POETRY ESSAY ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
You must complete the required textbook readings in preparation for the Poetry Essay Assignment. This will equip you to objectively respond to the readings by compiling information from a variety of sources in order to compose a persuasive analysis of a literary work. You will also learn to follow standard usage in English grammar and sentence structure; identify the theme and structure of each literary selection and the significant characteristics or elements of each genre studied; and evaluate the literary merit of a work.
INSTRUCTIONS
You will write a 750-word (approximately 3 pages) essay that analyzes 1 poem from the Poetry Unit. Before you begin writing the essay, carefully read the below guidelines for developing your paper topic and review the Poetry Essay Grading Rubric to see how your submission will be graded. Gather all of your information, plan the direction of your essay, and organize your ideas by developing a 1-page thesis statement and outline for your essay as you did for your Fiction Essay Assignment. Format the thesis statement and the outline in a single Microsoft Word document using current MLA, APA, or Turabian style, whichever corresponds to your degree program; check your Perrines Literature textbook, the Harbrace Essentials Handbook, and/or the link contained in the Learn section, to ensure the correct citation format is used.
Your submission must include, a title page, a thesis/outline page, and the essay itself followed by a works cited/references/bibliography page of any primary and/or secondary texts cited in the essay.
Guidelines for Developing Your Paper Topic
The Writing about Literature section of your Perrines Literature textbook (pp. 154) and the Writing section of Harbrace Essentials (pp. 112, 1821, 2228) provide pointers which will be helpful for academic writing in general, and more specifically for your literary essay. Be sure that you read this section before doing any further work for this assignment. Take particular notice of the examples of poetry essays on pp. 4348 of Perrines Literature.
Choose 1 (ONE) of the poems from the list below to address in your essay:
The Lamb, or The Tiger, or The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake
Batter my heart, three-personed God or Death Be Not Proud by John Donne
Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot
Gods Grandeur or Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
The Road Not Taken or Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
It Sifts from Leaden Sieves or Theres No Frigate Like a Book by Emily Dickinson
Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Psalm 1 or 23
Virtue by George Herbert
That Time of Year (Sonnet 73) by William Shakespeare
Consider answering the following questions about the poem that you have chosen:
What is/are the theme(s) of the poem?
Is there a literal setting or situation in the poem? What lines from the poem tell the reader this information? What details does the author include?
Is the setting symbolic?
How would you describe the mood of the poem? What elements contribute to this mood?
Is the title significant to the poems content or meaning? How?
What major literary devices and figures of speech does the poet use to communicate the theme(s)?
How are rhyme and other metrical devices used in the poem? Do they support the poems overall meaning? Why or why not?
Is the identity of the poems narrator clear? How would you describe this person? What information, if any, does the author provide about him or her?
Does the narrator seem to have a certain opinion of or attitude about the poems subject matter? How can you tell?
Note: These questions are a means of ordering your thoughts while you collect information for your essay. You do not need to include the answers to all of these questions in your essay; only include those answers that directly support your thesis statement.