Essay 1: Close-Analysis of Poetry

Your task in this assignment is to construct a unique argument about 1 poem through close analysis of carefully selected lines, and to show how your insight might be significant in a larger context.

SKILLS

The assignment will require you to practice using elements basic to expository writing–especially evidence, analysis, key terms, thesis, and motive. Please review the 12 Elements of the Scholarly Essay. Evidence will come primarily from the poem you select. It must be sifted, identified, and arranged with care, in order for your argument to be plausible and useful. (Your earliest observations and questions about the poem may have to be discarded, even if they are fascinating, if they don’t fit the path of your argument.) Also important will be analysis that gives rise to an interesting thesis. The thesis should not be obvious (or it would not be worth arguing), yet it should be persuasive and, in your opinion, true. You should be clear on what the particular key terms (e.g. “speaker,” “identity,” “desire”) of your argument will mean for the purposes of the essay, as you will need to use them consistently. And the analysis expected of you is more than the naming of a certain kind of phenomenon–metaphor or synecdoche, enjambment or end-stop, rhyme or alliteration; you will need to explore the effects of such devices in the context of the passage you select and in the poem as a whole. By “effects” I mean (in addition to the literal meaning of the passage) the way in which the language and all of the devices in it, might shape impressions of the speaker involved and of the poem’s central ideas. Finally, agenda will be crucial. Inertia may tempt you to regard your ultimate agenda as merely the description of a poem. But this is generally not sufficient. The sensation that a speaker is, say, “three-dimensional” or “complex” is just that–a sensation, rather than something that can be argued logically; one might construct an interesting argument about how such a sensation is achieved or why it is significant, but as an argument itself, the mere assertion of complexity or three-dimensionality would fall flat. On the other hand, the moral judgment of a speaker might require a logical argument, but does not exist as anything except a textual representation; so this also cannot stand as an end in itself. To arrive at an interesting agenda, one would need to say how such a judgment is prompted or why it is important, at least in the context of the poem as a whole. The focus of your essay may be on how the author makes a speaker what he or she seems to be, or on the effects of the way the speaker is. But it should be more than just a statement of the way the speaker or poem is. I hope this is clear.

4-5 pages / TWO hardcopies

Review Guidelines (FYS tab)

Additional Notes & Reminders:

• Read the poem aloud. Read it multiple times.
• Altogether, the lines you analyze in depth should be substantial (if drawn from a long poem) or entire (if a short poem).
• Consider the speaker’s questions, or the author’s questions as they seem to funnel through the lens/voice of the speaker. These may guide your own questions as readers.
• Begin with a compelling question; the answer to this question that you aim to pursue/prove should help you identify and form a clear, specific, focused, debatable, unobvious claim; know the stakes of your argument; imagine counterarguments (though it is not necessary to include them)
• Zoom out – what is the poem about, and how does all of the detail you’ve so closely analyzed relate to the overall form of the poem, and most importantly, to broader questions provoked by the poem.
• Always address craft – what choices has the author made in assembling the language and structure of this poem, and how do these elements contain/convey meaning? Do not confuse this with author intentionality, which you cannot know.
• Organization matters – do not move through your paper doing a stanza-by-stanza format unless it is significant to address the linear movement of the poem in order to support a specific argument you are making about temporality, otherwise chronology becomes an unnecessary default. Find good transitions between paragraphs; hinges between ideas. Topic sentences are boring. Also try not to direct your reader with confusing locations of lines being addressed (ie.“in the fifth line in the third stanza near the second half of the poem”).
• Never form a thesis about the existence of poetic devices. Avoid being overly mechanical in the organization of your paper; that is, don’t write one paragraph on diction, one on sound, one on metaphor, etc. Instead try to bring these observations together by organizing around issues of effect and meaning rather than of technique. Where you do point to a device at work, do not simply acknowledge or describe it; discuss how it functions.
• Always introduce & integrate cited lines/passages quoted in your paper. Do not just drop quotes into the body of your text and let them dangle. For poetry, there’s no need to include line #s, unless it is a short poem. Do use “/” to indicate line-breaks. Punctuation goes inside quotation marks. Block quote extended passages.
• Remember: the poem does not argue/express/tell us, etc.; it is not the equivalent of a message, even as it holds a meaning. The poet does not argue (though the speaker may make an argument), and even if the poem contains an intellectual argument that is rhetorically embedded, it is distinct from what you as the writer-scholar are arguing or examining. The poet does express/convey. The poem does evoke. Be clear on verb usage with such references.
• The speaker is a figure/character constructed by the poet, even if it is a version of the author’s self; distinguish what the poet does (in craft) from what the speaker does/says as a figure in the poem. Do not assume them to be the same. Do not treat the speakers of poems or the characters in novels as real-life people; they are representational. This also raises the issue of biographical research; treat the poem as an art object, even if all art blurs with life, and only bring in necessary contextual or biographical elements as they guide your specific reading of the poem. This can be a fine line. A poem emerges from a particular context that cannot be ignored, but your reading should not depend on it entirely. (For example, discovering a poet endured the death of a child may help inform your reading of grief in his/her poem, but you must still be able to discuss how grief is being conveyed in a way, regardless of this knowledge.)  
• Although you do not want to discuss the value of text as it allows the reader to relate or not, you can consider how the text positions the reader to experience it through certain rhetorical or stylistic moves. This will be an effect of the poem, an effect of how the poet has crafted the poem, rather than an intention of the author. Please avoid conclusions that make statements about the poem eliciting empathy or relatability or accessibility. Also, do not evaluate or praise author’s skills (ie. Frost does a good job of…)
• Good introductions often begin with detail (not with generalization, universalizing, pontificating, preaching). Begin specific and widen your lens. The best introductions offer a map for the analysis to come. Imagine inviting your reader to walk through the paper. What are the necessary signposts to follow your exploration of an idea in all of its complexity? Use as colloquial a voice as you’d like while maintaining a serious scholarly tone. (1^st-person point-of-view is OK.)
• Overall, avoid broad, obvious statements about the nature of poetry or life. Avoid absolutisms. Avoid clichéd thinking or language.
• Conclusions are challenging. You want to avoid a repetition of your introduction. Don’t re-summarize the paper; think instead about how the poem – how your analysis of the poem – gets us to think newly about some broader idea; an idea that hadn’t previously occurred or been approached in this way. Brainstorm: What is the impact of your particular reading, what does it open up for us, what are the implications of your argument, why does your analysis matter? Why should I want to read your paper? (And more importantly, why should you want to write it?)
• You will likely end up rewriting your introduction once you’ve finished the paper. Sometimes an introduction is merely a way for you to begin writing the paper you really want to write (which the introduction may not have articulated). Be patient.
• Have fun in the writing process. Don’t assume to know everything at the outset of writing. Remain open to discovery, follow curiosities, and give yourself the freedom to express your ideas in as creative a style as you feel necessary. What matters to me is also seeing how you find your unique writing voice.
• Include full name of text (properly cited) and full author name in Intro.
• Always title your paper. The title should offer a clear lens of your subject and should identify the text you’re working on.
• Proofread. Sloppy work is inexcusable. Remember, this is a first draft, and I will trace the arc of your growth between drafts (emphasis on practice and process, not perfection), but that doesn’t invite an incomplete, hurried, or incomprehensible draft.