical features (as named above). When analyzing a poem, these factors influence not only the meaning of poetry but also how someone understands it. Therefore, a casual reader, who ignores these elements, cannot have a full grasp of the author’s meaning when analyzing a poem.
How to Outline a Poem Analysis Essay
As indicated, a poem’s outline is different from the introduction-body-conclusion of a typical essay. However, when writing a poem analysis essay, one can choose this outline. In the introduction, one would mention the poetry title and the highlight critical information, such as the author’s background and the context within which this poet wrote his or her poetry piece. Basically, this part must be concluded with a thesis statement . In the essay’s body, the goal is to explore the meaning of poetry, which must link with the thesis sentence. Also, the most critical information in this part should focus on analyzing the poem’s technical features. It includes imagery, symbolism, figurative language, diction, and others. In turn, the conclusion should restate the thesis claim and conclude with a thought-provoking remark.
Summing up on How to Write a Good Poetry Analysis Essay
Even though poetry is not a typical literary text, one must approach it as academic writing when making a poem analysis essay. Hence, some of the tips worth noting in an essay on a poetry analysis include:
- Read poetry pieces carefully at least twice.
- Learn about the poem’s context, including the author’s background and the time when the person wrote it.
- Identify key statements – those that the poet repeats in every stanza.
- Define the subject matter by paying attention to the theme, tone, mood, and meaning of poetry.
- Develop different ideas about what the poet is trying to communicate and pick one.
- Avoid opinions and conjectures by focusing on provable facts.
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How to Write a Poem Analysis Essay: An Epic Guide
Analyzing poetry is a challenging task – more challenging, perhaps, than analyzing any other piece of text. Poetry, by its nature, is very condensed. Several lines, or even one word, put in the context of a poem, could be very charged with meaning, connotations, and emotions. To unpack all these, you will have to read and re-read a poem many times. However, and that's good news, when you are reading good poetry, every re-read gives you more nuanced appreciation and sources of enjoyment.
As much as deep reading is vital for the appreciation, to write a literary analysis of a poem, one needs to learn about specific tools and techniques. In this post, we will outline those techniques and look at poetry analysis as a step-by-step process.
If you are too tied up for all those lofty iterations, luckily, there is always a qualified paper writer online to do it for you. Ask us for a sample analysis essay, and we will do it pronto.
Why Write an Essay About Poetry?
Let's get this question out of the way before we start. All students in the Literature classes all over the world must have asked themselves, "Why?"
The text-based argument is something you will need, whatever your profession might be in the future. In the info-culture we live in, it's an essential skill. When you are writing an essay analysis of a poem, you are arguing a point. This point must be proven based on the evidence you find in the text – not on your intuition, feelings, or mood, despite the widespread misconception about poetry.
Some critics compare analyzing poetry to post-mortem dissection. They say that, although it gives you a good understanding of how it was done, it kills all the pleasure of reading it. This is simply not true! The more you understand about the text, its structure, patterns, rhetoric figures, etc., the more levels you can appreciate it on. As Wordsworth insisted, poetry requires "the exertion of a co-operating power in the mind of the Reader."
When you make deep reading a habit, you start appreciating everything you read more fully. You find details that could have escaped your notice should you only scan the text to get the gist of it. The skill of poetry analysis enriches your reading experience of all literature.
How to Write an Essay on a Poem Analysis
The first thing to do is to read the poem. Twice at the very least, before you even put pen to paper. Read it silently and then aloud. Poetry was born from music and then had centuries of oral history – how it sounds matters.
Then, jot down some notes with your immediate response. What emotion(s) does the poem evoke? What feels odd about it? Are there any words that seem out of place?
Then re-read the poem once again (or several times, as needed), looking for specific poetic techniques you can recognize and seeking answers to the following question:
- Can you see rhythmic patterns? Are they regular or broken? What type of poem is it? (free verse, prose poem, formal verse?)
- What is the main focus/subject of the poem?
- Who is the speaker in the poem?
- When and where it happens?
- Why was the poem written? (to convey what?)
Poem analysis essay outline
Poem analysis is an argumentative piece. To write it effectively, you must argue some point about its theme, structure, or poetic technique. Once you have decided what your central argument will be, you should develop a thesis statement.
Your thesis should be something disputable – a statement you will defend with the help of evidence from the text. For example, "Straightforward language used by William Shakespeare in his Sonnet 18, demonstrates the stability and truthfulness of a deep feeling as opposed to whorled rhetoric of flirt and seduction."
