“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” ~William Wordsworth
To analyze a poem is to peek inside a poet’s mind and soul and represent it with words in the appropriate format. When analyzing a poem, you must also learn to ask questions, read between the lines, and developed figurative thinking. Poems have different layers to them. It could be a feeling, a story, an image, or just free speech.
Poetry analysis is the process of examining the various creative, functional, and structural components that build a poem. Poetry’s nature is to express complicated feelings, which results in varied meanings. To comprehend them and write a good poetry analysis essay you must consider not only the words themselves, but also the rhythm, pictures, obvious meaning, and suggested meaning. Writing a poetry analysis essay necessitates a more in-depth examination of the words and emotion behind those words.
Our literature experts at AllAssignmentHelp, a popular online academic assistance service for students have presented important tips and tricks for writing a well-developed poetry analysis. So, let’s get started with that.
Prep Work Before Writing Poetry Analysis Essay
Before just diving into your poetry analysis essay, these 2 pre-writing steps are a must-follow.
Read about the author and background: The reason that it becomes absolutely important to read about the poet before going into their work is that poetry is built on emotions, thoughts, imagination, or experience. Read about the time in which the poem was written, and the cultural context of the work.
For example, many literature experts believed that ” La Belle dame dance merci” a ballad by John Keats was written in the heat of his passion for fanny, his lover while John was sick, getting Ill each day, and suffering from depression.
Words can have multiple meanings to it. Reading about a poet, going through their life can help in deriving the internal meaning of a poem. After all, that is what poetry analysis is all about.
Reread the poem out Loud: Read the poem multiple times. Concentrate on the tone, rhythm, structure, and rhyming scheme of it. If possible, record it and then listen to it attentively. This allows us to make observations of the rhyme scheme, the type of poem, and other poetic techniques such as figurative language, end-stopped lines, etc.
Go through all the pauses, and choice of words and see how the title relates to the meat of the matter.
After you are done with the prep work, pick your notebook up and let us get down to writing our analysis.
Also Read: Words To Choose While Writing An Essay
Steps to Writing a Unique Poetry Analysis Essay
Outline: An outline for poetry is a simple guideline for the writer to build upon. It starts with the title, followed by an introduction, a body, and ends with a conclusion. An outline helps in organizing your views and statements you want to express. It is like a roadmap or a sketch. Read in detail about the three main parts of an outline.
Write an Introduction
Choose the title for analysis. It can be a simple statement, a quote, from the poem. Move on to give a brief about the author. Add some interesting background story to hold onto your audience. Remember, that the introduction should open with a hook to catch the attention of your readers.
Body of The Content
All your ideas will explode here in a clear and detailed manner. The body of your essay is the main element where the largest chunk of your analysis is going to be written. There are a few tips that are utterly necessary to be followed:
- Each paragraph should talk about only one point.
- Expand on the meaning and message of the poem.
- Write about the tone, rhyme, speaker, and reader.
- State the kind of language and symbolism used.
- Mention all poetic devices.
- Make your paragraphs interconnected.
- Write about the rhythm and sound.
- Try to make it coherent and particular about what is being collated.
- Use transition words and phrases to maintain flow.
- Choose easy words to keep the analysis easy to read.
Make a checklist of all these points and ensure that these are incorporated into the body of your poetic analysis essay.
Conclusion
Revise the thesis that you stated in your introduction. Summarize all the points and comparisons that you made. Always and your poetic analysis essay with a thought-provoking statement. Something which is a food for thought. Try to keep leaving an open so that the reader can have their views on your analysis.
Identifying the Types of Poem for Your Poetry Analysis Essay
Poems come in different forms. Knowing the type of poetry form is crucial to unveil the understanding of the author. Below we will discuss some of the widely used poetry forms:
Limerick: Limerick is a five-line stanza, with the first, second, and fifth lines rhyming. It contains three feet of three syllables each, and the shorter third and fourth lines likewise rhyme. But having only two feet of three syllables.
Ode: It’s written in rhyming 10-line stanzas. It is a short lyric poem that praises an individual, an idea, or an event. In ancient Greece, odes were originally accompanied by music.
Ballad: A fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter is known as a sonnet. Shakespeare made it famous! “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame” is an example.
Lyric: A lyric poem is a non-narrative poem in which a single speaker expresses a state of mind or an emotional condition. Rather than telling a story, the speaker expresses his thoughts in rhyming couplets.
Haiku: A haiku is a three-line poem with seventeen syllables written in a 5/7/5 syllable count that was invented by the Japanese.
Free-Verse: To put it simply, free verse is poetry that does not rhyme or have a consistent rhythm.
Also Read: What are Poetic Devices
Identify the Elements for Your Poetry Analysis Essay
To understand a poem, one must analyse carefully the various independent elements that exist. Only then we will be able to understand the matter on a deeper level. Some critical elements that we must be consider are:
- Theme: The basic idea of the setting that characterizes a poem is its subject. You must grasp the fundamental vision or subject matter that the verses.
- Language: The language of a poem, from diction to imagery, contributes to the mood and tone of the poem. Language aids in the communication of thoughts and emotions, as well as influencing the rhythm of the poetry.
- Sound: Patterns of syllables and stresses on specific portions make metric pattern of the poem.
