Poetry Essay

THE PROMPT FOR THIS ESSAY IS ATTACHED UNDER THE FILES. PLEASE READ BOTH THESE PAPER INSTRUCTIONS AND THE ONES UNDER POETRY PAPER PROMPT BEFORE WRITING. THE POEMS ARE LISTED UNDER ROBERT FROST. CHOOSE EITHER ONE OR TWO. READ ALL OF THE ADDITIONAL FILES UPLOADED AS ASPECTS AND ELEMENTS FROM THEM ARE NEEDED FOR ESSAY. THE SOURCES TO BE USED ARE THE ROBERT FROST POEM

The poetry paper, like the drama and the fiction paper, is a 3-4 page analysis of either one poem or two poems [or three or more if you feel up to it]. A study of more than two poems would be a division and analysis of certain themes or symbols that appear in several poems. The idea is to discuss a poem or poems based on the “elements” or features of poetry. In other words, you might study poetic symbols [including metaphors, imagery, personification] or the poet’s use of certain other devices, like alliteration, assonance, allusion, metrics [see the rhythm and versification handout on the module]. You might also discuss the poem in relation to the romantic/classical types of poetry breakdown in the module called “Notes on Poetry.”

The best advice I can give is to break a poem down into its parts and to write about each part, one at a time. It’s a simple way to structure a paper and it works. Writing about poetry may seem daunting at first, but if you break a poem down into parts, your paper has a simple and clear structure to it. If you compare two poems, compare them according to a certain theme or idea [my advice]. What is being said in each poem? The Tyger and the Lamb [William Blake] are good for comparison. Roberts Frost’s poems are also good for comparison. And Countee Cullen and Jean Toomer [two African American poets writing during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s on similar themes] would be good for comparison.

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