When you have this touchstone, you can proceed to outline your main arguments and your conclusion. A working outline will have a topic sentence for every intended paragraph. For a classic 5-paragraph essay, that would look like this:
- Introduction: your thesis statement.
- Conclusion: revisit your thesis.
Poem analysis essay introduction
You already have your thesis statement, which is an essential building block for your introduction. As a rule, you should put it at the end of the introduction paragraph, making a smooth transition to the argument. However, how to start a poem analysis essay to make it a more engaging reading? For that, you will need a hook sentence. The right hook grabs your reader's attention with strong contrast, a bold statement, an interesting piece of information, or a controversial remark.
For example, "Forever tinted with the ambiguity of gender and sexuality, flirtatious, romantic, and passionate Sonnets occupy a singular place in Shakespeare's legacy."
This is a good hook for a shorter essay since it also provides some background information on the topic at hand.
Poem analysis essay body
In the body of your essay, you develop your argument. The classic essay composition dictates three main points explored in the three body paragraphs. For example, for our thesis about the straightforwardness of language, we can explore three main manifestations of language in Sonnet 18: straightforward syntax, transparent meanings, and neutral wording.
You can further break down each of the three main arguments into three minor points. For example:
- Straightforward syntax (relatively short sentences, almost no inversion, grammatical parallelism)
- Transparent meanings (minimum metaphors, personifications, or abstract concepts)
- Words are mostly neutral (no emotionally charged words, dramatic expressions, antitheses)
Don't forget that of the points you develop, you must also tie back to your thesis statement and support with the evidence from the text.
Poem analysis essay conclusion
In the conclusion, restate your thesis in light of the evidence provided. Your conclusion should leave a reader with the satisfying feeling of closure – your point proven and well-explained. After that, you can put your argument into a wider context. For example, "In the great scheme of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 18 marks the transition to a true, deep feeling, as the narrator seems to fall in love with his addressee, and realize that for the first time."
Quick Tips on Writing a Poem Analysis
- Consider a poem in a historical and cultural context. How does it fit into the conventions of its time? Is it typical? Is it innovative? Does it represent a particular literary movement (e.g., Renaissance, Classicism, Romanticism)?
- Cite your critical sources and the quotes you lift straight from the analyzed text. The most often-used citation style for poem analysis is MLA.
- Use present tense ("Author shows/reveals/compares" as opposed to "showed/revealed/compared.")
- If you don't know where to start your analysis, look for any sudden changes in the tone or style (turns or voltas). They usually occur at the critically important parts of the text. Even the lack of any changes is meaningful, as in our example with Sonnet 18.
Need More Detailed Poem Analysis Essay Example?
The poem analysis essay examples listed above should give you some idea of approaching such a task. However, suppose you need a full-fledged, detailed sample dealing with a poem of a specific genre, penned by a particular author, or done from a singular perspective. In that case, you'll do better by turning to our writing service for personalized help. Sometimes one example is worth a thousand words of explanation!
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Elissa Smart is an omnipotent demiurge behind PaperHelp's blog. Driven by seething creativity, not only she helps students with particular research and writing requests, but also finds the energy to share her extensive expertise via blog posts. A Barclay College graduate, Elissa puts her BA in Psychology & Family Studies and MA in Transformational Leadership degrees to good use, being of benefit to readers who are willing to learn from accomplished experts. She can also talk about boating on the Lake Superior by the hour, roots for Atlanta Falcons, and loves to sing in thick woods.
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What Should You Know about Analyzing Poetry?
What can you write about when analyzing poems, what style should you use, how to analyze poems - 10 useful tips, essential elements of a solid academic essay.
Wondering how to write an impressive poetry analysis essay? Writing an academic paper about classic love poems in English can be one of the most challenging tasks for high school & college students who take a literary class, have no experience in analyzing different poetic works & have no idea where to start.
This type of a written assignment differs from a literary analysis of other forms of literature & makes specific demands on writers who try to analyze poems. It requires time and hard work. Want to learn how to do it?
Read this short simple guide to get a better understanding of the essay writing process that can make it easier and help you become a better writer. You can order quality papers written by professional writers & use them as examples you can follow in your own works, or use free essay writing software on EssayToolBox.com .
Need great ideas for your essays? Check other articles on our blog that can help you choose interesting topics and provide you with information about different aspects of the English academic style & paper format.
Literary analysis helps readers better understand literary works. The point of an essay on poetry is to carefully examine & sometimes evaluate a poem or some aspects of it – a theme, figurative language, genre, cultural context etc.
