Poetry essay
n this analysis you will consider in detail the emotions that the poet expresses in the poem. Choose any short poem in your text of 25 lines or less that is not on your syllabus, but is in your book. In an essay of approximately 3 typed pages in length, discuss the emotion(s) expressed in the poem by the poet. Include your own original title, not the title of the poem.
Pre-writing: Consider the following questions, all of which may or may not be relevant to your poem: What is the subject of the poem? What is the poet’s attitude toward this subject; that is, what is the poet’s tone? Does the tone change during the course of the poem? Your thesis statement should deal with these questions. In the body of your essay discuss the ways in which the poet expresses his or her emotions/tone in the poem: images? metaphors? similes? a persona? diction? sound? conventional themes? Does the form of the poem (sonnet, ode, dramatic monologue, etc.) or even its shape contribute to the expression of the emotion? Again, you don’t need to answer all of these questions: decide which elements are important in your poem.
Organization:
Introduction: Give the poet’s name and the title of the poem (in quotation marks) and a thesis statement. (Also give the page number of the poem in your book).
Body: Include at least 3 body paragraphs. A very effective way to organize your essay is to divide the poem into sections: if it is divided into stanzas discuss each one separately, or if there are no stanzas, decide how to divide it into major parts based on changes in theme or tone. (Look at punctuation for cues.)
Conclusion: In your conclusion consider your own response to the poem. Does it evoke similar emotions in you? Do you empathize with the poet? Can you connect it with your personal experience?
Quotations of poetry: Use quotations from the poem as support for your points. Follow the same procedure for quoting and leading-in as you did with fiction, but instead of giving the page number, give line numbers. If you quote more than one line, put a slash / between the lines:
The speaker warns his reluctant lady of the inevitability of the grave: “then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity” (27-28).
Don’t quote more than 3 lines at one time in a short essay. (Longer quotations should be blocked.)
3 pages in length, typed (double-spaced, 1 inch margins on all sides, 12 font). These papers are your own ideas, based on your readings of and responses to the works you are writing about. Please do not use outside sources at any time during the semester, including SparkNotes.com and any other websites, books or study aids. All papers must be submitted through Turnitin via Canvas.
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Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
The poem “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A letter” is centered on a variety of emotional experiences which occur between a young couple who are faced with different life experiences in their marriage. The poem tends to have a happy and also a regretful tone because it shifts from happy moments of love to instances where there is a form of separation and reduced love between the young husband and wife.
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