- Structure: The structure of a poem determines its readability. A poet usually shapes the story and expresses concepts using stanzas, line breaks, rhyme patterns, punctuation, and pauses.
There are other elements too that may include, voice, diction, imagery, figures of speech, symbolism and allegory, syntax, rhythm, and meter.
It is crucial to know these poetic semantics to write a strong poetic analysis essay.
Tips for Writing a Professional Poetry Analysis Essay
We have mentioned the top tips and tricks below to write an amazing and flawless essay. Make sure to follow these tips. Also, and not forget to seek our custom essay help if you face any struggles with your essays.
Double-check the meanings of words
There is a lot of other meaning to a single word. Poets are smart people and of course, they know how to play with words. Never hesitate to double-check the meaning of a word. This will aid in the discovery of any hidden information in the sound, and it’s always a good idea to seek a second viewpoint or other suggestions.
Make a note of Figurative Language
A poem analysis essay must also describe how the author used figures of speech. Metaphor, simile, irony, and personification, to make an impression or express a concept.
Metaphor: A metaphor states that one thing is another thing. It equals those two things not because they are the same, but rather for the sake of comparison or symbolism. Like,” You are my sunshine”, I mean not mine but somebody’s definitely.
Simile: A simile is a statement that employs a comparison. For example, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” by the way, have you seen Forrest Gump?
Irony: The statement of one’s message by the use of language that traditionally means the opposite, usually for humorous or emphatic effect.
Personification: Personification is a poetic device in which animals, plants, or even inanimate objects are given human characteristics. Which results in a poem rich in imagery and description. For example, with a statement like “the mountains are calling” you know they can’t, they don’t have a cellphone.
Ideally, the author’s motivation for using this language is the desire to make a strong emotional and intellectual effect.
Identify the Narrator, Diction, and Setting of Your Poetry Analysis Essay
Narration: You must identify the narrator when evaluating a poem. The narrator — the person who speaks the lines In many cases, the narrator is not the same as the author, who is the author.
Setting: The setting, in particular, is the technical component that defines poetry’s borders. It covers a wide range of topics, including the author’s personal history. Other factors that define the setting of a poem are the political, social, cultural, and environmental factors that prevail throughout the production of poetry.
Diction: A fascinating poem analysis essay must evaluate diction (word choice) and how the author uses it to make an impression. It is necessary to evaluate why the author uses specific terms and whether these words have any meaningful meaning.
For example, a very famous poem by Dylan Thomas in which he repeats the same lines multiple times.” Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage Rage against the dying of the light” emphasizes that even though death is inevitable, people should simply give up and give in to death.
The Central Idea Should Be the Focus in Your Poetry Analysis Essay
Examine if the conclusion is a clear central idea or not. Do not include too many contradictory ideas or conclusions, as this may give the impression that you did not thoroughly review the work. To move beyond a simple middle school poetry analysis, try to illustrate how it relates to larger themes and the outside world.
There might be different meanings that you can drawn from the poem. You must stick to one idea which will be your central idea. Making multiple conclusions will confuse the reader and will degrade the quality of your essay.
Also Read: English techniques to learn and analyze written text better
Keep Intact the Storyline in Your Poetry Analysis Essay
A storyline, often known as the plot, is one of the aspects of a literary piece that keeps readers interested from the first paragraph to the last. For example, there are numerous factors that a person analyzing a poem should evaluate to discern the poet’s storyline. Conflicts, catastrophes, disappointments, or occurrences are examples of these difficulties.
A person can comprehend the route poetry takes by evaluating these concerns and how the author deals with them. A plot, in essence, portrays the characters and roles that a poet employs. Suspense is also a significant instrument that aids the author in the development of a plot.
Recognize the Turns
In poetry, a “volta,” sometimes known as a “turn,” is a change in the tone, content, or style of a poem. This is a prevalent enough poetic technique to merit its phase in the analysis. Almost every sonnet has a turn in the final two lines, but countless other sorts of poems have some sort of transition.
Voltas is so ubiquitous that if the poem you’re reading lacks one, it’s a decision worth considering in a poem analysis. You can always ask yourself whether a poem has a turn and how this affects the poem as a whole. Pay attention to the closing lines of a poem, as this is when the volta usually emerges.
Look Beyond the Words
Always strive to see beyond the words themselves. Look for hidden meanings. Any small clues that you can use to piece together a picture. Anyone can create a poem, but uncovering the hidden meanings within poetry takes time, skill, and a lot of research.
Take help from the prep work we talked about earlier. Go through the author’s life history and the setting of the poem. For example, many poetries written at the time of war depict the pain of bloodshed.
Conclusion
I hope that you find the above information helpful. Remember, we will never know what authors had in mind while they were writing the poem. So, do not burden yourselves with finding out the right analysis because the meaning of poetry is subjective to perception. There is no right or wrong. All you have to do is to identify your central idea and back it up with supportive arguments. Our team wishes you All the best! Also, keep reading our blogs for more informative content.
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Frequently Asked Questions
| Question: What is the difference between a metaphor and simile? Answer: The difference is that similes make the comparison by stating that something is similar to something else, but metaphors make the comparison by stating that something is something other. |
| Question: Can a poem have multiple central idea? Answer: Yes, a poem can have multiple central ideas but while writing a poetry analysis only one should be taken into account. |