It’s important to understand that the goal of writing about poetry is to present an argument on a specific thesis statement about the poem. How can you do that? You should use your critical analysis of specific elements which the author uses in the poem – tone, structure, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, figures of speech etc., and explain how they relate to each other to support your thesis.
Your objective is to convince people reading your poetry analysis that you have supported your idea. Your content should be based on these principles.
- You should focus your composition on the topic you are discussing.
- Your paper must have one main idea that will govern its development.
- You must organize your writing. You should make sure each part contributes to explaining the meaning of the poem.
Poetry expresses complex meanings & feelings in compact forms. To understand the multiple meanings the poet wanted to express, you should examine all words & phrases in the lines from different aspects. They include such categories:
- Context of the poem (author’s personality & background, the country, the time of writing)
- Style or genre (e.g. epic, narrative, lyric, Japanese haiku, ode, satire, sonnet)
- Title (its meaning & significance)
- Themes (e.g. love, death, war, religion, nature or another significant concept)
- Poet’s tone (e.g. humorous, satiric, somber, playful)
- Mode (e.g. festive, provocative, mysterious, brooding, ominous, fearful, zany, jolly, cheerful)
- Versification (rhyme scheme & meter)
- Rhythm (e.g. conversational, confessional, meander, frolic, dance)
- Literary devices (simile, metaphor, personification, irony, litotes, synecdoche, metonymy, analogies, symbolism)
- Language (sibilance, alliteration, cacophony, euphony)
You should follow certain conventions when analyzing poetry.
- Use your verbs in the present tense rather than in the past tense.
- Use numerous quotes from the text. Explain what they mean & why they are significant for your argument.
- You can include outside criticism. Cite some points made by famous critics which are relevant to your argument.
- Use MLA which is the most common citation format for writing about poetry.
You should follow certain steps when analyzing poems .
- Read the poem aloud at least twice before you start analyzing it. The sounds are important when you need to appreciate the work of art; write down your first impressions.
- Start with the understanding of all individual words. Find a good dictionary & look up for the meanings of all the words which are not familiar to you. Use the internet to find information about places & people mentioned in the text.
- Determine the theme. It is the idea that the poet wants to express. You have to look at the work you are analyzing as a whole & try to discover the ways the various sections of it interact.
- Look at the title. Determine why it was chosen and what information it provides you with.
- Think about the tone. Determine the speaker and his/her mood.
- Look at the structure to understand how the poem is organized and how the stanzas or sections related to each other.
- Consider the rhythm & sound. Determine the meter & the rhyme scheme and think how they affect the meaning of the whole literary work.
- Analyze the language & the imagery. Determine the visual & emotional effects the words create. Find symbols and figures of speech & take time to feel the mood.
- Think how the poetic work relates to the historical context.
- Consider the poem as a whole. Synthesize the separate parts of your analysis to present the main idea you will discuss in your paper. Express your thoughts about what the author is trying to say in this piece of poetry.
All academic essays typically consist of an introduction which introduces a thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
The introduction of your paper should try to capture the attention of your readers. You should immediately introduce your subject. To do it, you may use
- a startling statement
- a brief anecdote
- a provocative question
- a quotation
- a combination of these elements.
The introduction ends with the thesis statement. It is a declarative sentence which states the point you are going to make and is the key to your essay’s success. You may present background information relevant to your thesis to help your audience understand the topic. You need to include the author’s name & the title of the poem you are going to analyze.
The body consists of at least 3 paragraphs that support & develop your central idea. It contains the explanation of your ideas. It should include the evidence from the text. Textual evidence may consist of a paraphrase, summary, direct quotations, & specific details.
Use the text evidence judiciously. It should directly relate to your topic, illustrate, and support the ideas you are developing in your academic paper. Every paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the paragraph & relates it to the thesis statement.
The conclusion gives your paper a sense of completeness. You may restate and put your thesis using different words, present relevant comments about the piece of poetry you are analyzing from a different perspective, summarize the key points you made in the body. Need more tips on writing different parts of paper? Check other articles on our blog.
Don’t forget to give your paper a catchy title that grabs your readers’ attention and describes the approach you have taken in your piece of writing. Don’t make the title long.
Feel stumped how to analyze a poem & need more advice on how to write about poetry? Find more free paper writing tips on our blog that will help you create an impressive poetry analysis essay. You can order good professional samples online. You will benefit from reading them because they can give you a better idea of effective poetry analysis techniques. We would also suggest taking a look at this unique service writemypaper4me.org with an outstanding reputaion.
"Transition words and introductory phrases exist in any language. Such elements help effectively start your long essay, smoothly link parts of the sentence, thoughts and ideas with each other."Transition phrases and words help to give your writing emotional and semantic coloring. Additionally, they ...
