Topic: poetry analysis

Analysis of the poem Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish;

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

the poem Hope by Emily Dickinson

Activity 1

ü Read your notes to LECTURES 4 and 5. Revise the types of imagery, subject, theme/ idea, symbolism. Revise the types of diction, rhetoric figures, syntactical devices.

ü Study the paragraphs The definition of poetry; Imagery in Poetry; Theme: The Ideas and the Meaning in Poetry; Strategy for Dealing with meaning in Poetry in this method guide.

ü Answer the questions.

Questions

1. What is the definition of poetry?

2. How to start analyzing poetry?

3. What is the difference between the Persona or the Speaker and the Poet?

4. What are the peculiarities of imagery in poetry?

5. How are ideas defined in poetry?

6. What are the strategies of dealing with meaning?

Activity 2

ü Read the poem Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish

ü Study the analytical essays.

ü Answer the questions.

Questions

1. What is the subject of this poem? To what extent does the title help define the subject? Why did the poet call it "Ars Poetica" instead of "The Art of Poetry"?

2. What does the first section (lines 1-8) assert that a poem should be? How are similes employed to make this assertion clearer and more concrete?

3. How can a poem be "mute" (line 1), "dumb" (line 3), "silent" (line 5) and "wordless" (line 7)? Since a poem (and this poem) must be made of words how can this paradox be resolved?

4. What does the second section (lines 9—16) assert about a poem? How are symbolism and simile used to clarify this assertion? How can something be "motionless" and "climb" at the same time? What is the effect of repetition this section?

5. What does the third section (lines 17-24) assert about a poem? What symbolizes “all the history of grief" here? What symbolizes "love"? Why are these two pies of symbolism included in the poem?

6. What does this poem finally assert about poetry? To what extent does "Ars Poetica" embody and illustrate its own ideas and total meaning?

Activity 3

ü Read the Sonnet 130 My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by W.Shakespeare

ü Study the analytical essays.

ü Answer the questions.

Questions

1. To what does the speaker negatively compare his mistress’s eyes? Lips? Breasts? Hair? Breath? Voice? Walk? What kinds of images are created in these negative comparisons?

2. What conventional images and comparisons does the poem ridicule? What sort of poem is Shakespeare mocking by using the negative images in lines 1-12?

3. Do the images seem insulting? In the light of the last two lines, do you think the speaker intends the images as insults? If not as insults, how should they be taken?

4. Are most of the images in poem auditory, olfactory, visual, or kinetic? Explain your answer using the evidence from the text.

5. What point does this poem make about love poetry? About human relationships? How does the imagery contribute to the development of both points?

Activity 4

ü Read the poem HOPE by Emily Dickinson

ü Study the analytical essays.

ü Answer the questions.

Questions

1. Is the poem simple or complex by structure?

2. What is the subject, the idea and the message of the poem?

3. What diction is used in the story? What words create the contrast?

4. What imagery helps he poet create the image of hope? What auditory, olfactory, visual, or kinetic images predominate in the poem? Explain your answer using the evidence from the text.

5. What stylistic device serves to convey the image?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14