How to Analyze Poetry
Students are often required to study a particular poem and come up with an analytical writing on the ideas portrayed from the poem. Read on to know how to navigate this task and end up with a great essay.
The Literature That Is Poetry
Poetry can be explained as a literary piece which is usually shorter and has a cleaver usage of certain literary elements such as literary devices, sing-song tempo and rhymes. These pieces of writing convey messages just like how prose does, but in a more creative way. Poetry writing is usually unique and specially tailored to the ideas, world view, and thinking pattern of the writer. Based on their experiences and the things they might have seen, they allow the poetry to be an expression of all that they have seen in their own unique way and language. Analyzing poetry in totality means you have to as yourself certain questions also related to the poet and his experiences in life. No two poets express themselves the same way, meaning their poems are all different because they are different individuals as well. When about reviewing poetic prose as a piece of art or literary work, you get to be exposed to the different ways to perceive similar wording and sentences with the idea that there is always a hidden meaning everything. Even the most supposedly redundant of phrases are pregnant with meaning. This is the natural way of poetry. The good news about it all is that you definitely end up developing a kind of analytical and figurative way of thinking which at the end of the day, shapes your way of understanding certain occurrences in life.Understanding Poetry Analysis
When a piece of poetry is being analyzed, it is simply being reviewed or broken down to highlight and explain the multiple creative choices, artistic and structural segments that make the writing. These kinds of essays are written using the same structure as would be used for a literary analysis. Poetry is usually used to convey complex messages and to explore emotions which are deemed to sometimes be complex and unique. In analyzing such work, it is easy to find that some of these ideas have been structured to carry different meanings. When examining such a piece of work, it is of hr utmost importance to take into consideration not only the choice of words, but also the images conveyed, the rhythm of the poem and finally the meaning. The meaning of the poem based on the writer can in turn be divided into two forms; the obvious, or true meaning and then the meaning that has been implied. When putting such an analysis in writing, understanding how the choices of the poet affect the meaning of what is being conveyed is an important factor. Such papers need an in-depth study revealing the details of all structures coming together resulting in the poem. Once there is an understanding that each line and literary device found within the writing mean something, it becomes simpler to view the poem as being formed as a result of the combination of many different nuances, as well as points, making a grand idea. In Writing your Analysis of Poems: Steps Worth Considering As you begin preparing to write such an essay, and writing one, like many other essays written there are, in fact, several steps worth considering which guide the overall preparation before writing, and eventually the writing of the essay. These guiding points are divided into the steps taken before the writing begins, during the writing process, and finally, after the writing has been completed.Before Writing your Analysis
1. Understand the piece of poetry being studied
Before you start to write any essay, it is imperative that you study the material you are writing about. This is the same when you are developing an essay analyzing the poetical piece written. Complete comprehension of the piece you are about to analyze plays an important role in what becomes the outcome of your writing. Read over the poetical piece several times in order to gather together all concepts that are being spoken about. This period which highlights the preparation beforehand beforehand allows you to take special points regarding presence or absence of a rhyming scheme, the form of the literary piece that is being written, and all poetic devices employed in the writing to arrive at the point. That being said, there are different sorts of poems and the understanding of each of them makes poetry analysis easier. Poetry types:- Sonnet A Sonnet is a poem that consists of fourteen lines each written with words which are five in number, and follow a ‘stressed’, ‘unstressed’ pattern. This pattern is called an iambic pentameter.
- Ode An ode consists of stanzas, each having just ten lines. Each of them have a special sequence for rhyming, and the eighth line is an iambic trimeter. All other lines follow The iambic pentameter fashion.
- Haiku A Haiku can be explained as sort of poem that has Japanese origins and consists three lines. The opening and third line have five syllables and the middle line has seven.
- Limerick A limerick is actually one stanza. It contains five rows of words. The beginning line, third, and fifth line rhyme. These have three feet of three syllables each. The lines left out are smaller, they rhyme, and also turn have two feet consisting just three syllables.
- Lyric This is explained as a shorter piece of poetry which has a nature which is non-narrative. The writer simply speaks, having the aim to bring forth a particular emotion. It is mainly the thought pattern of the writer on display here using his own special of rhyming.
- Free-Verse This has neither rhyme nor rhythm in a particular fashion. Knowing these types of poems makes analyzing simpler and produces a more convincing piece of writing. At the end of the day, the parts of the poem are understood to be so written for a particular purpose.
2. Choose your topic wisely
When choosing your preferred topic, sticking to familiar points is the better way go about it. If you have full control of what poem to pick, opt for a familiar piece over an unfamiliar one. When you are choosing different points to analyze regarding your poem, focus on your strengths and points you are passionate about. This makes it much easier to convey your message and write confidently at the end of the day. As much you have the choice, opt to play safe and go into the full explanation of a point rather than picking several different areas and incorporating them all, not really covering much in each area.Poetry Analysis Structure
Every essay has an outline, and a poetical analysis is hardly different. Having an outline and sticking to it makes writing easier and, as well as organized. The outline is usually easy to follow and can guide you to writing even when you have never tried writing before.- Introduction Choosing it starting your essay using a hook is a great idea, as you can easily get your readers interested in what you intend to say even before you have managed to begin properly. You could follow your hook with your author’s name, and that of the poetical piece you are analyzing. You could also insert a few words going into the writer’s background, and that of the poem itself. This helps to trigger a better understanding within which context the original poem was conceived.
- Body This will now consist of every point you have and wish to elaborate in your piece of writing. All your ideas can be properly broken down in this segment. As much as possible, keep every paragraph dedicated to a single thought. Keep your ideas trained on the topic, and give cohesive and coherent points all through the writing. Choose specificity rather than generalization, and connect all of the paragraphs you write, making use of phrases for transitioning, of course, words to perform the same function. This would end up making for an interesting read and all your ideas in writing would be well understood.
- Conclusion This is a summarization of all that you have said in the body. Writing the conclusion is also a pretty difficult point of writing and therefore it is important that the writer maps out the way they expect the conclusion to go. You could begin by rehashing the opening statement, or the topic statement, and reduce all your points to a single meaningful sentence. It is a good idea to add up all the points raised in the body to come up with a poignant idea which can be what the reader takes away from the whole writing. Ensure that at the end of your writing, again point or theme can be picked out as the essay’s subject.