It takes a plenty of time to master all assignments you might challenge during your AP English or other Literary courses. From time to time, the teacher may address so-called Character analysis. The idea is to read the entire story to know all the ongoing conflicts, and then put it on the paper in a...
Writing an essay can be compared to a nightmare in case you are not ready. At the same time, it helps to develop a range of important skills such as:Content WritingResearchAnalyticalCommunicationIt also helps to pick the most important thing out of all. In other words, it links you to your real goal...
Writing About Poetry
View in pdf format, get to know the poem.
Describe the poem: Before you begin to organize your essay, read the poem aloud several times, noting its structure, meter, recurring images or themes, rhyme scheme – anything and everything which creates an effect. Paraphrase the poem: Again, before you begin to organize your essay, make sure you understand the language of the poem. Poetry, particularly from other time periods, often contains confusing syntax or vocabulary. Put into your own words those lines or phrases which are especially difficult. Resist the temptation to brush over the lines or phrases which seem unintelligible; these can be the most crucial parts of the poem. The Oxford English Dictionary is a good resource for defining difficult vocabulary.
How the Poem Works
Analyze the poem: Since your analysis should make up the bulk of your essay, approach it with care. Knowing that you will not be able to address every aspect of the poem, select the elements which work together to create special effects. Look beyond the surface meaning of the words and start to think about how the techniques used in the poem add depth to its meaning. How do the elements work together? Do they complement each other, do they create tension, or both? Think in terms of cause and effect and look for relationships within the poem itself. For example, if you see a pattern of imagery which suggests something about the speaker, look at other areas of the poem for more evidence along the same lines. In poetry, form and content are inseparable, so you must not overlook the relationship between what the speaker says and how he or she says it.
Interpret the poem: Using your analysis of how the poem works as your evidence, interpret the poem – answer the question, "So what is this poem all about?" In the interpretation, you bring together your analysis of the elements in the poem and show what they mean to the poem as a whole. You may suggest an interpretation of the speaker's state of mind, the poem's subject, or the nature of the experience which the poem creates. For example, does Poe's "The Raven" describe a dream? A drug-induced hallucination? A recollection? Why do you think so? What evidence, from your analysis, supports your idea? The main argument of your paper should begin to take form as you struggle with this process.
You have great freedom in interpreting a poem, provided that your assertions are solidly linked to your evidence. Interpretation that does not align with your analysis will be invalid. In the words of M. H. Abrams, editor of the Norton Anthology of Poetry , "There is no one, right interpretation of a poem – but there is one which is more right than any of the others."
The multi-faceted nature of poetry demands that you know where you are going before you begin to construct your written argument, which is why the description and paraphrase stages are so important. Your selective analysis emerges from them in the form of an argument that is limited to a manageable set of ideas. After you have thought through these stages and taken good notes, you should be ready to begin writing your essay.
Constructing Your Paper
Thesis: Review your notes. Look for patterns and themes. Formulate a thesis statement that will allow you to explain the relationships and the effects of elements in the poem. If you can, indicate in the thesis the areas or features of the poem important to your argument (a pattern of imagery, for instance, or a series of crucial lines). Remember, your thesis statement must argue a point; instead of simply saying that a poet uses certain poetic devices, you must give some indication in your thesis as to how those devices work and what they do to the poem's meaning. You do not need to go into elaborate detail in your thesis, but do show the relationship between the poem and your argument.
Introduction
Your first paragraph should make your reader comfortable with the poem by identifying the poet, offering a brief, general description of the poem and, most importantly, leading into the thesis and development of the argument by narrowing and limiting the subject. It may be helpful to imagine the introduction as a funnel, initially appealing to your reader from a wide perspective and then swiftly directing him or her into the body of your essay. Avoid sweeping, abstract statements or statements which you cannot concretely link to your thesis. The more quickly you get away from the general and focus on the specific, the sooner you will engage your reader.
The Development of Your Argument
The approach you undertake in your thesis determines the organization of the rest of the essay. Some arguments lend themselves to a linear presentation. For example, if you choose to trace the development of the speaker according to the recurrence of an image throughout the poem, you might want to go through the poem chronologically to show how that image changes in significance from line to line or stanza to stanza. You need not limit yourself to such a presentation, however. Many poems are difficult to explain chronologically; some poems are better suited to a non-linear argument which reflects cycles or other patterns in the poem. If you organize your argument according to the patterns you choose to address, your argument might move through the poem several times, according to the instances of the images and their contextual significance. For example, one word may have a formal relationship to numerous other words in the poem. The word "snow" has a relationship to the word "flow" in that they rhyme, and to the word "ice" in that they are both associated with winter. To discuss the significance of these relationships, you may find yourself jumping around the poem. That's fine, as long as you make your argument clear and keep your thesis in sight.
Each paragraph should consist of a point which is credible, relevant to your thesis, and analytical. Remember that you are arguing for a certain position and need to convince your reader of that position. At the beginning of each paragraph, tell your reader the focus of your argument in that paragraph by starting with a topic sentence. The rest of the paragraph should address the assertion with convincing evidence. The effectiveness of your argument depends heavily on how well you incorporate evidence into your paragraphs.
Using Evidence
You cannot create a compelling argument without evidence to back it up, but you must present that evidence in the context of your own argument. Merely including a line or a passage in your paper without linking it to your argument will not be convincing. Try incorporating your evidence into a "sandwich" of information which will allow your reader to receive the full impact of the lines. Before the quotation, describe the evidence in terms of the poem. Where is it located in the poem? Is it part of a pattern? Let your reader know what he or she should be looking for. After the quotation, if the passage is particularly difficult to understand, you should explain problematic syntax or vocabulary. Then, you must analyze the quote and show how that quote supports the claims you are making in your thesis. This is the most important part of your paper; it is where you make your interpretation clear to the reader and where you prove your thesis. Don't assume that the quotation will speak for itself—it is your job to explain it.
Be sure to cite your evidence properly. Citing from a poem is different from citing from a prose text. Because the line form of poetry is so important, you must indicate where lines end by separating them with a slash mark "/". If you are quoting more than three lines, single space the passage, indent, and present the passage as it appears in the poem. Follow the quotation with the appropriate line numbers enclosed in parentheses (see English Department handout on use of quotations and citations, available from the department office and the Writing Center).
The Conclusion
Conclusions take many forms. In your conclusion you can emphasize crucial ideas, raise questions about the poem, or connect the poem to other literary works or experiences. This is where you can offer your interpretation of the poem, which by now should be convincing to your reader since you have presented your evidence in the body of the paper. You may raise new ideas in a conclusion, provided that they are solidly linked to the development of your argument. Remember, you have flexibility, but your conclusion should flow naturally from the body of your paper.
Final Thoughts
- If you have the choice of which poem to write about, pick one you like.
- Read the poem aloud. Your ear will notice things your eyes miss.
- Notice the way the poem looks on the page. The form of the poem may reveal something about the way it works.
- Be careful to make a clear distinction between the poet and the speaker. Even in poems that are written in the first person, you should be careful not to assume anything about the speaker that the poem itself does not suggest.
- Let your interpretation follow your analysis – avoid making unsupported assertions.
- Be selective with your evidence. Limit the length of your quotations to a workable size. Passages longer than a few lines will be impossible to explain in a single paragraph.
Enjoy the Poem!
Poems are artistic expressions that demand that you appreciate them before you begin to reduce them to something explainable. Often, the most brilliant elements in a poem are very subtle and will be felt before they are understood. Remember, you are not just explaining what a poem does, you are explaining what it does to you. You are the medium in which the poem comes to life. Writing about poetry offers you a special opportunity to interact with a work of art.
by Seth DuCharme '92
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A literary essay is a short, non-fiction composition that covers virtually any literary topic imaginable. Many modern literary essays are quite long with thousands of words.
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Your objective in writing a literary analysis essay.
It is useful to follow some standard conventions when writing about poetry. First, when you analyze a poem, it is best to use present tense rather than past
Poetry Analysis Essay Tips · Read the poem at least twice. · Identify the figures of speech. · Don't let your opinion interfere with the
Step 1: Read the Poem Aloud · Step 2: Identify the Type of Poem · Step 3: Mark It Up · Step 4: Consider Poetic Techniques · Step 5: Pay Attention to
Read the Poem Carefully · Learn About the Background of the Poem · Define a Composition Dedicated to the Subject Matter of the Poem · Pick a Side
Summing up on How to Write a Good Poetry Analysis Essay · Read poetry pieces carefully at least twice. · Learn about the poem's context, including
Quick Tips on Writing a Poem Analysis · Consider a poem in a historical and cultural context. · Cite your critical sources and the quotes you lift straight from
What Should You Know about Analyzing Poetry? · You should focus your composition on the topic you are discussing. · Your paper must have one main idea that will
Analyze the poem: Since your analysis should make up the bulk of your essay, approach it with care. Knowing that you will not be able to address every